DJ Project

The DJ Project, a youth focused venture of Horizons Unlimited, is an arts and entrepreneurship youth program grounded in hip-hop culture. The DJ Project brings culturally relevant educational and technology training opportunities to San Francisco Bay Area youth. The DJ Project uses music to nurture the creative spirit of disconnected youth. It imparts credible, realistic, and practical information about the entertainment industry and provides training in emerging digital technologies.

The DJ Project currently operates after-school, project-driven arts and music programs, as well as hip-hop employment and entrepreneurship modules at four different sites in the San Francisco Bay Area.  They developed a program that allows youth from different parts of the Bay Area to create and market music on-line. The project uses music to engage young adults, giving them opportunities to develop in a context familiar to them. Through small business management, audio and video production, job readiness training and community service, The DJ Project model is a creative learning experience for the hip-hop generation.
 
In the four-month DJ Project program, a guest artist from the community facilitates the creation of a youth-produced CD, featuring the compositions of 10 youth participants with no previous musical experience. Participating youth plan each aspect of the project timeline, acquiring marketable skills in teamwork, collaboration, project management, marketing and technology.
 
The DJ Project curriculum challenges participants to sharpen their critical analysis of the recurring themes in urban music, such as materialism, homophobia, race, love, anger, sexuality and gender. It provides them with a platform to express their own views.
 
After recording their CD, the youth receive basic graphic design training to create the cover artwork and promotional material. They learn the fundamentals of marketing as they distribute their music through local record stores, completing a process that begins with the conceptualization of the record and ends with a sale of a finished product. Youth participants collaborated in small teams and worked virtually to produce numerous CDs. Youth participants are provided with a rich media experience, fully integrating them into the professional media community.

For more information on the DJ Project