The Digilogue is a diverse and inclusive platform that services music/tech professionals and music creatives alike. After leveraging their strong bases in NYC, LA, ATL, and other major cities, they created over 15K highly engaged followers that support all of their useful endeavors. With over 50 events in just 36 short months, The Digilogue has forged working partnerships with Dolby, Shure, Serato, and many more of the industry’s top brands.
Most recently, their use of the newest social media platform, Clubhouse alone, should be heralded. The Digilogue has a group with over 1000 members. The important part about their panels is that the conversation has action behind it that happens after the discussion. Most of the time, these panels come and go. Still, a Digilogue panel leads to real conversation and mutually beneficial relationships that have help shape music and tech as a whole.
They have collaborated with professionals from every major label and have also done great work highlighting the work done by plenty of the majors. They also have over 5000 email subscribers and curators across the world. After 2020, they can now say they have put on live performances, podcasts, Panels, and career fairs.
I sat with Andrew De Leon, the founder of The Digilogue to learn more about the impressive music+tech advocate. Peep our awesome interview below!
Ahmad Davis: Please explain the purpose of The Digilogue for those who don’t know.
Andrew De Leon: Founded in 2016, I co-founded The Digilogue to build a real community that was missing in music. Over the past 4 years, The Digilogue has grown into diverse global music and tech community with a passion to program educational conversations, provide career resources and artist discovery content. It’s been really fulfilling to see the lives we’ve been able to impact for the better. We understand the uphill journey for indie artists and music professionals trying to navigate the music business.
AD: Opportunity is the first word that comes to mind when you think about The Digilogue. What does that word mean to you all?
Drew: “Opportunity” is what you make of it. The Digilogue is a starting point for indie artists and young music professionals. However, we don’t guarantee success because that’s ultimately on the community members. As a community, we’re always going to provide tools and resources to advance music creatives and professionals.
AD: During COVID how have you all been able to continue programming on the internet as opposed to the events you all held across the world?
Drew: In 2020, we planned to program a 15 city US tour focused on music and tech along with a massive all-day conference, but we quickly had to pivot. Because we were programming consistently for 3 years, it was about letting the community know we had their back during this new challenging time. I remembered having a meeting with our core team and was like our community needs our support more than ever. Whether it was posting job listings every Monday and Thursday or providing artists opportunities to share their music on IG lives to launch a free Music Career Summit, we wanted to provide consistent programming during the pandemic.
AD: Clubhouse is a tool you all have made great use of lately. Talk to us about the environment you’ve been able to create there?
Drew: It’s been really dope to see the music community converge in Clubhouse. Artists and music professionals are looking to learn and connect. Ultimately, our goal is to create a safe and inclusive environment for anyone new to music or trying to navigate the space. We take pride in curating credible speakers and important discussions that provide actionable information. We know there aren’t meant to advance rooms but rather take advantage of artists and music professionals. It’s our responsibility to protect the community and make them aware of the free resources. As I said, there are no shortcuts or secret sauce to success. We’re providing the tools; now it’s time to put in the work.
AD: Are you all planning to gear back up for in-person events post-pandemic?
Drew: Yes, absolutely, but we’ll definitely ease into it. The great thing is that we’ve built out our Community Curator and Playlist Curator program across the world. We plan to have smaller meet-ups across the different cities, with our Community Curators running them independently of our main programming.
AD: Can you all discuss the directory that you all have in the works?
Drew: As part of our Music Careers programming, we launched The Digilogue Directory to help match our community with opportunities that employers are looking to fill. Since we launched at the end of 2020, we’ve placed 3 members with jobs and are excited to place more music professionals with job opportunities! It’s been an incredible feeling to get people jobs during this challenging pandemic and job market; it truly is.
AD: Music and Technology go hand in hand. How did you all decide to make that the main focus of the brand?
Drew: The Digilogue stands for “Digital Dialogue.” Because Digital became a focal point for music in 2010 with the emergence of social media and streaming. It was important to program discussions on the platforms that shared and consumed music. The music and digital landscape are constantly changing. Last year we were talking about TikTok, and now we’re talking about Clubhouse. There’s always an opportunity to program because music is at the center of culture, technology, and conversation.
AD: Who would you all say your target audience is for the Digilogue?
Drew: Our community has grown a lot in the past 4 years. Initially, our goal was to just create a place where music creatives and professionals could connect and learn consistently. However, our community’s needs have evolved and have allowed us to elevate our programming. Music creatives and professionals share a common interest in education and connecting. However, we understand that indie artists want to be able to market their music while music professionals are looking for job opportunities and mentorship.
AD: Lastly, what are your goals for 2021?
Drew: Because we programmed so much last year, in 2021 we’re focused on more premium programming and elevating our content. More quality over quantity. We’re excited about the marquee genre playlists we just launched with Audiomack and our premium editorial series for artists called “Class of 2021: Artists to Watch”. For our music careers programming, we want to continue to place more jobs for our members and program the Music Career Summit in June.
On the content side, we’re excited to kick off Season 2 of the L’s aka Lessons Learned Podcast in March. As far as platforms, we’re going to continue to program on Clubhouse, YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. We’re taking our time and being super intentional so we can always execute and deliver at the highest level. Most importantly, I just want to say THANK YOU to the amazing team across the board and the special community that’s grown with us year after year. More to come!
Check them out on social media or at www.thedigilogue.com
