After earning a bachelor’s degree in English at Hastings College, Duane Harriot ‘96 moved to New York City and made its music scene home. Currently, he’s a music consultant for Gray V, a music curation company serving Target, Michael Kors and Marriott Hotels among other clients.
Harriot lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Marisa Mendez, a postpartum doula and chef, and their seven year old son, Alton.
This story originally appeared in the 2024 HC Today.
1. When a client reaches out to Gray V for music curation, what are they seeking? What issues are they solving for that online platforms like Spotify, Pandora, or YouTube cannot provide?
A client who reaches out to Gray V is looking for curation with a personal touch. If you run a restaurant, you can call someone specifically about your silverware issues, but you can’t call Spotify or YouTube and ask them to take the explicit version of “Still D.R.E.” out of its ‘90s Hip Hop playlist because it’s playing during Sunday brunch. The music and the atmosphere of the space has become just as important to the branding of these spaces as the food, architecture and staff these days.
2. How does a typical week at work play out for you?
I’m in charge of making sure that we have enough interesting music for clients who have very unique and specific genre requests, so I spend most of the day pouring through music catalogs—”looking for the perfect beat,” so to speak.
For example, one of our favorite clients is the world famous sushi restaurant Makoto. The location in Miami plays nothing but reggae music made between the years of 1965 and 1980. In the evening, the music switches, and they want it to sound like “a club scene in an episode of ‘Miami VIce.’” I’m the guy who hunts for that music.
I have hundreds of clients like that around the world, so on any given week, I’ll get an update from work that will say something to the effect of “Makoto needs more rock steady 70s reggae and 80s synth pop music that isn’t Madonna. Can you find 6 hours worth of music?”
Yes I can. 🙂
3. Describe your music selection process.
For brand new clients that are onboarding with us, I put together sample lists for them to make sure that we’re on the same page. From there, I expand the lists and build them out.
We’re typically shooting for 3 or 4 days of music without repeats. It’s a lot of hours, especially if it’s a hotel or a retail store. We do that so employees don’t go crazy.
Because of people having more access to music thanks to the streaming services, people’s tastes have expanded. When we get unique musical direction, it’s really cool to be able to execute it and then see the client and the customers react to it in a positive way.
4. How do you keep your music selections fresh? What keeps you inspired?
I’ve been obsessed with music since I was eight years old, and that’s carried on into my adult life. That cliche about finding a job you’d do for free and then get paid for it? That’s basically me. I’m a living testimony of that old chestnut.
5. What experiences at Hastings College and elsewhere prepared you for this career?
My experiences at Hastings College were the reason I was able to go to NYC mere WEEKS after my graduation to start work in the music industry. I was the music director of KFKX (RIP), did a ton of theatre, was a member of the prestigious forensics team, wrote record reviews for the Collegian and booked some punk rock shows on campus in the ‘90s. (We were THIIIIS close to getting Weezer to play HC for $8,000 in 1996.)
When I wanted to intern in NYC the summer of ’95, my resume stood out from the pack, and I wasn’t intimidated by the workload once I got to New York. By the time I came back to finish my senior year in the fall of ’95, CMJ offered me a job as a writer and booker of talent for their prestigious four-day music festival in 1996. This offer came to me before I even got my fall class schedule! Luckily, It was waiting for me six months later when I graduated.
There aren’t a lot of colleges that are dedicated to pushing hands-on experience to you like Hastings College, and it paid off when it came time to shift to a professional career.
6. How does your lucrative side hustle — DJing — feed into your work? How does your work feed into your side hustle?
My side hustle was actually my full-time hustle for a long time. I started DJing in New York around 1997 as a fun hobby, and it just so happened that Lenny Kravitz was at the second gig ever did in New York. He approached me, said he loved my music and asked if I wanted to play the album release party for his breakout album “5.”
Someone at that party asked me to DJ his club the next week. I accepted, and so went the next 20 years of my life!
Once I got married and had a child, I didn’t really want to be on the road as much. This opportunity to work for Gray V full time came up, and I jumped at the chance.
DJing is basically curating a night for a bunch of crazed dancers night after night, so the transition from DJing to music curation wasn’t a large stretch. It helps to be curious, respectful, a scholar and, most importantly, completely in love with ALL types of music from every genre and era.
7. If you were curating a playlist of your life, what 5-10 songs would it include?
This changes daily, but as of this moment, I’d say:
- Digable Planets – ”Jettin’”
- Stevie Wonder – ”Jesus Children of America”
- Crazy P – “One True Light”
- Jems! – ”Flights”
- John Coltrane – ”Giant Steps”
- Sault – ”WIldfires”
- Eurythmics – ”Beethoven (I love to Listen to)”
- Brenda Russell – ”Lucky”
- Yaya Bey – ”Chasing the Bus”
- AC/DC – ”A Shot in the Dark”
