Allison Harris Interview
Allison Harris is a social media producer for NPR member station KCUR, a columnist at Ringtone Mag, and a freelance music journalist. Allison's column at Ringtone focuses on fashion aesthetics in the world of internet music, and they have written extensively on how fashion and music intertwine.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I’ve always been an avid consumer of pop culture, and really grew into reading music journalism via obsessively checking Pitchfork scores while listening to music and not paying attention in high school. In college, I changed my major from Urban Planning to Communications, and began writing for my school paper. Then, through some connections on Twitter, I began writing for some blogs that cover niche internet music scenes, which would later become labeled (sometimes controversially) “hyperpop”. I felt I knew the most from this scene and was interested in the people creating music and coming together the same way I found out about the scene - through Twitter. I honed in on this scene, building a unique beat for myself, which I carved out in my writing for blogs like Bops and Flops, No Bells, and even my college paper when I could convince them my writing was relevant. Now, I am a social media producer for KCUR, Kansas City’s NPR member station, and freelance for websites like Ringtone Magazine, where I write a column about fashion aesthetics in the world of internet music, called Hautepop. In the coming year, I have a lot of ideas I’d like to flesh out about the connections between the worlds of music and fashion.
Did you have any mentors along the way? What did they teach you?