Creative Culture Beats is a cultural awareness audio podcast project created by Audio Educator, Brenda Francis. Her love of learning about other cultures, along with her work experience of recording podcasts with background music, is the basis for Creative Culture Beats.
This project serves all musicians in the area with a spotlight on the music of underserved cultures (those that may not get regular airplay on local radio or television). Entries representing African-American and Latin cultures have been a focus in selection, but all music representing cultures in the Idaho area are eligible. The intended outcome is to encourage creativity and express cultural heritage in a musical format that is easily accessible and fosters a mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all persons and groups.
The first season's recordings occurred in late 2020 and early 2021 with an artist showcase held in March of 2021. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the showcase event was unable to have an in-person audience, but was livestreamed to several internet venues, reaching an audience of 461 and is posted for continued viewing.
In March of 2023 Season 3 culminated and a free public showcase was held on March 18th at the Boise Hive. Both Season 2 and Season 3 were held with a live audience in addition to being posted for streaming.
The way the project works is musicians from Idaho of various ethnicities record one original song each at the Boise Hive Recording Studio. The musicians are interviewed after recording their song. The recordings are edited, mixed and mastered by audio professionals. There are two music pieces: the full song and a beat. The beat is a version that has some of the song’s tracks muted (usually the vocals). This beat is used as background music in the interview. The song is also introduced during the interview and played. The music pieces and interview podcasts are distributed to a local radio station and are made available online for streaming. The full season of music is played at a showcase.
With the help of volunteers, donations, and grants the musicians are paid for their time!
At the showcases artists meet each other and network. We have a couple of stories from these happenings. In Season 1 two artists talked about jobs and what they do for a living and one of them joined the company of the other. In Season 3 two artists representing different Native American tribes met and decided to colloborate musically together.
