Hailing from Lisbon, Buraka Som Sistema took hip-hop, techno, zouk from the Caribbean and kuduro from Angola to fashion an irresistible dance music sound that quickly wooed anyone who heard it.

Get inspired by some of music’s most creative minds ...

Van Dyke Parks is an arranger and composer best known for writing the lyrics to a certain lost classic by the Beach Boys – but that’s not even the half of it. His first arranging job was on The Jungle ...

Marco Passarani was there when Rome switched from disco to acid house, and even played his own small part in the transition as a radio DJ. Since then, he’s been immersed in the scene, running labels, ...

Every year, artists from around the world came together in a different host city to learn from musical luminaries – and each other – and collaborate in custom-built studios. Many Academy alumni went ...

Starting her career in the late 1960s, Cosey Fanni Tutti went on to become a seismic force in experimental music. Whether delivering confrontational performance art as part of COUM Transmissions, ...

Maurice Fulton’s productions have been key to the growth of house music worldwide, both as a solo artist under and tireless collaborator. In his lecture at the 2006 Red Bull Music Academy, Fulton went ...

Growing up in New York City in the ’70s, Louis Flores came to hip-hop like so many other Latino kids his age: by rushing to contribute as it sprung up around him, first as a dancer and then as a DJ ...

The first thing I chopped was a [jazz fusion group] Return To Forever jam. Was there an old Roland sampler, the MS something? Whatever. It was big, it was grey, it had a red button on it. I chopped up ...

Headquartered in the Culver City section of Los Angeles, Damon Riddick has helmed a renaissance of boogie, modern soul and electro-funk – from his storied Monday-night Funkmosphere parties to his ...

There are audiophiles, and then there’s Tony Andrews. He has been building PAs since the heyday of Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies. Today his Funktion-One soundsystems are the in-house sound at many of ...

Ryuichi Sakamoto came to worldwide fame as a member of influential Japanese synth-pop outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra. Making abundant use of new synthesizers, samplers and recording technology, they ...