Catharsis and Connection
The capstone project for UCLA's Music Industry program requires a real project on a real deadline. Carter Coffee spent a year and a half building a full marketing campaign designed to support his forthcoming album, "Anything to Survive."
"It is the culmination of my thoughts and feelings across the last four years in the form of an album," said Coffee, who describes the album as being about love, death and heartbreak, with a whole lot of edge and angst permeating every track. "I hope that by putting these feelings out there, someone else can find catharsis and connection."
Carter grew up 20 minutes from campus, where he went through the Academy of Visual and Performing Arts program at Culver City High. He had film editing in mind for a career, but quickly figured out that working on other people's footage wasn't where he wanted to be. During the pandemic, he started producing electronic and dance music. When he researched college programs, he found that UCLA had just launched a Music Industry major. He applied to five schools, all with music business programs.
"The moment I got that acceptance letter, within a week I'd been invited to come to like three different events," he said. "UCLA made me feel wanted."
He was among the first cohorts at The Herb Alpert School of Music to move through the Music Industry major from start to finish. A lead from professor Tiffany Naiman connected him to Hopeless Music Academy, the charity arm of the emo label Hopeless Records, in the organization's first year. Coffee built their entire social media presence from scratch. That connection led to a marketing internship at Hopeless Records itself.
Everything he's learned from academics and internships is going toward his own album drop at the end of June. After graduation, he's joining 25/7 Records, a young downtown L.A. label that just reopened its marketing department.
