Local Musician Fundraising for Youth Organization

A local musician has put together a 22-piece band and a free show and he’s doing it for a good cause.

Musician and Milwaukee native Emmitt James organized the show this Friday, Aug. 16 at Third Space Brewing to fundraise for a local youth-focused organization. The show is called Emmitt James Big Band BBQ. It’s the second annual Big Band BBQ James has produced. Last year he raised money for the Milwaukee Public Schools Foundation.

This year, James is fundraising for Future Urban Leaders, a relatively new nonprofit that runs after-school and summer programs for Milwaukee youth. The organization aims to cultivate leadership skills and offers programming based on STEAM education, social advocacy and preparing for life, or education, after high school. The organization was founded in 2011 and is based in Brookfield, but works with youth in the City of Milwaukee. The nonprofit is currently run by Executive Director Darnell Hamilton.

“I truly think that our youth are our future CEOs, police officers, businessmen and women, congressmen and women, so when you talk about investing in the future, to me, it means directly investing in the youth,” James said. “So what I like to do is partner with organizations who I feel are doing that, and I would like to highlight that and work in tandem with them.”

James is a rapper whose self-described style is “hip-hop jazz.” It’s a “quick descriptor,” James told Urban Milwaukee, for his music, which includes live instrumentation. The Big Band BBQ will feature live instrumentation, a lot of it. James is playing with a 22-piece band complete with a choir, a string quartet, a six-piece horn section and a rhythm section.

“I’m just a big fan of instrumentation,” he said, explaining that he played the upright bass in his middle school orchestra, and while he didn’t keep it up, it instilled in him a love for live, instrumental music.

This band will be the largest James has ever played with. The music and charts the band will play Friday was transcribed and arranged by Curtis Crump, Jr., a Wisconsin native and musician who is currently based in Los Angeles.

Along with the music, there will be a comedy set and food. Last year the show drew a few hundred people, James said.

“It’s a fundraiser concert, it’s free, it’s open to the public, and it’s an effort to get people together to celebrate and enjoy music,” James said, “but also raise money for an organization that I support that’s doing dope work with our youth.”