Pop Convention 2021 Brings Collectively World’s Main Pop Music Writers, Students, and Musicians for Three Days of Digital Programming, April 22-25

Pop Convention 2021— the longest operating music writing and pop music research convention of its sort—will convey collectively the world’s main pop students, journalists, writers, musicians for 3 days of digital occasions exploring pop music’s position in mirroring and shaping one of the vital chaotic and disruptive moments in trendy world historical past, from April 22 to 25. The convention is hosted by NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, Tisch College of the Arts, and is free and open to the general public.

This 12 months’s Pop Convention theme is “Flip and Face the Change: A Pop Convergence On Music and Flux” and can kick-off Thursday, April 22 at 6 p.m. ET with a keynote dialog panel that includes musical polymath Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange), singer-songwriter and producer Róisín Murphy, musician and report producer Rostam (who was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend), and singer-songwriter and producer Tamara Lindeman (of The Climate Station). The keynote handle, “Fluxed: Making Common Music within the Midst of Change and Transition,” brings collectively artists thriving inside the extremely risky setting of latest in style music to debate how the spirit and realities of change each problem and encourage them. The keynote can be moderated by NPR Music critic and creator Ann Powers.

Friday, April 23rd will function 13 occasions together with conversations inspecting the intersection of race, music criticism, and transformation. At 7 p.m. ET, “South Gotta Change: Southern Music in a Second of Transformation” will kind a panel of artists, students and writers discussing how the assorted musical kinds related to the South have fashioned a sonic bedrock of U.S. pop kinds whereas additionally standing in for bigger conversations about race, area, historical past and “custom” on a altering cultural and political panorama. Journalists and tradition critics Wesley Morris (New York Instances), Danyel Smith (ESPN), and Greg Tate (founding member of the Black Rock Coalition) will give attention to the indispensable position that Black critics have performed in telling the story of Black music within the roundtable “Black Critics Matter,” additionally at 7 p.m. ET.

Friday programming continues at 9:15 p.m. ET with a dialog between Jason King, Chair of NYU’s Clive Davis Institute and co-producer of Pop Convention 2021, and DJ, rapper and producer Derrick “D-Good” Jones, marking the primary collaboration between the Pop Convention and the Kennedy Middle’s Hip Hop Tradition Program. Within the midst of widespread world pandemic lockdowns and social restrictions, D-Good launched Homeschool at Membership Quarantine: a nightly DJ social gathering on Instagram Dwell designed to convey individuals collectively. Membership Quarantine turned an prompt sanctuary and runaway success, just about uniting individuals from all walks of life, together with many outstanding celebrities, to bop “collectively” and socialize on-line. This dialog will discover the connections between music, flux, change and the enduring ‘connective’ energy of the DJ.

The 9 occasions on Saturday, April 24th embrace “Pop Musicking and Survivance in Native North Pacific Communities” at 2:30 pm. ET wherein a rising neighborhood of students working with, by, and for Native North Pacific communities rethink the position of pop musicking in ongoing Indigenous-led self-determination actions, and “Listening Queerly: Sounds of the Asian/American Diaspora in Flux,” a essential karaoke session bringing collectively Asian American musicians and artists to reckon with the violence of the current, additionally at 2:30 pm. ET.

Sunday April 25th is a day of writing mentorship culminating with “Discovering Your Voice: A Writing Workshop with Joan Morgan and NYU College students of The Collective Blive Recorded Music Chapter” (a membership for rising Black multidisciplinary artists at NYU), at 5 p.m. ET.

“We’re dwelling by a time marked by political conflicts, demographic shifts, technological interventions and different social upheavals, all underneath the cloud of a pandemic whose affect will seemingly reverberate for generations,” stated Jason King.

“We discover ourselves in a continuing state of flux, one that may concurrently really feel terrifying and regressive but additionally inspiring and transformative. As with earlier eras of tumult, pop music will emerge as each as a mirror that displays these adjustments but additionally as a hammer to assist form them,” he continued.

Pop Convention is called one of many foremost venues for dialogue of music on the planet. The convention has resulted in a number of publications, together with three collections of essays: This Is Pop: In Search of the Elusive at Expertise Music Challenge, Hear Once more: A Momentary Historical past of Pop Music, and Pop When the World Falls Aside: Music within the Shadow of Doubt.

This 12 months’s programming committee contains Oliver Wang (Chair, CSU Lengthy Seashore), Timothy Anne Burnside (Smithsonian), Martha Gonzalez (Quetzal/Scripps School), Alisha Lola Jones (Indiana College), Jason King (New York College’s Clive Davis Institute), Michelle Habel-Pallan (Univ. of Washington), RJ Smith (Author), Brittany Spanos (Rolling Stone), and Melissa A. Weber (Loyola College New Orleans, WWOZ FM).

This 12 months’s Pop Convention is supported by Crucial Minded, a granting and studying initiative cofounded by The Nathan Cummings Basis and The Ford Basis to help cultural critics of shade in america, the place they’re underrepresented within the protection of all creative disciplines.

To register and see the complete schedule, please go to https://www.popconference.org/. For any questions concerning the convention, please e mail popcon2021@popconference.org. Media inquiries ought to be directed to Sarah Binney at sarah.binney@nyu.edu.