Da Great Deity Dah and the Carnegie Mellon School of Music Partner to Record Anti-bullying Song “Stop The Bullying” for Intel’s #HackHarassment Campaign
Pittsburgh, PA – The pairing of Da Great Deity Dah with the Carnegie Mellon School of Music evolved from a hackathon organized by his son, Wole Idowu, Carnegie Mellon University graduate and founder of the student organization, Toyz Nation Gaming League (TNGL).
TNGL is hosting an upcoming event this November 10-12, TNGL Presents: #HackHarassment, a Creati-con where the benefits of the Da Great Deity Dah-Carnegie Mellon School of Music partnership will continue. Their collaboration began during a hackathon last spring, similar to a jam session but with a focus on solving problems. The issue of bullying, harassment, and abuse is a serious one in society. Through music, people from different backgrounds can collaborate to create compositions resulting in art that has a tremendous impact on society.
The vision of the spring project was to gather students from Riccardo Schulz’s class along with musicians from the School of Music and over the course of a weekend, compose music then have Deity Dah and his production partner, Moods and Vibrations, arrange the compositions and at another hackathon, record the vocals over the course of another weekend. Eleven songs were composed at the direction of Da Great Deity Dah and assisted by Dawoud Shahidu of their affiliated hip-hop group, The 5 Bros MC’s, giving direction to the musicians. It was a massive undertaking, with limited time to work and a lot of music to compose, but everything came together splendidly.
Riccardo Schulz, Teaching Professor at the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University and recording engineer, said of the process, “It was an amazing experience to work with Deity Dah and his team in recording the tracks for his latest CD in the Vlahakis Recording Studio at Carnegie Mellon. Just as amazing were the Carnegie Mellon students from the School of Music and many other academic areas who devoted their time and talent to making this recording – both as engineers and musicians. Every student who was involved rated this as one of the best recording projects they have ever worked on.”
The partnership is historic in its scope and reach and through future events, will expand. Of the partnership Da Great Deity Dah states, “It’s the greatest honor of my life to be able to work with a next generation of great musicians in the early stages of their careers, addressing such a huge societal issue and involving other students and departments in the process shows the power of collaboration and is a testament to [the] great academic environment Carnegie Mellon University fosters.”
Wole Idowu was selected by Intel as one of four students at prestigious universities nationwide to represent Carnegie Mellon as its #HackHarassment ambassador. These hackathons were his initiative to address the issues of online harassment, bullying, and abuse. “Stop the Bullying,” the centerpiece song from the recording sessions, covers these issues and underlying ones with depth and insight that is typical of Deity Dah’s lyrics. The project allowed him to flex his songwriting muscles and work with uber-talented student and musician, Abby Adams, who sang and played violin on the project.
At the upcoming TNGL #HackHarassment event, the artwork from the music project will be converted into a robot! Students will also remix “Stop the Bullying,” make apps and games, create 3D designs of Da Great Deity Dah robot, and use Intel RealSense cameras to create emotion detection software to address harassment.
The Electromagnetic Field General: The Carnegie Mellon Sessions is now released on multiple formats: CD, limited edition colored vinyl, action figure USB, and virtually all streaming and digital platforms including, YouTube Red, iTunes, Amazon, Google Music, Spotify, Pandora, and many more worldwide. Da Great Deity Dah already took two global campaigns in support of this project with stops in cities such as Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, and Zurich to name a few. Music from the project was played at the introductory press conference for the largest technology conference in Europe, the IFA.
The limited edition vinyl of The Electromagnetic Field General: The Carnegie Mellon Sessions can be purchased here for $35. “Stop the Bullying” is available on iTunes here and can be heard on Spotify here and on YouTube here. “Stop the Bullying” song lyrics attached.
Event: TNGL Presents: #HackHarassment, a Creati-con
Go to https://thebridge.cmu.edu/event/1624714 for more information.
Date & Time: Friday, November 10, 2017 at 6:00 PM EST through Sunday, November 12, 2017 at 3:00PM EST
Location: Carnegie Mellon University
Hunt Library Studio A
4909 Frew Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Media Contact: Quincy Taylor Email: [email protected]
Damola Idowu: [email protected]
