Derrick Hodge

Derrick Hodge is one of our moment’s most complete and complex musicians. A prolific composer,
musical director, bandleader, producer bassist and advocate, Hodge has played on some of music’s most
iconic albums, written & performed breakthrough orchestral arrangements and compositions, scored an
impressive catalogue of film and television work and created evocative sonic installations for prestigious
cultural institutions, all alongside his work as an activist in the field of emerging young musicians. To date
he has been awarded two Grammys, named a Sundance Composer Fellow, received the Motif Award;
one of Nation’s highest honors for Child Advocacy, and his playing on Common's “BE” has been officially
recognized as one of top 20 basslines in Hip Hop History.
Hodge describes his career as “speaking existence into possibility”; driven by a passion for music rather
than genre, he is an artist defined only by his multiplicity. As lauded a composer as he is revered as one
of THE great bassists and musicians of his generation, he is critically acclaimed across genres and
mediums and boasts a diverse and devoted global audience. Growing up just outside Philadelphia,
Hodge’s talent was quickly recognised by the luminaries of the city’s neo-soul movement, and whilst still
in college he became the bass player and Musical Director of choice for pioneers including Jill Scott,
Maxwell, Floetry, Nas, Common, James Posyer and Musiq Soulchild. Simultaneously he was forging a
career in jazz circles with the likes of other legendary musicians including Terence Blanchard, Donald
Byrd, Mulgrew Miller and Bootsie Barnes while also holding a star place in his university’s orchestra.
The trust and admiration Hodge commands among musicians - and the expertise he commands in his
craft - is unparalleled, and has seen him play a foundational role in a wealth of groundbreaking projects.
In 2014 Hodge became the first Black composer to compose Hip Hop for the National Symphony when he
acted as Orchestral Arranger and Music Director for the iconic event “20th anniversary celebration of
Illmatic” which saw Nas perform the album with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Steven
Reineke’. The event - which was named by FENDER as one of the top moments in Hip Hop history - was
also the first time Hip Hop was ever performed by the National Symphony and at the Kennedy Center.
Tellingly, Hodge has been the ‘first’ many times in his career: including being the first Black composer to
write strings for Hip Hop at Carnegie Hall (as Arranger for Mos Def in the venue’s first full Hip Hop show
in 2008),and the first black composer to write symphonic music for Hip Hop with the Houston Symphony
(as Creative Director & Arranger for Common with the Houston Symphony in 2019),
This habit of breaking new ground and forging new paths hints at how significant a cultural force Hodge is
in ways beyond music. In 2017 he was commissioned by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African
American History and Culture to write the installation music that accompanies their permanent exhibit
about Oak’s Bluff: “The Power of Place”. The exhibition explores how place is something defined as much
by people as by geography, and how Oak’s Bluff became a place of collective imagining, struggle,
achievement and freedom for a burgeoning African American community. Hodge went on to compose for
“Social Dance” - part of the NMAAHC’s seminal ‘Cultural Expressions’ floor, which explores African
American and African diaspora culture - and for their “Making A Way” exhibit, which pays tribute to the
creativity, agency and resilience with which individual African Americans crafted opportunity and
possibility in the face of racial oppression.
Throughout his life, Hodge has devoted himself to projects that elevate and animate the African American
legacy: the struggle but also - always - the poetry and the triumph too. It is this ability to honor and
advance both culture and people that is the principle thread which weaves together Hodge’s work.
This is equally apparent in Hodge’s impressive portfolio of film composition. He has scored and
composed for for a plethora of small and big screen work, including ‘The Black Candle’; the first full length

film about KWANZAA, narrated by Ms. Maya Angelou, ‘Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock’ and ‘Fauberg
Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans’, and has been music consultant and musician on many
more, including the 2020 hit ‘The Photograph’ starring Issae Rae. Whilst Hodge often lends his talents to
the specific set of cinema and storytelling which chronicles America’s Blackness; he is an artist who is
deftly attuned to humanity and so his music is uniquely awake to the universal nuances of the human
experience. This is why, perhaps, he has found such universal acclaim and appreciation: his music tells
stories that are simultaneously of A people, and of THE people. He bridges gaps between worlds as well
as genres, making him an exceptional musical foil for the big screen as well as a potent and important
voice for our era.
As a performer, Hodge has founded and played in bands and groups as diverse and as influential as
R+R=Now, the Robert Glasper Experiment and The Blue Note All Stars, as a producer he has
collaborated with icons including Quincy Jones, Don Was and Common and as Musical Director he has
worked with luminaries including Yasiin Bey, Nas, and notably held the position with Maxwell from 2009 to
2019. As a Blue Note Recording Artist Hodge has released three critically acclaimed solo projects: Live
Today (2013), The Second (2016), and Color Of Noize (2020). His albums are rich, raw and revelatory -
reflecting everything from his roots in the church to an undercurrent of hiphop and eternal reverence for
melody and classical composition.
The Color Of Noize project is Hodge’s signature concept-series, bringing together contrasting sounds,
styles and set-ups to create an immersive and inherently transcendent audio-visual experience. It is also
particularly close to Hodge’s heart as it opens up not just his music, but also his mission: to create a new,
free space for music whilst also championing his community of both established and emerging musicians.
More than an album, The Color Of Noize is an ongoing commitment to artistic excellence and inclusion, in
particular the creation of opportunities and broadening of horizons for inner city youth. He first premiered
Color of Noize in 2019 as part of his Artist Residency at Monterey Jazz Festival, where Hodge brought
together a collection of musicians, some as young as 4, on stage with him to explore his original
compositions in a remarkably moving and beautiful concert. As he puts it “it was never just my potential
that made things happen; it was my community advocating for me - now I want to advocate for others, to
pass that on”.
This is the natural progression for an Artist whose career has always been as rooted in meaning as it is in
music: Hodge’s body of work speaks to a sense of social responsibility that he carries as keenly as his
creativity. Whether collaborating with giants, writing for the big screen, forging new paths for orchestral
composition, or creating outreach projects like providing access to his symphonic scores and original
arrangements to HBCUs & inner-city Music Programs, his work has the telltale trademark of always
provoking social commentary, awareness or insight. Here we find the fundamental character of Hodge; an
incurably hopeful and humble man, who, through his work and his art, has made the world a definitively
more beautiful place.