The Berklee Popular Music Institute has partnered with Primary Wave for a unique remote semester project. Held via Zoom, BPMI students used technologies to produce, record and create videos of hits from Primary Wave’s artist catalog, marking the first major partnership between a college music business program and a major pubco.

The project kicks off with a new recording and video for WAR’s Grammy-nominated track, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” Collaborating with the group’s original co-songwriter and keyboard player, students re-imagined the song with updated lyrics and rap to highlight social justice issues of today.

"The premise was that Primary Wave would open our entire song catalog up to the students to encourage other covers of our copyrights and discuss the songwriting aspects with the actual songwriters and artists themselves,” said Robert Dippold, Partner/President of Digital Strategy for Primary Wave.

Jeff Dorenfelf, Founder of the BPMI and a Professor in Berklee’s Music Business/Management Department, added “I am proud of the work our students have produced in collaboration with Primary Wave's roster of artists, producers, and songwriters, all coordinated during a virtual summer semester.

With all recordings and videos produced by BPMI students, the class will continue to release from Primary Wave Music’s songwriters including Paul Rogers, Bob Marley, Donny Hathaway and more.

For more info on BPMI, click here. In the meantime, check out the BPMI rendition of “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” below.