Hey! I'm Kaj Johnson,
and I'm a Dartmouth alumnus driven by data analytics, digital culture, and ethnomusicology. My foci within Dartmouth's Cognitive Science and Music departments have offered me a creative outlook that is informed by linguistics, computer science, and the humanities.I‘ve engaged in musicology research as an assistant to Professor William Cheng, where I addressed questions regarding music and ethics within modern-day listenership. I’ve also conducted semantics research with Dartmouth's Cognitive Science Lab, PhilLab, and worked in both large-scale and startup arts environments in marketing capacities. My senior year, I served as the president of Panarchy, a fraternity-turned-undergraduate society serving artistic and primarily LGBT+ Dartmouth students.I'm currently an Associate at PwC's New York office. I'm also a freelance writer for Carbon Sound, a new publication from Minnesota Public Radio dedicated to Black musicality in Minneapolis and beyond. Send me an email if you'd like to learn more!Cheers,
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"And that's not even getting into the song itself, which is nothing short of sublime. The perky and playful verses make way for a soaring chorus that emphasizes Usher's graceful, effortless tenor. The drama and buzz of the whole situation could have compensated for a middle-of-the-road song, but it didn't need to: the track is one of Usher's strongest releases in recent years."
Keke Palmer and Usher Seize the Moment on "Boyfriend", 2023
"Bigoted attitudes make Uzi’s nonbinary presentation an easy target for mockery, painting them as a harmless purse-wearer and kawaii-lover even when faced with serious assault allegations. (And, as they make clear in the first line of Pink Tape, the gay rumors are categorically false.) Flattening queer-presenting people as cute but harmless individuals does not only serve to put queer expression into a box, but it also protects queer abusers from being held accountable for their actions – and allows rappers like Uzi to get away with larger-than-life publicity stunts that obfuscate the ugly truth. [...] Until hip-hop and the broader music industry can see queer people as people, inherently worthy of respect but also capable of violence, testimonies like Brittany Byrd’s will continue to be swept under the rug.
Lil Uzi Vert’s Skeletons in the (Glass) Closet, 2023
"But the word 'play' can have a troubling double-meaning, one that extends beyond free experimentation and creative exploration. Silliness. Uncalculated, impromptu behavior. Doing something just because, like kids smashing their fingers on a piano and shrieking at the dissonance. Contrary to these perceptions, these artists weren’t here to waste the audience’s time with anything that was half-baked or self-indulgent. Their play was to perform freely, in ways that promoted excitement and unconventionality."
Local Artists Break Ground at The Playground Experience, 2022
"It was disappointing to see how social media trends can give artists an obligation, be it contractual or subconscious, to perform certain songs in lieu of others. Just as choosing to invite certain performers to a music festival is a political act, choosing songs that have passed the test of “virality” has political and cultural implications for the kind of music that is made, consumed, and re-made. Even the alternative, critically-minded ethos of Pitchfork can’t evade the omnipresent impact of TikTok trends and hashtagged dance challenges."
Nine Standouts from Pitchfork Music Festival, 2022
"Rhymesayers Entertainment, a multiracial hip-hop collective founded in 1995, revolutionized national perceptions of hip-hop music at a time when the rivalries of East and West Coast rap scenes rendered Black musicmaking in 'the middle' all but invisible. [...] Their national success affirms the possibility of hip-hop flourishing everywhere in America – even in places written off as inconsequential to Black music and culture."
Plant Something on That Ground, 2021
"If I learned anything [...], it was that even the most steadfast rules of Western music are allowed to be broken. It just helps having a group of like-minded composers, innovative collaborators, and musical friends who will break them with you."
Taking the Silkroad to new artistic futures, 2020
"[The Stretch] takes topics covered in class and spatializes them, empowering students to master field techniques while strengthening their understandings of the shaping of North America and the larger world."