Faculty

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Jason King is the Dean of the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles. He has been described as one of the most innovative figures at the intersection of music, education, media and cultural curation. A polymath with wide-ranging expertise over the past 25 years—as a scholar, journalist, producer, author, performer, filmmaker and curator—King has been called a groundbreaking force in contemporary music education and creative leadership.

Before arriving at USC, King was a founding faculty member, chair and longtime leader at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. There, he helped build the program from the ground up, serving in roles that included artistic director, director of global studies, and director of writing, history and emergent media. He launched international initiatives like “Future Pop Music Studies” in Berlin and developed signature programs including the free high-school pipeline Future Music Moguls. Throughout his time at NYU, he brought hundreds of artists and cultural leaders to campus—from Pharrell Williams and Alicia Keys to 100 gecs and Blood Orange—and curated high-impact conferences and festivals like “The Making of Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions” and “Sylvester: The Life and Work of a Musical Icon.” His numerous live concert and festival productions include “Club Classics Live!” at Central Park SummerStage.

King also produced Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ 2023 “Summer for the City” opening night concert—a tribute to Sylvester—which he conceived, directed and music-supervised. He has long served as music curator and orchestrator for concerts tied to his programming work, and has worked closely with legendary performers and emerging innovators alike.

At USC Thornton, King has launched a number of new initiatives, including the Dean’s Creative Vanguard, a program that brings cutting-edge innovators like Raphael Saadiq to campus for long-term engagement. This past year, he collaborated with the family of Quincy Jones and the Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective to produce a yearlong tribute to Jones, featuring artists like Patti Austin, Ledisi and Greg Phillinganes. In 2025, he partnered with USC Vice Dean Josh Kun to present “After the Flames: The Role of the Artist in Climate Justice and Sustainable Change,” a campus-wide Earth Day symposium.

King is also the longtime host and keynote producer of the annual Pop Conference, which he brought to Los Angeles for the first time. Under his curatorial vision, the conference has featured luminaries such as George Clinton, Steve Perry, Alanis Morissette, Justin Tranter, Ravyn Lenae, Youssou N’Dour, Arooj Aftab and Dua Lipa.

As a journalist and cultural critic, King has written extensively for outlets including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Slate, Billboard, The Village Voice, Buzzfeed, The Root, Quartz, Spin, Vice and Vibe. His academic work includes essays on Prince, Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “Apesh*t,” and the politics of Drake’s “Toosie Slide,” and he’s been invited to speak at Harvard, Yale, The Juilliard School, Stanford, and beyond.

King spent more than a decade as a contributor to NPR Music, where he served as host and co-producer of Noteworthy, a flagship documentary video series featuring Alicia Keys, Miguel, Maxwell, Banks and Anthony Hamilton. His profile of Dua Lipa for Noteworthy was her first-ever American media interview and helped launch her U.S. career. He also curated and hosted NPR’s 24/7 soul music stream NPRandB, and hosted Pop Talks, an interview series with artists like Moses Sumney, Holly Herndon, Victoria Monét and Dua Lipa.

King has also hosted or appeared in numerous television and streaming documentaries. His credits include HBO’s Yacht Rock: A Rockumentary and Listening to Kenny G; Netflix’s This is Pop; A&E’s James Brown: Say It Loud; Showtime’s Rick James; the BAFTA- and Grammy-nominated Little Richard: I Am Everything; and Spike Lee’s Bad 25 and Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall. He has been a regular on CNN’s The 2010s, Soundtracks (produced by Dwayne Johnson), and American Style, and appeared in Henry Louis Gates’ Making Black America. He was also a consultant and featured voice in the Grammy-nominated PBS docuseries Soundbreaking.

His work in music management, production and strategy is equally expansive. He has served as artist manager and strategist for Jimmy Edgar, Asha Puthli and The Craig Lewis Band; worked as a consultant for Spotify and Vevo; and contributed brand strategy and expert testimony in high-profile legal cases involving Drake, Jay Z, Katy Perry, Madonna, 50 Cent and Lady Gaga. As creative director of his company Superlatude, he has produced or executive-produced recordings for artists like Sarah Dash of Labelle and Nile Rodgers collaborator Selan.

Classically trained in piano from a young age, King is also an artist in his own right. He was the creative force behind the New York–based dance band Company Freak, featuring original Chic singers Norma Jean Wright and Alfa Anderson. The group’s debut EP Le Disco Social featured remixes by global dance producers including Eli Escobar, Midnight Magic, Eric Kupper, DJ Spen and Opolopo.

As an author, he wrote The Michael Jackson Treasures, published in more than seven languages, and his writing on Michael Jackson was selected for Best Music Writing 2010, edited by Ann Powers. He has contributed liner notes for D’Angelo’s Voodoo (vinyl reissue) and a Luther Vandross collection.

King continues to expand into new media and curatorial platforms. He co-curated “The Hip-Hop Mixtape” exhibition at the Grammy Museum in 2023, served as consulting producer on 2024’s Piece by Piece, the Lego-driven Pharrell biopic directed by Morgan Neville, and co-wrote and executive produced Spotify’s Sound Barrier original podcast about disco icon Sylvester. In 2025, he will make his feature directorial debut in music documentary filmmaking.

King is a founding member of the Kennedy Center’s Hip-Hop Council, an inaugural member of The Black Genius Brain Trust, and serves on the advisory board of the Journal of Popular Music Studies.