Brockhampton is one boy band that has left their imprint on the music industry.
Formed in 2010, originally as AliveSinceForever, the Texas-based Hip-Hop collective built a loyal fanbase, which eventually led to them signing with RCA Records in 2018. Their fourth studio album — and first on a major label — “Iridescence,” made it to No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 that same year, followed by them earning a platinum record in 2021 with “Sugar” off of their album, “Ginger.”
After a 12-year run, in 2022 after their Coachella performance, Brockhampton announced that they would be on an “indefinite hiatus,” according to Rolling Stone. Although the group is no longer making music together, members are still pursuing the industry. Dom McLennon, one of the founding members, is not only creating new music but also supporting the next generation of artists.
The musician, visual artist, and producer has partnered with Skillshare, an e-learning community for creators, to launch online classes on digital music production, he says. The five-part series covers topics such as the language of user interface when making music on computers, exploring various digital audio workstations (DAWs), MIDI data, and more. Having started his own production journey in high school, McLennon aims to help offer foundational knowledge to aspiring musicians.
“I know that there’s a pretty steep skill gap when it comes to starting out as a creative versus not even having a professional skill set yet,” McLennon shared with AfroTech in an interview. “I just wanted to be able to give people the best breadth of knowledge that I could, scratch the surface so that anyone could take the Skillshare course and be able to walk into either a bedroom studio or a professional studio and be able to say, ‘Hey, what DAW is that?’ and actually know what they’re talking about.”
He added, “I want to be able to give people the language and vocabulary to be able to say ‘Hey, these are the terms that I need to know in order to find the things that I’m looking for’ because I’ve seen that be a big barrier in a lot of people’s processes when it comes to making music in general digitally.”
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The power of education is a value that is important to McLennon, so partnering with Skillshare is a way for him to be a part of not gatekeeping helpful knowledge for musicians. What’s more, he wants there to be more e-learning in regard to music.
In addition to the online classes, McLennon and Skillshare are donating $30,000 in scholarships to support aspiring creatives, which will also provide more access to opportunities.
“The more that people are aware of things like this, and the more that this becomes commonplace that e-learning is a real space that we need to invest more of our time and energy into, I just want to be able to meet that by looking ahead and making sure that the community spaces and the initiatives that I see marginalized groups creating are truly being supported with any of the work that I’m doing as well too,” McLennon said. “I’m really grateful for Skillshare giving me the opportunity to create this class, but then also give access to people that may normally not be able to afford it.”
Since McLennon’s partnership with Skillshare has launched, he shared with AfroTech that he is set to drop a series of EPs throughout the summer and fall of 2023.
To learn more about McLennon’s digital music production classes, click here.
