Wes Jackson, a music entrepreneur, will be the next president of BRIC, the nonprofit arts organization announced Tuesday. He will begin his new role on July 18.
He succeeds Kristina Newman-Scott, who led the BRIC for three years, and guided it during the first year of the previous coronavirus pandemic. resigned last August.
BRIC presents cultural programming in Brooklyn. It is perhaps best known for its annual summer concert series, BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, at Prospect Park. This year, it includes free concerts by reggae band Third World, rapper Vic Mensa and Nigerian Afropop artist Yemi Alade, as well as performances by actor John Cameron Mitchell (“Hedwig and the Angry”) Inch”) and comedian Bridget Everett (in HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere”).
Jackson, 48, who was the director of a business program designed for professionals in the creative arts at Emerson University in Boston, started his career producing concerts for groups. as Dave Matthews Band and the Roots before starting his own promotion company, Seven Heads Entertainment, which he later expanded into an independent record label and management company.
In 2005, he founded the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, which hosts performances by Jay-Z, Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar, and he has served as the event’s executive director for 15 years.
“When you’re running a small store, you’ve got everything on hand,” Jackson said of leading the hip-hop festival. “Now I have people who can help, and I can dedicate my energy to thinking 10 to 20 years from now, to make Celebrate Brooklyn into something on par with South by Southwest, Coachella. ”
The BRIC, which has a 2022 budget of $16 to $20 million, will present a larger stage. Jackson’s predecessor, Newman-Scott, led the re-imagining of the organization’s annual music festival as a virtual event in 2020, as well as launching One Brooklyn TV, which broadcasts educational programming in weekdays during the school year in partnership with the New York City Department of Education.
Jackson said he wants to continue to find ways to serve people in Brooklyn who may not or may not be able to gather in person, as well as those outside of New York.
“What we learned through Covid is that we are now national and international,” says Jackson. “There is a huge benefit in raising that level of educational play for online audiences.”
Jackson, who grew up in the Bronx, earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in Media Studies from the New School. He moved to Brooklyn about 25 years ago, where he continues to live with his family while traveling to Boston.
