HBCU students choose career paths in America’s music city

Empathy and storytelling. Motivational and strategic leadership. These are just a few of the characteristics that participants at this year’s PROPEL Center Arts and Entertainment Industry Accelerator identified in their “What is your superpower?” a course that aims to enable students to discover and capture their authentic self throughout their careers.

“I think the empathy comes from being the firstborn child. I always cared about my younger siblings and cousins ​​and wanted to make sure they were good,” says Liza Montgomery, a 2024 Mass Communications graduate from Xavier University of Louisiana. Montgomery was one of more than 100 students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) selected for the PROPEL creative arts accelerator.

Discovering their superpowers is just one way students learn to prepare for a career after graduation. Since February, students have completed micro-certificate courses through the PROPEL Learn app, participated in virtual career panels with Apple professionals, and attended resume writing workshops to build their portfolio and begin preparing for their careers.

This summer, 50 participants – including Montgomery – were selected from 19 HBCUs to participate in an immersive 10-day experience on the campuses of Tennessee State University in Nashville and Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta. There, they received mentorship from HBCU faculty and industry professionals in both creative and executive roles, and worked side-by-side with experts from Apple Music’s Nashville office.

The accelerator was launched in partnership with PROPEL Center as part of Apple’s $25 million investment through its Racial Equality and Justice Initiative, which aims to help remove systemic barriers to opportunity and address injustices faced by communities of color. Its curricula are designed to provide HBCU students with new career paths in notoriously competitive industries.

“Subject matter experts are everything on this journey,” says Dr. Lisa Herring, president of the PROPEL Center. “There is nothing more powerful than having a student connect with someone who is an expert as they strive to become one. “Apple’s belief that it can not only be a partner, but also be at the table, step away from the table, and then be in the field, and then be shoulder to shoulder with our students and instructors – that’s commitment down to the details.”

The PROPEL Center is a first-of-its-kind global innovation and learning center for HBCUs. To support the next generation of diverse leaders, PROPEL provides educational programs and career preparation in a wide range of disciplines, including artificial intelligence, agricultural technologies, social justice, entertainment, app development, augmented reality, design and creative arts. Apple experts help develop curriculum and provide ongoing mentoring and internship opportunities.

“When we launched our Racial Equality and Justice Initiative four years ago, we had a clear mission to advance equity and provide greater access to opportunity for under-resourced communities,” says Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives. “These are persistent and systemic challenges, which is why we are committed to working with partners, including the PROPEL Center, to close existing gaps and achieve meaningful change. Our partnership with PROPEL aims to provide talented students with the technology, resources and expertise they need to become industry leaders, whether they pursue arts and entertainment, technology or not.

In Nashville, students visited the National Museum of African American Music for a fireside chat with Ebro Darden, Apple Music’s global editorial lead for hip-hop and R&B; collaborated with experts in their fields at Apple Music’s Nashville office and East Iris Studios, part of Universal Music Group; and participated in the Downtown Nashville Apple Store experience.

Accelerator participants also collaborated on projects related to this year’s theme “Powering Protection.” Through their work, the 10-person teams showed how Black creators have contributed to social movements and how they can usher in a new era that will sustain HBCU culture for generations to come.

“‘Supporting conservation’ is about documenting people who haven’t had a voice,” says Montgomery. “In my art, I strive to accurately convey voices and experiences that have not been acknowledged for a very long time. It’s about making sure I’m documenting the stories of people of color and what they look like in their most authentic and vibrant states.”

“A lot of times when people think about the Black social justice movement, they have a negative view,” adds Emmanuel Strickland, a Tennessee State University student and rising R&B singer who is one of Montgomery’s teammates. “We are trying to turn the situation into a positive one. Our project is about the love of HBCUs and the different things we go through every day as students – how we navigate together as a unit. No matter what HBCU you attend, we will be able to connect.”

For the project, each band was assigned a genre and tasked with recording a music single, developing a marketing plan, shooting a visual campaign on iPhone and pitching their concept to a panel of judges made up of industry professionals.

For this purpose, Montgomery designed a marketing plan and a cover for her group’s song. Using Apple Pencil and Procreate on an iPad Pro, she was grateful for the speed and versatility of the app’s tools.

“The way Procreate and my iPad with Apple Pencil can imitate a traditionally drawn piece of art is amazing because it’s not just a flat piece,” he explains. “It allows you to show dimensions, textures, shiny objects and even animations. Using Procreate really makes the possibilities with digital art endless.”

Growing up, Strickland – who performed under the stage name “Mille Manny” – was constantly surrounded by music. His house was filled with the sounds of his mother and sisters’ voices belting out the tunes of superstars like Mariah Carey, Selena and even Beyoncé. “Coming from Memphis, you’re born with this soul,” he says.

As his career takes off, Strickland always comes up with another song. When inspiration strikes, he records lyrics and melodies in voice memos on his iPhone 13 Pro Max. And at home, his MacBook and Neumann microphone serve as a mini studio as he creates tracks in Pro Tools.

During the accelerator, Strickland, Montgomery and their bandmates worked with artist, producer, musician and songwriter Fresh Ayr – who provided the beat for their track – and a team of audio engineers at UMG East Iris Studios to produce the song in Logic Pro. This level of access and visibility for students is just one of the benefits of the program.

“The biggest “aha” moment for me would probably be realizing that it’s not what you see on the surface that counts, but what’s underneath,” Strickland says. “The accelerator is informative, it shows you how to organize a trip, or at least what happens behind the scenes. We realize it’s more than just a few people you see something happening.”

“The PROPEL program does a really great job of providing HBCU students a platform where they can truly show who we are. We are given the opportunity to express ourselves artistically, build invaluable relationships, and engage in authentic conversations with industry professionals in positions we aspire to be a part of in our careers,” adds Montgomery.

As emerging creators, musicians, and even accountants and lawyers crisscrossed Nashville as part of the accelerator, this level of access to industry professionals was invaluable. Students participated in candid conversations about how the industry works, gained deeper insight into unexpected areas with the most opportunities for new talent, and learned from the personal experiences of artists such as Kirk Franklin, a world-renowned gospel musician who had to navigate a historically inaccessible industry On my own.

“A lot of the students come from different schools and backgrounds,” says Sylvester Polk, a music engineering mentor at the accelerator who teaches music technology at Bethune-Cookman University, an HBCU in Daytona Beach, Florida. “Some have already encountered many things, some have no idea about it. There are so many fields and so many skills that are required in different areas that it can be open to many people. The launch of the accelerator is great for providing students with a holistic understanding of what the industry is and how it works, and PROPEL was able to provide an extension of the classroom experience.”

“This allows us to be there. It allows us to be heard. This allows us to have reach and be able to talk to people in the industry we aspire to enter,” says Strickland. “Thanks to this program, they will be the result of internships. The result will be professional internships. There will be real connections that people can support, nurture and potentially really shake things up.”