TNJ - July/August 2002 - Feature Story - -Akila Worksongs Carries Silver’s Tune By Maitefa Angaza

July/August 2002

Akila Worksongs Carries
April Silver’s Tune

April Silver has embraced the creativity of her peers, creating a company that represents young artists, inspiring them to represent their community responsibly.

By Maitefa Angaza

In 1993, while a battle over the merits and the message of hip-hop music raged on—a battle that has yet to wane today—one young woman embraced the creativity of her peers and the cautions of her elders. She fashioned a company called Akila Worksongs that would represent talented young artists while, in turn, inspiring them to represent their community in responsible ways. Some would say, who knew that before long, she’d produce hip-hop conferences, manage media campaigns, lecture nationwide, head a speaker’s bureau, write a book, sit on the board of the International African Arts Festival, and serve as a member of the organization awarding the Grammys? Well, if no one else knew, she did. April Silver probably always knew she’d have to get a hold of many projects to fulfill her need to serve and her desire to grow.

Silver has a lot to be proud of these days, and even more to do. Her company’s name, which includes the Kiswahili “Akila” (she who reasons), was likely intuitively chosen to help keep her on her path in the midst of activity. Brooklyn-based Akila Worksongs grossed close to $100,000 in its first year as a full-time business, which is not bad for what was then a one-woman operation with a few volunteers.

What was Silver selling that people were buying? Bridges—not the Brooklyn variety, but an opportunity to take one another seriously and to work productively together. She knew there were many artists, intellectuals and creative entrepreneurs in the black community eager to create dialogue with receptive and under-served audiences. She also believed that institutions and corporate concerns could serve their constituents and clients better by sponsoring this exchange. So she started with lecture management and artists’ representation.

Akila Worksongs’ Speaker’s Bureau now sends clients to colleges, corporations, arts institutions and special events across the nation. It provides a platform for the many authorities and voices sought by people of color, but not often represented by other bureaus. Silver has also taken a stand for supporting consciously accountable art and business. She encourages hip-hop artists to be responsible to their communities, something she had in mind when she organized the first national hip-hop conference at Howard University in 1991. One of its missions was to “de-glamourize” hip hop for students.

“Black artists don’t have the luxury to be apolitical,” said Silver. “They come from a greater legacy than that.”

Akila Worksongs has represented scores of talented clients, each filtering their own brand of light onto the landscape. They include: James Mtume, Mos Def, Camille Yarbrough, The Last Poets, Terri Williams, Sister Souljah, Ras Baraka, Doug E. Fresh, Malik Yoba, Toni Blackman, Rha Goddess and others. The company grew rapidly and by 1997 provided public relations and marketing services for The Grammy Awards, Alex Bugnon, Tulani Kinard, the New York Folklore Society and the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, among many others.

Before long, Akila Worksongs also provided event management, production and community relations consulting services to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Ford Foundation, Howard University, Motown, BMI the National Black Theater, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Because of Silver’s hands-on approach, individual client representation remains one of the most rewarding aspects of her business.

“I am a strong advocate for ownership of what we create,” she said. “Our stories are often taken away from us, re-written or cancelled out. I want to protect and preserve our stories, so that they can be told authentically.”

While she is always enthusiastic about working with new clients, Silver is, at the same time, prudent when it comes to entering into new representation contracts.

“We don’t do PR for people’s hobbies,” Silver said. “Our clients are very, very focused. We’ll sit down and talk, I’ll get to know them and try to align with their vision during a personal interview, maybe over dinner...just spend some time with them. I have to be excited, because I don’t like to do cookie-cutter work. If I don’t feel the project, I can’t sell it.”

Silver’s focus and commitment is born of a determination to make a difference. She’s a disciplined task-master with a never-ending stream of ideas and killer-organizing skills who requires the same level of commitment from those whose work she supervises. Silver was born in New York, raised in Los Angeles, and attended Howard University, where she once helped to lead a takeover of the administration building. She also worked with Black Nia F.O.R.C.E., a student and youth political organization.

