Berklee Dean Joins Creative Team of Disneys Ariel Sean Skeete, interim dean of the Professional Performance Division, talks about his role as Caribbean music consultant for the new animated series.
By
Daniel Pesquera
June 29, 2023
Image by Adam Renn Olenn
Sean Skeete, interim dean of the Professional Performance Division, has proven over the years that authenticity and integrity are essential for any successful musical venture. With this foundational belief, Skeete now takes on a new endeavor as part of the creative team for the newly announced Disney Junior series Ariel.
Following the success of Disneys live-action movie remake of The Little Mermaid, the new animated show, like the film, will spotlight a Black lead character and celebrate Caribbean culture. Skeete has been tapped to serve on Ariels creative team as its Caribbean music consultant.
Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Skeetes musical journey began at the age of 3, playing songs at his fathers church. He immersed himself in studying and practicing diverse genres, including Caribbean styles, jazz, and R&B. This dedication led to a full scholarship at Berklee, where he earned a degree in professional music. Over the past two decades, Skeete has shared stages with Take 6, CeCe Winans, Raul Mid n, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Pops.
We had the opportunity to speak with Skeete about his new role, his views on representation and equity in mainstream art and music, and how he navigates these matters as both an educator and an artist at Berklee.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Congratulations on earning the job for the new Ariel series. How did you become involved in the project? I got connected through Berklee alum Trisha Hildebrandt [B.M. '14], who has been working with a production team at Disney under the vice president of Disney Music. He reached out to me through Trisha's recommendation looking for someone with expertise on Caribbean culture and Caribbean music.
Can you talk about what your role as a consultant entails? I mostly help with the music, but also with the script adding cultural context and also helping them with slang, foods, cultural practices, and that detailed information. Most of my work, about 75 to 80 percent, is spent working on music.
I've sent them over a hundred musical examples. Some from certain periods of Caribbean music, some from a certain isle, others in a certain style. I'm trying to give them a lot of ideas on how they can build out the big hits for the series, but also for the music in each scene. I'm suggesting different instrumentation, different tempo, a different type of feel, or using a more acoustic sound than an electronically produced sound. I've had fun offering that to the project.
Is this your first foray into this kind of work for a television show, movie, or other series? This is my first experience [of this kind], and I'm hoping there will be other opportunities that follow. Knowing that my name would be on the screen and that I have influence, my question to [the Disney team] was what does success look like? They said success is your imprint on the show. I feel very comfortable and confident in what I've offered them based on my experience, because the hope was to give it a more authentic look and feel. They're going to Disney-ify it for the young audience that they're catering to but nonetheless, being able to contribute a level of authenticity to the music and the culture, to be able to speak to the young people that they're serving, that's really rewarding and important. There was a lot of emphasis [by the Disney team] on not wanting this to be appropriation or a bad representation [of Caribbean culture]. My role is to try to help guide the creative process and avoid those stereotypes.
The new Little Mermaid movie has made headlines both positive and controversial for Ariel being portrayed by a Black actress, Halle Bailey. The Disney Junior animated series will also feature a Black female protagonist in the role of Ariel. Can you describe what it means to you personally to see this representation in a classic like The Little Mermaid? My feelings [on this] can be complex at times. I think there should be more representation of people of color, but also in culture and [representation that is] not limited to certain types of roles and certain types of stories. We need more authenticity and more context [in representation], and a little less of the stereotypes of roles that we typically see Blacks and people of color in. For example, we do not see a lot of Black actors in epic films like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, these big blockbuster series. We have come a ways, but we have a ways to go. Disney has a particularly difficult history when it comes to racism and blackface, and I was actually hesitant to get involved knowing that history. But when I met with the producer, an African American woman, I saw her desire to make it more authentic and it really impacted me.
I think there are two sides of it. There's the production and movie house side where they need to insist on telling these stories, doing them the right way, and offering them to the community. And from the public side, we need to be intentional about letting the movie houses know we want to see more representation.
Disney Junior's Ariel highlights Caribbean culture, and the producers have pulled consultants with diverse backgrounds to make sure this is done right. From your lens as the interim dean of the Professional Performance Division, can you talk about the importance of diversity when it comes to creating meaningful musical projects and performances? I think it's the world that the students live in and will be going into, as the arts industry is very diverse. Students [when they enter Berklee] are
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Berklee Dean Joins Creative Team of Disneys Ariel Sean Skeete, interim dean of the Professional Performance Division, talks about his role as Caribbean music consultant for the new animated series.
