Afropop Worldwide is currently searching for summer interns. The internship will run 12 weeks starting in May and ending in August (with some scheduling flexibility included). You can read more details about the internship HERE. What follows is a testimonial from current Staff-writer Morgan Greenstreet.
January 2013 was a cold time in my life: I’d just returned from tour in California with Afrobeat band Zongo Junction (I know- living the hard life). Point is, NYC was cold, and I was out of a side job, short on cash, and wondering what the next step was. I was playing a lot of music, but I was drifting further from the traditional African and Afro-Latino music I had focused on as an ethnomusicology student at Hampshire College and in my first real job as a drummer/administrator for Chiku Awali African Dance, Arts and Culture in Rockland County the previous year.
I was up late cruising Craiglist for gigs, when I saw this ad:
“Afropop Worldwide Needs Interns!
An internship with Afropop Worldwide will 100% NOT be your average “boring and mindless” internship. Working with a small but extremely energetic staff, and steeped in local New York City live events (as well as close personal connections with musicians across the globe), Afropop interns experience an incredibly wide variety of music and build a valuable catalog of skills, from cultural journalism to non-profit management, cross-cultural communications to web management, and from community outreach to marketing and radio production.
Sure, there will be some copying, mail prepping, filing and archiving. But this will be more than balanced by a true leadership role. We believe in giving our interns a broad experience- and with the music of roughly 2/3 of the world to cover, there is PLENTY of space to take on your own projects.”
My intuition said “Yes, do this!” I had listened to Afropop Worldwide on the radio for many years, and always admired their work. Here was a chance to get closer to the music that I love and simultaneously reawaken and hone my skills in music writing, interviewing artists, analyzing and reviewing. So I took that chance, and now Afropop is a central part of my life.
Within the first week I was assigned to write a review, by the second month I was doing interviews, a few months later, I had graduated to staff writer, which included more responsibilities, but also more opportunities. In the summer I interviewed Femi Kuti, and it was awesome to sit down with Pedrito Martinez as well!
By the end of my first year at Afropop, I had produced two radio programs, South Africa Today with fellow staff-writer Zach Toporek, and Benin: Transforming Traditions, a program that allowed me to share some of my favorite musicand deepen my study of Beninois music and culture. I am immensely grateful to Afropop Worldwide for giving me this opportunity, and I look forward to growing with this organization, and meeting our new crop of interns.
All this can be summed up- Afropop Worldwide opens many doors, many ears and many eyes. Get involved!