GTCC's student-led record label to celebrate first album release

Guilford Technical Community College’s student-led record label is celebrating the release of its first album on Friday. The collaborative project has been in the works since September. 

The album, aptly titled Community, kicks off with the sound of a marching band chanting “Ti-Tones,” the name of the record label. 

The project was dreamed up by Mark Dillon, a professor in the Entertainment Technology department. 

“We always talk about the creative process. But on the other side of that, arts is always a commodity too," Dillon says. "You have to talk about 'How do we have contracts? How do we have things that make this viable for all of us?'” 

Having an album or a record label, he says, gives his students tools to be successful artists in their community. And the entire project has been student-led. 

“There are a few times where I'll step in and sort of remind them that they might be a little bit overly ambitious, or they might need to be more ambitious in some other areas," Dillon says. "But overall, they've done a crazy, crazy, crazy good job of just putting it all together and making everything function.”

Ally Young is one of the GTCC students with a song featured on the album. 

“It's what we like to call the angry punk rock song on the record. But we did a really good job of showcasing different genres on the album," Young says. "Like, there's a pop song, there's some R&B, there's some rap, there's some singer songwriter, and we also managed to feature some faculty members as well.”

Young has been heavily involved in the project, from finding album artwork to recording bands, and even coordinating legal contracts for the musicians. Now, she says her attention is on getting ready for the album release party. 

“We're excited to have people come out. We want people to come see what we've been working our butt off for the last few months on," Young says. "And I think we're one of the only community colleges that can say they have a record label.” 

The musicians will perform their songs live at the college’s High Point campus. More information about the event can be found here.

Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.