Harry Allen’s ‘GrindXDesign’ Finds DJ Premier, Young Guru, Chuck D As Hosts Of 8-Week Series

Every now and then music industry conferences offer programs where budding artists and execs will get insight from veterans in the field. However, the cost of these events can often put a dent in the wallets of the industry hopefuls.

Seeking to bring a solution to this matter, hip-hop activist and "Media Assassin" Harry Allen gathers together a consortium of hip-hop artists, producers and executives for a project called GrindXDesign ("grind by design")—an eight week series of 60-90 minute conference call meetings that will utilize digital conference call technology to instruct industry hopefuls on the art and business of rap music.

Set to kick off tomorrow (August 29) at 8PM with guest instructors DJ Premier and Young Guru, the two will offer a tutorial on mastering production and songwriting. Subsequent events will follow each Wednesday, at the same time, until October 17th.

Future guests in the innovative series will include Public Enemy's Chuck D and The Roots' ?uestlove, who together will be speaking on touring, showmanship and stagecraft; DJ Drama and DatPiff.com's founder Marcus Fraiser on the art of mixtapes; Kim Osorio and XXL's editor-in-chief Vanessa Satten on marketing music to magazines; RapCoalition's Wendy Day and attorney Dan Booth on how to get a record deal; TuneCore's Jamie Purpora on understanding music publishing; Influence Expansion's Lena West on creating a social media strategy; and film executive Arthur Wylie on developing a take-no-prisoners mindset in business.

"What's incredibly exciting about GrindXDesign," explains Allen, "is that, if you're a beatmaker in Argonne WI, through digital conference call technology, you'll have as much access to DJ Premier or Young Guru as someone from New York or L.A. If you want the mixtape success of a Lil' Wayne, but need to understand what makes this format hot, you'll be able to listen to, and maybe get a question in to, DJ Drama, or the founder of DatPiff.com; the dominant mixtape web site."

The tutorials will consist of guests being interviewed by Allen for 15-20 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of Q&A from attendees.

"Our objective is equipping people who want careers in hip-hop with the right information, at an incredibly low cost; certainly cheaper than what even small mistakes in any of these areas could cost them."

To attend the scheduled conferences, tickets are available to be purchased, by credit card or PayPal, at GrindXDesign.com. Prices for all eight weeks are currently $97.