Sound waves
Red Shaydez, BPL turn up volume on this year’s Music Maker Showdown
Red Shaydez knows the hustle. The Boston hip-hop luminary began as a bedroom artist and worked tirelessly to turn ideas and talent into jaw-dropping art (go spin her 2020 LP “Feel the Aura”). But even Shaydez took pause at the hustle the state’s young aspiring artists showed her in 2021 through the Boston Public Library’s Music Maker Showdown.
“I was like, ‘Wow, teens created this?’ ” Shaydez said after serving as a judge for last year’s Showdown. “We were amazed once we listened to the submissions.
All the judges were floored.”
The music that rolled in — hip-hop, pop, electronica and more — came from a humble experiment.
Back then Shaydez worked for The Hip Hop Transformation, a music program for teens run out of the Cambridge Community Center. Shaydez and the BPL teamed to create a statewide competition to highlight teens’ songcraft.
This year, BPL’s Music Maker Showdown 2 aims to expand way beyond the 2021 experiment.
The Music Maker Showdown 2 kicks off May 3 with an online event hosted by Shaydez via the BPL’s Teen Services Twitch channel (twitch.tv/BPLts). From May 3 to June 10, teen artists from around the state can submit original tracks to BPL’s Music Maker website — bpl.org/teens/musicmaker/ — for a chance at $1,750 in prizes, including gift certificates for studio time at a recording studio or time with a professional music producer.
“Last year this was our little baby with a small budget of like $500,” Shaydez said. “We went in blind. It was virtual, it was in the heart of the pandemic.”
But higher-ups at the BPL were wowed by the contest’s impact. The library stepped up this year to dramatically build on the success and hired Shaydez as a consultant. The former artistic development director for THHT is now helping with marketing, teen mentorship and hosting duties at contest events (producer Tony “Hamstank” Hamoui will lend a hand at weekly music production workshops into June). Starting May 10, teens without access to recording tech can put down tracks in person at BPL’s Grove Hall, Lower Mills, Roslindale and Roxbury branch locations using ultra-portable, mini music studios.
“We have way more help this year,” Shaydez said. “We have flyers and postcards and stickers. … We have a budget, a substantial budget. But people still don’t always know what resources are available to them so we still have to work extra hard to get the word out.”
Despite the fact that
THHT helped kickstart this contest last year (and despite the fact that Shaydez is a hip-hop champ), she wants to remind teens and parents that any music style will be considered.
“I don’t want people to feel excluded,” she said. “Hip-hop tends to bring kids together but this is open to everybody. It doesn’t even need to be a record with vocals. It can be an instrumental beat.”