Empowering the Creative Inner-City Youth: The Remix Project

In many cases, talent alone is not enough to guarantee success. If there’s no adequate support involved, you will find a hard time to take your passion and talent to the next level and live your dream. Meet The Remix Project — a youth-led, urban arts organization focused on the individual while helping the community. Based in Toronto and Chicago, the organization serves its communities as an arts and cultural incubator that has grown into an internationally renowned and awarded charitable program with honors for its work and accomplishments in youth engagement and crime prevention. The Remix Project and its academy offer a platform that nourishes creative energy within the oft-disadvantaged inner-city youth and helps its participants to find their own talents and define it on their own terms in order to become successful in the professional world. We spoke to co-founder Drex Jancar, who launched the organization with partners Gavin Sheppard and Kehinde Bah in 2006, about the program’s curriculum process, its locations in Toronto and Chicago, its future prospects and how one can support their cause.

What is The Remix Project?

The Remix Project is a cultural training institute for the inner-city youth between the ages of 15 to 22. We work with talented youth and help them gain the skills sets they need to turn their passions into careers in the creative and entertainment industries.

Can you detail the curriculum process?

It’s a nine-month curriculum. For this period of time, we invite people to join our family. When you come into our program, you have a general, core idea of what you want to do within certain industries. Whether you want to be a photographer, a rapper, a business manager or you want to go into sports business, or fashion, whatever your goals may be, you enter our curriculum, which entails mentors, workshops, classes. If you want to become a photographer for instance, you work with the dean of our creative arts program and design your nine-month curriculum, which will include all the elements that I’ve mentioned. Then we have the thesis project, which focuses your portfolio to move you forward in school or your career. You choose a major and one minor while you’re in the program. For instance, your major might be event or portrait photography, your minor could be photo editing. It is about working with talented people and developing them to a stage where they become employable in the aforementioned industries.

When and how did The Remix Project start?

My partner Gavin Sheppard and I started Inner City Visions in 2000, which was the first government-funded hip-hop recreational center in North America. We reincarnated this program into The Remix Project along with Kehinde Bah in 2006.

Besides photography, what artistic fields do you support within The Remix Project?

Pretty much everything creative. There’s no industry that we don’t work with. For instance, we don’t have a dance studio, but if you were a dancer and you wanted to figure out the business of dance and how to work in the industry and create a name for yourself or a brand, you can attend our business program as a dancer. We offer creative facilities such as a photo studio, video editing suites for short films or music videos. There’s also our recording studio, where we not only work with singing or rapping side of things but also work within sound engineering and producing. We also have a creative design team that dedicates itself to visual creativity. So whether you are a graphic designer or web designer, or if you are an illustrator in Fine Arts and you use paint and canvas, we can work with you and help optimize your talent. All those mediums are promoted by us.

Can you speak a little about your space in Chicago (pictured in the gallery above), how did the interior design conceptually develop?

We are located in this epic building at Lacuna Artist Lofts in Pilsen, which is owned by Remix friend and supporter Joey Cacciatore, who’s also a Remix board member and helps pushing our vision. This building is 5,000-square foot state of the arts space filled with creativity, positive energy, basically everything The Remix Project pushes forward in our mission. There are 210 tenants in the building, all working in the creative industry, supporting each other and building this great community. We could have not found a better home for The Remix Project in Chicago.

Why Toronto and Chicago?

Definitely Toronto because we are from Toronto. The art and entertainment scenes here are amazing. I moved to Chicago four years ago and it’s an incredible city with a lot of talent, passion, and interest for these sectors. This opened my eyes in regards to opening Remix in Chicago as well. Plus, we always had the idea of expanding Remix outside of Toronto but also wanted to be authentic to the community that we are working in. You can’t just open Remix like McDonald’s and expect it to work the same way. There’s no cookie-cutter approach on how The Remix should be set up. Long story short, I spent two to three years there before I felt comfortable to start Remix in Chicago. I did a wide ground market research, I met up with people that work in these fields to understand the community better. Ultimately, meeting Joey and getting the space in Lacuna was a sign for me that the time is ready to do this.

Chicago has been experiencing severe social issues in the past few years. What is your perspective on that in regards to Remix?

Everywhere in the world, they’re facing the same issue, it’s just a matter of demographics and statistics. In Toronto, we could face the same problems Chicago is having. In its everlasting history, Chicago has been exposed to a lot of violence, organized crime, and things of that nature. Obviously, that was a big reason for us to start in Chicago but at the same time that was not the sole reason. I did not go to Chicago because the crime rate was bad and the murder rate was bad. We want to make an organic fit. Next place might be Miami, New York, or LA. All of these cities need spaces like Remix. I feel we could open in any major city in this world if our capacity reaches that sort of level at one point.

Can you share an exceptional Remix success story?

Luckily, there have been so many success stories with Remix. One of them in particular is my friend Photo Will from Toronto. He came into the program to become a photographer. After attending our our courses, he was taking some photos and got connected in the industry. He started to do a lot of event photography, launched his own blog, getting recognition with his craft, building an impressive following of young people that are into arts and entertainment and nightlife culture. He turned this traction into a great business, where he is doing photography and is also the co-owner of a clothing store, a tattoo studio, and a burger joint. He made a name for himself within Toronto when it comes to fashion, and event photography. It is a great success story of someone who had one idea and worked on it for six, seven years, and has now several successful businesses. He’s doing great. We became close friends.

Another success story would be our art director of programming, Ricki. He joined our program during its first semester in 2006 as a recording artist. Through his journey with Remix, he realized that he wanted to work with young people and loved what Remix was doing. He attended our program, graduated, won an award, and got employed. Fast forward two years, he became the art director of programming at Remix. That’s one of my ultimate success stories in my eyes, because it is affecting so many people through what affected him. That’s the beautiful cycle of how this whole thing is supposed to work.

How can one support The Remix Project?

There are many ways to support us. Tell a young person about it and refer them to the program if you are in one of the cities that we work in. You can volunteer, you can become a mentor, or help out with a fundraising event, or set up a workshop. Monetarily, people can also donate online in support of our cause. Sharing and communicating our mission is important. Even something simple like a Retweet here and there can make a big difference, support via social media is essential. All that helps to build Remix and keep it growing in the future.

What does the future for Remix look like?

We want to grow. We have great ambition without being naive or crazy about it. Remix is an organization that grows at a safe and healthy rate. For me, the near future of Remix is making sure that our operation in Chicago works and becomes successful, and has that type of credibility and proven research and evaluation that Toronto does. Once that is underway and obtained, I will feel comfortable starting this operation in another city. We are an organization that takes one thing at a time, making sure we are doing it right — organically and authentically. I would love to see Remix happen in Hong Kong, in England, in New York, in LA, London, Detroit, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and so on. This is our ultimate mission. But the immediate future sees securing Chicago as one of our staples and to keep growing. I’d also like to point out that we are open to connect with likeminded individuals and do projects together. If there’s somebody that started something and it’s moving into a direction that aligns with us and be potentially interested in partnering on a project-base with us. The opportunity is there and I am excited about meeting with new people that are on the same page as us.

To find out more about The Remix Project, visit their website.