INTERVIEW WITH YOUTH ON RECORD
QDL: I know YOR initially started a while back by Flobots - can you give us a glimpse from the early days and what you are up to NOW? Has the mission or purpose of YOR changed over the years?
YOR: It’s been 14 years since the birth of Youth on Record (originally named Flobots.org) and the foundation of our mission has remained, but our vision and impact has certainly expanded!
When local Denver band and community organizers, Flobots, launched Flobots.org, it was their goal to increase access to meaningful mentorship opportunities, increase graduation rates, increase academic success, increase social/emotional learning skills, and increase access to high-quality economic opportunities for youth via anti-oppression music programming.
This is still the essence of how YOR operates. We provide for-credit classes in partnership with Denver and Aurora schools, we offer free after-school programming and paid career opportunities for young people ages 14-24, and we focus on providing quality mentorship rooted in trauma-informed and anti-oppression pedagogy.
But, this past year, we really reached some significant milestones. We reached over 1,700 young people through our programming, announced our co-ownership of The Underground Music Showcase, opened a secondary office location, launched two incredible giving circles, and more. Our staff, partners, sponsors, and music ambassadors have truly ushered in a new chapter for the organization. It’s pretty incredible!
Your mission (stated online) is to "empower Colorado’s underserved youth to achieve their academic, artistic, and personal best by employing local, professional artists as their educators." What are you looking for when hiring artists and educators?
Our incredible Teaching Artists are phenomenal multidisciplinary artists who have experience in classroom management and education. They are trained in nonviolent communication and have a strong understanding of how intersecting social, economic, racial, and cultural identities impact their students and colleagues. Mentorship is a cornerstone of our programming, and our Teaching Artists are at the front lines of this effort.
YOR also recognizes the importance of representation in education and works to employ Teaching Artists whose identities resonate with students from historically marginalized backgrounds including LGBTQIA students and BIPOC students.
You talk a lot about building an inclusive community–what does that entail and mean to you?
YOR recognizes systemic injustices that disadvantage and harm students from historically marginalized backgrounds. We want young artists from all backgrounds to feel encouraged, welcome, celebrated, and believed-in. Our education, music, and community programs are designed to help all young people become more free, more rooted in their personal power, and better able to thrive in spite of systems and circumstances that dis-empower and marginalize them. To us, this is inclusivity in programming. And, we take a close eye to our student survey results every year. We regularly ask questions like: “Who is missing from our programs? What students are experiencing identity-based obstacles in attending our programs or in their experience of our programs?”
For example, in 2017, YOR identified a participation gap in woman-identifying students at our programs. It was from this assessment that a five-year program, FEMpowered, was born. From 2017-2022, we created a program just for women-identifying and non-binary students to connect, collaborate, and learn from industry leaders. This pilot program was an immense success and we saw increased participation and organizational belonging from young women and non-binary creatives across all of our programming.
We’re now dissolving FEMpowered and taking these learnings and implementing them across all of our programs, and using these learnings to create more inclusive environments for other underrepresented student identities at YOR.
How is YOR supporting queer youth and queer musicians?
Well, we just mentioned our integrated approach to ensuring that young creatives from all historically marginalized backgrounds are thoughtfully supported in our programs, and this of course includes our queer students. We also really believe that making queer young creatives feel welcome comes in-part from having queer representation on our staff and board. Many of our incredible Teaching Artists identify as queer, and that’s certainly a valuable component to our organization’s ability to provide identity-affirming mentorship and programming. We’re also actively seeking board members who hold LGBQTIA identities to support the organization.
Additionally, it’s part of YOR’s mission to create career pathways for young creatives and to improve the current landscape for working musicians to create a more sustainable future for the industry. Through our co-ownership of the UMS, we’re excited to continue to book more LGBTQIA artists than ever before. From our survey of UMS artists this last year, 31% of the artists we surveyed said that they identify as LGBTQIA.
Lastly, YOR has been proud to partner with so many organizations that specifically serve queer youth, and we’re proud to have had partners like Joy as Resistance and YouthSeen at our last Block Party in 2022. We also prioritize the word about lots of third-party resources for queer youth within our programs and our website!
What are some things coming up that we should know about? How do we support/be more involved with YOR?
Music Matters March, our annual community fundraiser is right around the corner. We always have loads of incredible community partners including restaurants, bars, storefronts, and more, join in donating a portion of revenue to our organization in the month of March, so you can check back on our website for more information coming soon on that activation. Or, for business owners interested in participating, please contact andrea@youthonrecord.org.
There are, of course, many ways to support the work that we do. Following us and talking us up to your community is super helpful. Connecting with us around aligned corporate/sponsorship partnership opportunities is so awesome. We encourage local artists to check out our music ambassador program. We’re also always recruiting volunteers to support us as we spread the word about YOR in the community.
Any support in any form is wonderful. And, one of the best ways to support any organization that you believe in is to support them with your contributions. Our incredible programs are indeed costly, and we are so grateful for our donors!