Returning to New York after college at the request of hip-hop artist Doug E. Fresh, she jumped right in and began making her dreams come true. While teaching for the Board of Education, she founded her company, starting with lecture management and public relations writing services, soon signing clients such as NBA All-Star Craig Hodges. In June of 1995, she embarked on a test-run for devoting all of her time to her growing business. The following year, she began co-managing hip-hop artist Rahzel of the Roots and signed her first public-relations client, the Rappin’ Ruppets, a puppet show that toured elementary schools teaching mathematics through rap.

Around this time, Silver joined the staff of the International African Arts Festival, and not long after became talent search coordinator, booking Erykah Badu and other music industry luminaries as judges or talent. She resigned from her day job for good in 1998 and established her company’s consulting division, with an aim of becoming the “community affairs department of the hip-hop industry.” Since then, Akila Worksongs has launched major public relations campaigns for a number of clients, many of whom are in the entertainment business, produced a hip-hop dads/fatherhood program with the Ford Foundation and the Mott company. She has also sponsored the annual Black Family Forum, and managed production for a Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam 12-city tour.
Silver has placed clients in almost every major print, broadcast and television-media market and has herself appeared in Ms., Time, Ebony and Newsweek magazines, and in publications in London and Japan and on CNN. Akila Worksongs has a web site, which receives 3,000 hits a month without advertising.

Meanwhile, Silver finds ways to remain connected to people outside the world of business. She teaches a course at Medgar Evers College, “Using Hip Hop as a Tool for Social Empowerment,” which high-school seniors take for college credit, and she is the managing editor of WHOA! (Who Is Hot/What Is Hot Over America?) magazine, a quarterly publication, which premiers in the fall. The magazine, whose publishers are Greg and Robert Cummins, is targeted to the behind-the-scenes individuals who drive today’s popular/youth culture. According to Silver, instead of movie stars, pro-athletes, platinum artists, and other high profile celebrities WHOA! will profile the lifestyles, career patterns, trials and triumphs of young power brokers who indirectly shape popular culture today. Silver also has Harriet’s Way, a book on social entrepreneurs, coming out soon.

“This book focuses on women of color, some of them major national figures, and the journey they took to social activism,” said Silver. “I’ve titled it after Harriet Tubman. We knew her as the freedom fighter, but not many know that she also opened a hospital and owned 32 acres of land. I am looking for that model of leadership across the country.”

As Silver mines the wealth of inspiration provided by black people, she has become a model of excellence in the eyes of others. Writer Kevin Powell said of her, “April Silver is what a post-Civil Rights, community-based businessperson should be: visionary, pro-active, creative, efficient, and, most important, historically and culturally rooted.”

Vocalist/songwriter Tulani Kinard also likes Silver’s style: “April Silver is a visionary, a cultural activist committed to bringing new perspectives with ancient roots to the hip-hop community. Akila Worksongs has consistently created an excellent professional and supportive environment in which to nurture positive artistic expression.”

Hip-hop pioneer Doug E. Fresh is especially proud of Silver: “I think April has an incredible intention in terms of where we need to go as artists and as a people,” he said. “I met her at Howard University, where she was a leader of the Black Students’ Association, and came to know her as someone who will always uphold the concerns of the people.”

Fresh, who hired Silver early on to work with him on his music career and other ventures, has recently completed acting work in two films, “Paid In Full” and “Brown Sugar,” and has written a children’s book on hip hop with an accompanying CD for Scholastic Press.
If Silver keeps her clients busy, it’s clear she’s not asking them to do more than she’s willing to do. Her vision and sense of purpose will ensure that Akila Worksongs continues to disseminate positive communication on a silver thread.

Send a Network Journal Greeting Card With Music to a loved one or friend. In preparing to celebrate Black History Month (February) here in America, the theme of our greeting cards for the next two months will feature famous people of color from the last century.

The music to accompany the cards are Motown and Reggae songs.