Cincinnati Music Accelerator turns hopeful artists into business-savvy musicians

Imagine hearing a song you produced on the radio and realizing somebody else had licensed it out. Or making a deposit to compete in a beat battle and having the organizers disappear with your cash. Either scenario could break a young musician’s spirit, but music producer Kick Lee took them on the chin and grew wiser. “It's a learning experience, and more things kind of similar to that started happening, and it just fueled me,” Lee said. “A lot of folks have a tremendous amount of musical, creative skills, but they lack the business knowledge in that realm. And it kept pushing me to be like, ‘What can I do?’” His answer is the Cincinnati Music Accelerator. Lee, whose given name is Rolando Martell, earned a $10,000 grant from People’s Liberty earlier this year to kick-start a training program for local artists to learn every realm of the music industry, including all the business, legal, financial, professional and personal secrets to success. The program’s first five students are wrapping up the six-week training session with a showcase at 7 p.m. Thursday at Elementz (1100 Race St.).