The Association of Music Producers (AMP) is marking Black History Month by presenting a virtual webinar focusing on the work of Black music supervisors and their impact on the creative process. Titled “Black Music Leaders: Music Syncs,” the panel will take place on Thursday, Feb. 24 at 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT. To register for the webinar, click here. The event is open to the general public.
Taking part will be Beliansh Assefa, associate music producer at Townhouse/Grey advertising; Jarrett Mason, production planner at Music Lab, Netflix’s internal original music and artist discovery team; Tarik Bradford, owner and founder of Dahomey Music Enterprises, a Los Angeles-based third party music licensing and publishing company; and Madonna Wade-Reed, owner of whoopsie daisy and the current VP of The Guild of Music Supervisors. Leading the discussion for AMP will be Carol Dunn, a member of AMP’s West Chapter board and of the association’s Diversity & Inclusion committee.
“Our focus will be bringing attention to the work of some of the game-changing Black music leaders in the area of sync,” said Dunn of the theme for the webinar. “We’ll be celebrating the achievements of our panel members, exploring ways we can collectively amplify and support successful Black voices in the music community and offering actionable steps that attendees can take to promote racial equality in the industry.”
The collective experience and insight of the panel participants promises to make the discussion both illuminating and informative. Dunn is a veteran music producer who serves as West Coast executive producer at Human. In this role, she leads the creative partnerships for commercials, film and TV, sound design and final mix, overseeing audio production for her staff of 15 composers. Her music career stretches over 25 years and began on the label side, producing such soundtracks as “Boogie Nights,” Baz Lurhmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” and “Office Space,” to name a few.
Prior to joining Townhouse, Assefa assisted the sync department at Kobalt Music Publishing. She is experienced in producing ads, tour marketing, R&D, pitching and clearing music for various media, including new and emerging platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite.
Mason came to Netflix after previous roles that included program manager at Apple Music, in-house music producer at agencies JWT, Media Arts Lab and mcgarrybowen and sr. director of marketing at EMI and Sony Music Publishing.
Bradford is a music industry veteran with over 25 years of experience working at companies such as Virgin Music, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Enterprises and EMI Music Publishing prior to starting Dahomey Music. Clients include Cinematic Music Group (Joey Bada$$, Mick Jenkins, Yungeen Ace), Reach Global (Public Enemy, Ice T, Common, John Mayer), Bridgeport Music (George Clinton, Funkadelic, The Clark Sisters, Ohio Players) and CD Baby.
Wade-Reed currently supervises the series “All American,” “Batwoman,” “4400” and the upcoming “All American: Homecoming” and “Kingswood.” Her credits for TV include work on such shows as “American Crime,” “Reign,” “The Shannara Chronicles,” “Blue Mountain State,” “Smallville,” “One Tree Hill,” “Alias” and “Felicity.” Her film credits include “8-Bit Christmas,” the documentary “Let It Fall,” “Lovesick” and “A Thousand Words.”
The panel is the latest initiative on the part of AMP’s D&I Committee. Its mission statement is to “give a voice to the voiceless through access, mentorship and best practices and seeks to ensure inclusion and equity for underrepresented talent in our industry.” In addition to Carol Dunn of Human, the committee’s membership includes AMP president Georg Bissen of MetaTechnik, Nan Wilson of Manage Ad Music, Jennie Armon of Found Objects, Adrian Womack of Racket Club; and Craig Caniglia of Human.
