Community Remix Lab

A growing community of artists co-creating what ethical remixing looks like — in NYC and around the world.

The Problem

Modern remixing has exploded over the past two decades. With it has come a quiet pattern: producers sampling traditional music from the Global Majority without consent, without compensation, and without relationship. The source musicians remain invisible. The legal frameworks we have — copyright, even Creative Commons — can ensure consent and payment, but they cannot produce relationship. And without relationship, "remix" too often means extraction.

What We're Building

The Community Remix Lab is Remix ⟷ Culture (RC)'s answer. It's not a finished framework handed down from above — it's a regular, hands-on practice where artists learn to remix Global Majority music ethically: with consent, with credit, with shared authorship, with fair compensation.

Two initiatives. Two communities. One archive.

Through regular gatherings — in person in NYC, and virtually with artists worldwide — participants work with sample packs from RC's open-access archive, recorded in partnership with nearly 200 traditional musicians from 14 countries across 5 continents. Every gathering deepens our collective understanding of what ethical remixing actually looks like in practice. Selected remixes are released through RC's catalog, with revenue shared between the remix artist, the source musician, and RC.

This is how "Fair Trade" became a recognizable standard in coffee, chocolate, and clothing. We believe ethical remixing can become the same kind of standard in music — but only if it is collectively built, in community, over time.

Monthly in-person gatherings in NYC, produced in partnership with Sound Collective and EboStudio.

Remix Our Neighbors (RoN) invites NYC-based artists into RC's ethical remixing practice. Each monthly five-hour gathering brings together a different cohort of 10 participants at Sound Collective in Manhattan to work with audio-visual sample packs drawn from RC's ethical archive. Each gathering will focus on a pairing of musical traditions performed by NYC-based Global Majority musicians from Palestine, Colombia, Guinea, Morocco, Haiti, Syria, Iran, Senegal, Peru, the Occaneechi-Saponi Nation, and more.

Participants remix this material using EboSuite — a game-changing software developed by EboStudio that brings advanced video remixing capabilities directly into Ableton Live. With EboSuite, participants can create audio-visual remix loops where sound and image are fused into a single expressive medium. By the end of each gathering, every participant will have created one or more audio-visual remix loops — a beat, a melody, a bass line, a hook.

These loops don't disappear into a hard drive. They become part of a growing library of community-generated content that will be featured at the end-of-year Remix Our Neighbors Live Experience. Two participants will be selected to perform their work live, in front of a large NYC audience, and compensated as paid performing artists. This is what makes RoN different from a workshop: you don't just learn a skill. You contribute to a community art project. And you might be the artist who takes it to the stage.

Apply by June 1, 2026 to be considered for the first gathering is June 12, 2026. NYC residents only. No production experience required.

Regular virtual gatherings, open to remix artists worldwide.

The Global Remix Commons (GRC) extends the ethical remixing practice beyond NYC. Each virtual gathering mirrors the cross-cultural focus of its Remix Our Neighbors counterpart, opening the conversation to remix artists, producers, and music-makers around the globe — with particular invitation to artists from the Global Majority and those already working with non-Western musical traditions.

Launching in late summer 2026.