PBS’s ‘Beat Making Lab’ Goes To Ethiopia. Watch the New Episode (Part 2)

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When Pierce Freelon andStephen Levitinteamed up to teach a course on beat-making at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 2012, they planned to eventually add a community component. It didn’t take long to happen, except instead of building a local studio in the Raleigh-Durham area, they found themselves traveling to Africa, Central America and the South Pacific with backpacks full of recording equipment, teaching local residents how to create hip-hop tracks and filming it for the PBS digital series “Beat Making Lab.”

Speakeasy today premieres the next episode, which Freelon and Levitin filmed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It’s the second of two episodes chronicling Freelon and Levitin’s work there, in partnership with IntraHealth International, a Chapel Hill-based non-profit group that supports health workers in developing countries. This installment focuses on an aspiring musician named Gelila and what happens when not everyone can agree on a creative direction.

“Beat Making Lab” has also taped webisodes in Democratic Republic of Congo, Panama, Fiji and Senegal, where Freelon and Levitin worked with an all-female hip-hop group. The goal, the men say, is using hip-hop and electronic music, and the act of creating and promoting it, to help build a sense of community and entrepreneurship in the places they visit.

“Hip-hop is one of the most important global cultures, and it obviously started in the Bronx, but everywhere we’ve gone – in the Congo, there was a line of 100 MCs waiting to get into the studio where we were creating beats,” Freelon, an MC and UNC professor, told Speakeasy. “It’s something that is a vibrant part of youth culture all around the world.”

Freelon and Levitin partner with local arts centers and non-profit groups, which keep the equipment the men bring: a laptop computer, a microphone, a MIDI keyboard, headphones and other equipment. Trips and equipment can cost $20,000 or more, they said, in addition to the costs of editing and producing the web series. Funding has come from PBS Digital Studios, and the UNC music department helped pay for the pair’s first trip, to the Congo.

Teaching aspiring local musicians how to make beats is sometimes only part of their mission during stays that usually last between two and three weeks.

“One of the main differences between America and first-world countries and third-world and developing countries is just access: basic computer skills are a big stumbling block,” said Levitin, a producer, drummer and DJ who performs as Apple Juice Kid. “People have pointed out that in addition to making beats, we’re teaching basic computer skills, as well.”

Freelon and Levitin plan to return to Ethiopia in November with IntraHealth for the International Conference on Family Planning. “Beat Making Lab” will also benefit from a grant for $1 million the UNC music department recently secured from the U.S. State Department to fund what Freelon and Levitin describe as “cultural diplomacy and conflict resolution through hip-hop.”

“We’re looking into the future, we’re looking forward to collaborating with the university on this broader scale and bringing the tools and lessons that we’ve learned, and relationships that we’ve developed, to ‘Beat Making Lab’ to support a broader international project,” Freelon said.

New episodes of “Beat Making Lab” debut Wednesdays on their website, www.beatmakinglab.com, and on their YouTube channel.

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