By Stranga The Great
Hip Hop Vibe Staff Writer
Money isn’t everything, but it makes everything better. Whether or not a person obtains a degree, it doesn’t matter, but an education is important, always. No matter what a person jumps into for a profession, they have to know the nature of the business, or they will be taken advantage of.
Hip hop is a booming multimillion dollar business and it is the easiest to break into, but it’s very dangerous if people don’t know the business. Thankfully, there are such programs as The College of Hip Hop that guide people. This online course is for much more than hip hop, but the entertainment business as a whole.
The College of Hip Hop is a bold and innovative program that has the potential to help a lot of people. Recently, Hip Hop Vibe got in contact with The College of Hip Hop and their founders. They talked to us about their initiative and how a potential student becomes a part of this movement.
Read the entire interview below:
As someone who knows the business inside out, what are some of the biggest misconceptions hopeful hip-hop stars have about the industry?
TCOHH: Artists think they are going to just get in the business and make millions of dollars, have a lot of hit records and everything is going to be great. New artists think the music business is a great big “video” with women running around half naked drinking champagne.
Most people who actually know the business usually find themselves annoyed by the inquiries these artists have, why did you decide to start The College of Hip Hop?
TCOHH: We decided to start the college because we were once “those” artist who had all the questions, what the people who are annoyed by artist asking questions fail to realize is if they don’t spread the musical knowledge then it will die with them.
Was it a critical mistake that someone trying to break in the game made that led to you all officially starting The College of Hip Hop?
TCOHH: Not really, it was just seeing how many artists were really uneducated about the actual business side of the industry. We learned all of what we know and teach through trial and error, more trial then error.
Alright, with the basic information covered, how does a person go about enrolling in this program?
TCOHH: It’s really easy to enroll; you log on to www.thecollegeofhiphop.org or www.tcohh.org and become a paid subscriber by going to the registration (http://thecollegeofhiphop.org/registration/) page and paying $19.96 for a full calendar year of access to all the seminars we will be up loading.
With such programs as Full Sail already out there and known, what difference does The College of Hip Hop provide aside from being strictly online?
TCOHH: Full Sail teaches technical aspects of the business like how to “mix” a record, were teaching you how to OWN that record before you’ve even recorded it. We have also made it in a seminar form so that the prospective students don’t have to read anything; all they have to do is watch and rewind (as many times as they want) the seminar they are watching.
There are four lessons that are taught via the program, can you give us a little description about each of them?
TCOHH: Instead of going over what each lesson is teaching, it would be easier for a person to view all the previews by going to www.youtube.com/tcohh that way they will have a better understanding of what they are learning and how it is set up. Those previews are actual parts of the lessons we are teaching. Also, there are many more lessons being taught than four, those are just the first four lessons that have previews uploaded on our youtube page.
In addition to helping out the artists, The College of Hip Hop also provides coverage to aspiring hip-hop moguls, how do they benefit from these lessons?
TCOHH: The school is just named The College of Hip-Hop because we are “Children of hip-hop” but we teach the business of arts and entertainment no matter the genre. An aspiring mogul would benefit the same as an artist, by learning the business of arts and entertainment. All the moguls like Master P, Russell Simmons, Baby and Slim etc. understood the business they were getting into and that’s what we do, help you understand this business.
Can you tell us more about the innovative people behind The College of Hip Hop?
TCOHH: The people behind The College Of Hip Hop are Antoine and Santoine Jackson. We are college graduates and products of on line learning via The University Of Phoenix. Antoine received his degree in Business and Santoine received his degree in information technology. We understand how the music business works because we are former artist, but the limelight wasn’t our thing, our real talents were education and working behind the scene. So we created www.tcohh.org.
On the entertainment side of things, the current hip-hop scene is met with mixed reviews, on a grading scale of 100%, what would you give the game right now and why?
TCOHH: I would give hip-hop a 90%, the artist are being paid at an all time high, making great livings and providing for their families and the families of their employees but, the social responsibility aspect has vanished, only a handful of artist push social issues and that is because artist that do push social issues don’t make the big money that I spoke of earlier.
How can we find The College of Hip Hop online? Can you give us your website address, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram?
TCOHH: Log on to www.tcohh.org and become a paid subscriber by going to the registration page. The 500th paid subscriber will receive a free lap top computer. Like us on facebook www.facebook.com/tcohh twitter is @TCOHHdotORG and instagram is @The_College_of_hip_hop
Remember always want for your brother what you want for your self and travel light and look to the east.
Meet The College of Hip Hop Founders, Antoine and Santione Jackson below:
Follow Stranga The Great on Twitter @StrangaTheGreat.
