For more than 15 years now, the Red Bull Music Academy has been exploring music beyond the beat. One of the founding members, Torsten Schmidt, then an editor-at-large and scribe for various German titles and newspapers, co-created Yadastar to explore the spaces, where inspiration strikes - and knowledge from all niches of expertise finds the right new hungry minds. Their operation services events in more than 100 countries. In order to do so, they delve into local niche cultures around the globe, welcoming the brightest minds to Team Yadastar, whose headquarters are in Cologne and Berlin. Over the years, they have worked on longterm cultural initiatives with a.o. Adidas, BCG, Daimler, the Cities of Barcelona and Madrid, T-Mobile and the German Aerospace Agency DLR.

2014 saw the release of the What difference does it make? film about making music in the 21st century and the For The Record book. RBMA hosts its annual monthlong conference in Tokyo, as well as various weekenders and festival stages around the world, including another full month of programming in New York City during May.