Club Quarantine
Artistic expression is authentically central to hip hop as an art form and even more so as a culture. It comes as no surprise that in discussing an “artistic” experience, for me, that generally equates to music. So when COVID-19 effectively had the world at a stand still, music was one of the few art forms that continued to bring people together bridging cities, countries and continents alike. DJ D-Nice, who got his start with the legendary hip hop group Boogie Down Productions (consisting of KRS-One and the late Scott La Rock) decided on March 19th, 2020 to provide community through live streaming on Instagram playing classic records to only a few hundred people. Within a matter of days, word got around through social media about his live streams and that number skyrocketed to 100,000 with the likes of Michelle Obama, Oprah and even Bernie Sanders (more likely just his social media team) all joined to create a sense of togetherness through music.
Eventually over the course of the year, the live streams were nicknamed Club Quarantine where people all over the world were connected through music. The culmination for this humble beginning manifested as a tour and what eventually was my first in person concert since the pandemic began: BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn Festival, Club Quarantine Live: D-Nice W/ Special Guests. I settled on this particular experience for this reflection because for those 2.5 hours, I felt a sense of normalcy again despite the mask and vaccination mandate, as that is now part of our everyday lives for the immediate future. Music is so multidimensional and has the ability to elicit so many feelings and memories, which is why it is one of my favorite forms of artistic and creative expression, especially to discuss here. Moreover, I felt how this experience came to be and the actual day, aligned with creative problem solving, the basis of our class!
This concert ultimately in its final form was a service that began by identifying a problem: How can a synchronous community still be fostered through music without everyone physically needing to be in the same shared space? D-Nice sought to arrange a safe space from his home through Instagram for what became millions of people, to provide joy and perceived normalcy. While I’m sure contemplating how to tackle this issue did not necessarily involve an abundance of colored post it notes, ideation was certainly part of the process after recognizing the problem. Fast forward to the Club Quarantine concert here in Brooklyn, the service that fans were provided, as our course highlights, requires that when a service is being designed, you orchestrate all aspects to create a holistic and consistent experience for all people involved in the service, which looks like the acronym AEIOU (Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects, Users). In short, concert goers gathered at the Bandshell in Prospect Park Brooklyn to enjoy live music from a myriad of artists, enjoy food, drinks and have the ability to purchase merchandise. This involved a variety of services, within services (ex: vendors, security, Covid protocols, Ticketmaster, etc.) and interactions within interactions (ex: artists, managers, city of Brooklyn, park rangers, etc.) in order for a concert of this magnitude to be held, in a pandemic. All in all, being able to enjoy music and this artistic experience in person for the first time in nearly 2 years was a breath of fresh air and I am certainly looking forward to these continued experiences.
