Following a national search, the School of Music is pleased to announce the hire of Stevie "Dr. View" Johnson as the Assistant Professor of Creative Practice in Popular Music at The Ohio State University.  

As a DJ, producer, educator and community organizer, Dr. View is the sonic spirit of Black Wall Street embodied. The Tulsa-based producer and DJ is a southern, soulful, sampled-based beat maker and songwriter who utilizes sound to educate and liberate community through music and stories. Inspired by the likes of Big K.R.I.T., Bobbi Humphrey, Dr. Dre, The Dream, Quincy Jones, Missy Elliott and DJ Mr. Rogers, Dr. View got his name not only from his PhD, but from his southern roots in Longview, Texas. 

Dr. View received his PhD in Higher Education Administration from the University of Oklahoma in 2019. His dissertation, entitled Curriculum of the Mind: A BlackCrit, Narrative Inquiry Hip Hop Album on Anti-Blackness and Freedom for Black Male Collegians at historically white institutions, received the 2019 Bobby Wright Dissertation of the Year Award for the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). This was the first time a hip hop dissertation or non-traditional dissertation ever received the award. 

Dr. View is the founder and executive producer of Fire in Little Africa, a multimedia hip hop project that consisted of four components: a 21-track hip hop album which was signed to Motown Records, an award-winning documentary, podcast and curriculum inspired by Black Wall Street, and the 100-year acknowledgment of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The project, featuring 60 artists from the state of Oklahoma, was released in May 2021 and accumulated over 7 million streams across all digital streaming platforms. 

In addition, Dr. View is the 2023 Nasir Jones Hip Hop Fellow at Harvard University, which is named after iconic hip hop legend and artist, Nas. The Nasir Jones Fellowship program funds scholars and artists who demonstrate exceptional scholarship and creativity in the arts in connection with hip hop, seeking projects that represent individual creative and/or intellectually rigorous contributions to hip hop and its discourse through personal projects. Lastly, Dr. View is the 2023 Women’s and Gender Studies Center for Social Justice Activist-in-Residence at the University of Oklahoma.

For more information visit Dr. View’s Spotify | Apple Music | Tidal | YouTube | Soundcloud | Website | Instagram 

“Hiring Dr. Stevie Johnson — Dr. View — is an amazing opportunity for The School of Music, our students, and the university community as a whole. Johnson’s current signature work, Fire in Little Africa, is not only deeply moving art of profound cultural significance, it also synthesizes multiple hip hop traditions, groundbreaking scholarship, and complex production processes. Johnson exemplifies the forward edge of a new field of practice and, as we seek to broaden our educational programs to reflect the music that is created and shared across society, he will be an essential contributor. This is the beginning of something extraordinary.” 
 
David Bruenger, Professor 
Contemporary Music and Commercial Industry Area 
Music, Media and Enterprise Program 

School of Music Program Expansion

The Bachelor of Science in Music is a multidisciplinary program that provides students the opportunity — in three different tracks — to explore a wide range of creative, technical, and theoretical approaches to contemporary music.

The existing Media and Enterprise track is currently being revised and expanded to better serve the many students seeking to create, produce and share original music. The revised program will show them how to optimize creativity, generate and expand public access and engagement, and how music enterprise creates cultural, social and economic value.

The revised track — renamed as Creative Practice, Music Business, and Technology — will include newly designed courses including Booking Concerts and Tours, Music Publishing and Licensing, and Live Sound. Updates to current offerings in audio recording and new courses in Audio/Media production are planned. The newest member of the team, Dr. Stevie Johnson, will be developing and teaching courses such as Beats and Beat Making, the Art and Practice of the DJ, and Music/Media Project Design and Management.

In addition to expanding the scope of available courses, the track's established and successful focus on entrepreneurship, critical analysis, and strategic thinking about the music business as a whole will continue to make this a program that has and will continue to help students launch and manage their own musical ventures and become leaders in the creative economy of contemporary music.