When it comes to becoming a successful artist, talent and effort aren’t always enough. The business side of the arts is challenging, and navigating it successfully requires both artistic vision and entrepreneurial savvy.
A new course at Berklee College of Music is tackling that head-on, equipping students with the skills to launch and sustain careers in the arts. Teaching the course “Entrepreneurship inBlack Creative Expression” is Taneshia Nash Laird, Berklee professor and longtime arts and economic development leader.
Laird — who was also recently appointed to the Massachusetts Cultural Policy Advisory Council — joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about the challenges and opportunities for Black artists. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Arun Rath: Walk us through the creation of this course. Talk about the gap in arts education that you’re aiming to fill.
Taneshia Nash Laird: With this course, I was challenged to teach how to teach business fundamentals through the lens of Black creative industries. This course is not just focusing solely on the business mechanics — although, of course, they learn that — but it’s also about how to navigate the cultural landscape.
Rath: Talk about that — the kind of skills and insights that you need to get through that kind of place. I’ve got to assume resiliency is a big part of it.
Nash Laird: It is a big part. But what’s so unique about how we teach this is that I teach it through specific genres. We talk about the development of gospel [music] and the development of hip-hop, but we do it in a way that I provide them some details about the specific mechanics of business, but point out that these people who were innovating in this time did not benefit from the same sort of business education. But I show them how they were innovating and, in fact, almost instinctively applying business principles.
A recent class was talking about SWOT — which anybody who knows any aspect of business knows that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats — and I was walking them through how hip-hop artists were approaching this culture. Not because they were looking to build a big industry, but because they were looking for a form of creative expression in the wake of so many things happening politically and socially, and how they were able to excel without necessarily knowing SWOT.
How this course is a little different is that it’s not just applying business principles over the industries; it’s more like looking through the lens of Black creative expression and how these creators were able to innovate. What I hope is that it arms the students with not just the technical skills, but the confidence to approach their careers — whether it’s as a performer or as an arts administrator — with confidence.
Rath: It’s sort of like studying “The Art of War” before you’re thrown into battle.
Nash Laird: That’s exactly right.
Rath: Talk about how this actually works with students, because you must have had — already, even before starting this — specific moments where you’re working with young artists and helping them develop these kinds of skills.
Nash Laird: Right. Most of the students that are coming through are intimidated by the business aspect. Mostly, what I’m trying to do is take them through the process of building a business. For instance, one of the very first things that we cover are legal entities — all the different types of business structures that you can apply.
In fact, for their midterm, I give them a number of different scenarios of types of businesses — whether they’re an independent artist, or they’re creating a theater company or they’re creating a dance company — I give them some specifics around that scenario. Then, they make an argument as to whether this should be a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a corporation, and if it’s a corporation, should it be a commercial entity or a nonprofit entity? They really are learning all aspects of that.
I also introduce essential intellectual property. So whether it’s copyrights, patents, trademarks — they literally learn in the first several sessions of the course how to apply those to various scenarios. Again, by the midterm, they are very comfortable with that.
They’re also comfortable with the idea of branding, mission, vision, all of the market analysis — all of those are things that by the very end of the course, what I hope is that they feel very confident walking out into the world, not just as artists, but as entrepreneurs.
Rath: It’s fascinating — all of the “know your rights” aspects that you’re covering and all the essential legal information. Is promotion part of it as well? I know that it seems like to be a successful artist of any stripe today, you kind of have to master social media.
Nash Laird: Absolutely. But again, I also want them to think about this not as something that they are doing as a sole effort, but about also building what kind of team you need around you and what things you can do.
For instance, after the Super Bowl — which they had all watched the halftime show — the [United States Patent and Trademark Office] put out on social media that Kendrick Lamar is a trademark. We talked about what’s the advantage of him having this trademark, and what are all of the things that he could now do that leverage his intellectual property.
They shouldn’t just be thinking about themselves as an individual, but they should be thinking about themselves as a business. We talked about the fact that you might need an attorney that is an expert in setting up your legal entity.
At the end of the course, they are actually presenting to all of us a business idea. They then talk about who is necessary to actually operate that business idea. As an example, this last semester, we had a group that decided that they wanted to teach music theory, but through West African dance. So, in that business, they not only needed to have teaching artists, but they also needed to have administrators and managers at the actual facility that they created as well.
That’s what I mean by thinking through all the different players you need to bring your vision to life, whatever business that is.
Rath: Before we let you go, I mentioned in the introduction you were just appointed to the Massachusetts Cultural Policy Development Advisory Council. I feel like I need to ask you, right where we are now in February of 2025, taking on this role at a time when it feels like things that have “Black” in the name are under attack right now and diversity efforts are under attack right now. It’s kind of a heavy question to throw at you right at this moment, but I’m just wondering how all of that is striking you as you’re approaching this role.
Nash Laird: Wow. So, not only in approaching this role, but thinking through what I teach at Berklee and what Berklee stands for and what our department at Africana Studies stands for. The fact of the matter is, things that were created through Black creative expression — whether you’re talking gospel, whether you’re talking hip-hop, whether you’re talking jazz, which is what Berklee is known for — these are multibillion-dollar industries that were created through the work product of people of African descent.
As it relates to the Cultural Policy Development Advisory Council, I feel very privileged to be able to be a part of this. When I started my career as the director of media relations for Afrika Bambaataa’s Planet Rock music [label] — I won’t say how many years ago — I never thought that I would be seated at the table to talk about the importance of the creative economy and our state economy.
I do hope, as we navigate these complex times, that there is an appreciation for what creativity brings to society — not just from an economic standpoint, but from a well-being and wellness perspective.
