For DePaul students, the music industry isn’t something they’re waiting to enter: it’s something they’re already shaping. DePaul School of Music students majoring in performing arts management, commonly known as PAM, will now take part in building a record label for their required practicum. Students within the major pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree need to take a designated class that provides real-world experience in a classroom setting from sophomore year until they graduate.

Since autumn quarter, 12 students and their two professors, Roger Jansen and Ronald Inawat, have been leading the way in creating Blue Demon Records, a student record label.

R&B singer Kayliah Love Motes, who won DePaul’s Music Business Organization’s Battle of the Bands last year, signed with Blue Demon Records in the first couple weeks of the class. The label is currently in recording her album and working to sign its second artist. 

Before the 2025 school year, the practicum had students working in the School of Music’s Performance Center, where they would work in the box office, selling tickets, ushering and waiting on standby to set up shows. 

One of the first students to take the new course, senior Ally Johnson feels the class relates to her desired career path more than the previous practicum requirement, which had her work in the performance office making show programs. 

“There’s the payoff of so much growth and learning as an individual student, but also as a collaborative effort between us 12 students and our two professors,” she said.

The dozen students are divided into different departments such as social media and marketing, public relations, artist relations, production, distribution, publishing and live music. 

Jansen, who was also involved with Columbia College’s student-run record label, wanted to incorporate the idea at DePaul for students who wanted to work outside live events and more on the business side of music. He brought the concept to the program’s director, Alan Salzenstein, and the dean of the School of Music, John Milbauer.

“The School of Music really liked the idea, and they spearheaded it faster than anything I have seen at the School of Music,” Inawat said.

He was approached to bring the idea to life with Jansen, as he would bring his legal knowledge of the music business to the table, while Jansen specializes in artist management as well as music business practices.

“From conception to materializing it to an actual class, it wasn’t even a year,” Jansen said. 

At the beginning of autumn quarter, each student pitched an artist they believed Blue Demon Records should sign. Then after taking a vote, they contacted the artist to see if they were interested.

“We don’t have history to point to where we can say, ‘We’ve done this for this artist,’ so obviously we are not coming in with any credibility, but what we are coming in with is our resources,” Jansen said. 

The record label collaborates with DePaul’s sound recording technology department to record the artist’s songs or album. If the songs are not fully written, Blue Demon Records will connect the artist with cowriters and producers for them to hit their goal.

“Once it’s out there, we’re treating you like a record label should,” Inawat said.

Once the album is done, it is released through digital distribution, through a company that is owned by Sony Music Entertainment. “These are things any artist would otherwise pay for, but we are offering the services for free and I think that’s what we were able to present to some of these artists,” Jansen said. 

Gabe Feinberg, a sophomore who started to fulfill his practicum requirement in the fall, said the record label class is “telling of the upward trajectory that the music school and the PAM program is taking.” 

“For me, the momentum has been really exciting to navigate especially with upperclassmen and faculty, dealing with DePaul legal departments, branding, and really going through all of the steps especially as if we were a major record label,” Feinberg said.

Jansen added, “All in the different components that record labels engage in with their artists, we are currently building all of those departments in our little DePaul label.” 

The practicum plans to sign a new artist at the beginning of each school year, with the second quarter dedicated to recording the album. In the third quarter, the label plans to release and promote it with the long-term goal of building a roster and eventually showcasing all the artists.

“This isn’t just the future for DePaul, but a new and thriving touch point for local music,” Johnson said.

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