From Lehigh football to music industry
3 former Mountain Hawks, their friends form recording label
The ritual was simple.
Most days after high school football practice, Pierce Ripanti and Troy Glenn would throw off their sweaty equipment, hop in the car, and put one of their phones in the center console.
Someone would hit play on the voice memo app on their phone, a beat would come on, and they’d take turns freestyle rapping.
Sometimes they’d write lyrics ahead of time, but they usually just said what came to mind.
Glenn estimates there are at least a half-dozen old phones full of voice memos of their early raps and freestyles. He still has a couple in his room. The good songs are saved on his email.
It was just a hobby — something fun to break up the routine of school and football. Six years later, it turned into a job.
In the summer of 2017, Glenn started the record label Academy Entertainment Group, which has already garnered an international fan base in the United Kingdom. Ripanti and his Lehigh University football teammate, Derek Knott, signed on as the artists. LaQuan Lambert, who also played football at Lehigh, later joined the business side.
Each person was a part of the puzzle that began to take shape when Glenn and Ripanti were freshmen in high school in Delaware.
Glenn remembers the first time he heard Ripanti rap. One night in ninth grade they were at his house for a party. A group of them sat around at a table, and Ripanti just randomly stood up and started freestyling.
Heads turned.
Glenn, who had met Ripanti only that year, was blown away. Throughout high school, he kept hinting to Ripanti that he was talented at rapping — but football was still the main priority.
“It started off as just a question, like anything,” Glenn said. “‘Like bro, would you take rap seriously if football didn’t work out?’ We were still focused on football, so it’s really hard to answer that question.”
Glenn and Ripanti played for Caravel Academy in Bear, Del., winning a championship their senior year. Ripanti was the punishing linebacker, Glenn the stout interior defensive lineman.
Glenn maintained his interest in music, but he and Ripanti took different paths to play college football. Glenn went to Bucknell University, Ripanti to Lehigh.
Knott and Lambert were making an impact on the field, too. They were roommates and close friends as freshmen on the 2012 Lehigh football team.
Navigating the difficult life of a Division I student-athlete, the two immediately formed a bond and were among the only freshmen to travel to away games, allowing them to quickly secure roles on the field. Knott was a wide receiver and Lambert a defensive back.
Music was always an interest for Knott and Lambert, too. Ultimately, it was football that brought the four friends together.
Their first goal was to make it to the NFL — not unheard of for a Patriot League player, but certainly not common.
Glenn knew his NFL window might be closing, so one night during his junior year , he lay in his childhood bed thinking of life after graduation. Suddenly, he realized what he wanted: Start a record label.
He called Ripanti, asking him to be one of his artists. Ripanti loved the idea. He was in.
Knott was with Ripanti in their off-campus house at Lehigh when Glenn made the call. Knott, who sang and played guitar, had been writing songs and making music with Ripanti throughout their time together at Lehigh. There was no hesitation; he was in, too.
Glenn then called childhood friend Jonny Hickman, who agreed to help with the business aspects of the label but eventually transitioned to being the group’s music engineer.
They were still learning the process for formally releasing music and were operating with a low-budget mindset. Knott made the album cover for Ripanti on Snapchat.
Glenn stressed that developing a fan base at Lehigh was crucial before entering the real world.
“He was definitely right,” Ripanti said. “When that happened, that’s when I realized it was a real thing.”
While in college, Glenn and Ripanti were paying for studio time in Chester, but it limited their time in the booth and was cost-prohibitive. They decided to build their own studio in a childhood friend’s parents’ house and learned how to mix and master their own songs. Ripanti said this helped free them to make music whenever they wanted.
Lambert stressed the importance of football in establishing a mentality for their record label. In addition to adopting the mantra “students of the game” because of their educational backgrounds, he said the teamfirst atmosphere of football made it a lot easier to work together.
“Coming from a football background, you understand everyone has to do their 1/11th,” Lambert said, referencing the 11 players per side on the field. “And that means that every single person on the team is responsible for their core responsibility. Unless you bring that to the table every single time, you can’t be successful as a team.”
In their senior year, all Lehigh senior athletes received an email about playing their sport internationally while getting a master’s degree. The trajectory of their future was about to change.
Knott took the email seriously. It offered the possibility of playing football in England at the University of Nottingham while getting an advanced degree. He was intrigued.
He tried to persuade Lambert and Ripanti. Ripanti eventually agreed , but Lambert wanted to continue to focus on making the NFL. As soon as Ripanti was in and Glenn heard about it, he was in too.
“I honestly thought it was too good to be true,” Glenn said. “Like, are you sure you’re not talking about soccer?”
When Lambert didn’t get picked up by the NFL, Glenn, Ripanti and Knott approached him about joining the label. They recommended he get his master’s degree, and doing so with them at Nottingham was the perfect opportunity.
“I get to chase a dream with my best friends, and aside from that, it was guys who I trusted,” Lambert said. “And I feel like that’s the biggest thing nowadays — finding people that you can trust. They didn’t make that hard.”
They filled out all the paperwork. They worked to build the studio, watching YouTube videos to learn the process. Ultimately, they incorporated the business in September 2017, the day before leaving for England.
The four guys didn’t know what to expect football-wise at Nottingham. They immediately noticed that while it would be different from their college experiences, it would allow them to take on more of a mentor role with the team.
The team went undefeated, culminating in a 43-0 win in the championship. Knott was the game’s Most Valuable Player, and Ripanti was the team’s season MVP.
“We always felt like we had to be ambassadors,” Ripanti said. “Then the team started winning all our games, and then we were making music, and with the way we’re moving around campus, we’re making friends. The kids are thinking we’re cool because we’re four Americans.”
Once football was over, though, it was time to focus on music full time.
They had continued to write music, shoot music videos and even participate in competitions. Ripanti and Knott were among 16 finalists out of about 300 people in a competition called Da Come Up UK.
They got to perform live on the radio as part of the marketing for the competition. They developed a significant fan base, especially in England. Glenn said about half of their fans are overseas.
The group returned to the United States for a few months before graduation in December, experiencing for the first time what it was like to not have school and football as part of their everyday life.
“It took me five years to win a championship at Lehigh, and I was broken — busted knee, broken collarbone,” Knott said. “That was five years of straight, hard work. So if I put that same work ethic toward music, then who knows, maybe something good will be able to come out of that.”
The good is starting to show. The label is hosting a show May 9 at the University of Delaware, with Playboi Carti, a famous rapper from Atlanta, as the headline artist. Knott, Ripanti and a few local artists from Delaware will be the opening acts.
Ripanti and Knott both released singles this year and plan to release projects later in the year. They said the key is to continue to evolve.
“We’re in the field now,” Ripanti said. “We just have to level up. We went from Instagram raps and covers, to SoundCloud, to now we’re on streaming services. Now it’s about just rocking shows and making our numbers go up.”