Next Level Global artists from Bangladesh, India, Bosnia, Serbia, Senegal and Zimbabwe make music in UNC’s Beat Lab. April 2015. (Photo via Mark Katz)
Signatures from hip hop artists from around the world line the wall of UNC’s Beat Lab. Located on the bottom floor of Hill Hall, the Beat Lab is a community space where visitors can use DJ and digital equipment to make music.
But Music Professor and Beat Lab Founder Mark Katz said it goes beyond just the walls of UNC. It is also the spiritual home of an international hip hop ambassador program called Next Level.
“Next Level is, I just call it hip hop diplomacy,” he said. “So, it’s a form of what’s known as cultural diplomacy, which is when two nations share aspects of each others’ culture as a way of creating stronger relationships, mutual understanding, cooperation and so on.”
The initiative is a collaboration between UNC, the Meridian International Center and the U.S. Department of State. In the program, rappers, dancers, DJs, beatboxers and aerosol artists are put in four-person teams. They are then sent on two-week residencies around the world where they host workshops on various hip hop skills, have public performances and lead spontaneous hip hop circles called cyphers.
Katz said the purpose of Next Level is to promote a cross-cultural exchange.
“The point is to make connections and build bridges across lines of difference,” he said. “Difference in culture, nationality, language and so on through hip hop. Hip hop is now a global culture, it is really known everywhere. It is understood to be born in the USA, so it is a potentially effective way of generating good will around the world.”
Next Level students in 2015 Uganda residency. (Photo via Next Level)
In addition to being the creator of the Beat Lab, Katz is also the founder of Next Level.
Katz, however, didn’t start out in a hip hop musical background. In fact, he’s trained as a classical violinist. He’s always liked listening to hip hop music, but he didn’t become fully immersed until he wrote his first book about music technology. In it was a chapter about DJ battles where he spent years doing research on the art of DJing.
“I interviewed people, I learned how to DJ, I learned how to scratch, I became friends with hip hop artists,” he said. “I started teaching here in 2006 and started teaching courses that had hip hop as part of the content and then I started collaborating with hip hop artists as co-teachers. And so, it built up over the last 24 years. So, I’m no longer a newcomer but it’s really my collaborating and friendship with hip hop artists that led to this.”
And when one of his colleagues, a local hip hop artist named Pierce Freelon, told him about a state grant application to build a hip hop and urban music program, he knew he had to jump on it.
But Katz said he also knew his experience as a professor would also afford him an “institutional clout” that unfortunately everyone doesn’t have access to.
“Even though I’m a white person who is not a hip hop artist, it was easier for me to get into this world of hip hop diplomacy than it might have been for someone who, like a lot of people we work with, who are these amazing artists but aren’t in these elite institutions,” Katz said.
Katz has since passed the mic to Next Level alum and now Director Junious Brickhouse.
Since launching their first trip in 2014, Next Level diplomats from across the U.S. have been to over 40 countries to spread the message of hip hop.
Beatmaker Suzi Analogue has been to two countries through Next Level. She went to Uganda in 2015 and returned for a second trip to Ghana in 2022.
Analogue said both trips have had a major impact on her life.
“Next Level has meant a lot to me as as an Afro-Indigenous person,” Analogue said. “[It has allowed me] to be able to be a part of a program that is a global program that has allowed me to travel to places on the continent of Africa that I can come in and connect with community.”
In her classes, she taught students how to build a beat, count bars and create loops using technology. They said the students in their classes came with a range of skills. Some had never created a beat before while others were self-taught.
“Beatmaking, it doesn’t matter if I’m in Kampala or Chapel Hill or Ghana or New York City,” she said. “There just isn’t a lot of places to specifically learn how to make beats and to focus on learning the skills of that. There’s just impact in the opportunity itself.”
And this impact even continues beyond her Next Level trips.
Another piece of the initiative is a program called Next Level Global. Instead of sending artists internationally, Next Level brings some of their most talented students back to the US.
One of Analogue’s students was chosen last year.
“I was in New York when she was there, so I went and met her and took her to have her first New York pizza slice,” they said. “She had never had New York pizza. And that’s what it’s all about. For her to go back to her community and just work on ways to bring people together and get inspired by us sharing our cultures.”
Analogue said this learning exchange works both ways. It’s also given them a cultural experience they couldn’t have gotten anywhere else.
“I’ve rode a camel with Next Level. I’ve fed giraffes. I took care of a baby elephant. In addition to teaching.” she said. “I’ve had these really awesome experiences with Next Level. I hope it’s a program that continues on and on and on. It’s so good for our world.”
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Somebody forgot to bring the gunz. How un-inclusive.