Many people that follow the music industry consider artist development to be dead. With the creation of the National Collegiate Entertainers Group (NCEG), artist development has had a resurgence.
The History of Artist Development
For many years, artist development was one of the hallmarks of the music industry. This included performance training, branding, marketing, and interview preparation. Much of this was taken care of by the label and was a continued practice until the end of the 80's. Going into the 90's through the present day, much of the industry switched over to product development, which places a priority on record sales and other forms of monetization. The idea of artist development unfortunately fell to the wayside.
The National Collegiate Entertainers Group has created a program to fill the void. Through creating self-sustained musical ecosystems on college campuses, NCEG has made the only pipeline for students to master their artistry and prepare for entering into the business with legitimate experience.
Each of the chapters are self-sustaining. With an executive board, members, artists/performers (also known as Certified Entertainers(CE)), and a coach, each CE goes through a rigorous audition process to make sure that the best of the best come out of each chapter.
The coach then works with these CE’s in the art of live performance as well as becoming a better recording artist. Students handle everything from recording and mixing to promotions and event curation. They learn how to work together to produce a product (a successful artist/brand) that labels would be interested in.
The modern day record label doesn’t develop artists anymore, and they expect the artist to be developed before they sign them. NCEG is bringing back artist development in a new and innovative way, that's both affordable and rooted in principles of higher education.