Musical entrepreneurship
Music is one of the defining threads of Badamo’s Penn State experience, Badamo said. While building a band, titled Jaaye, with friends, they simultaneously built their own student run record label and music industry club, Penn State Music Group.
“We built everything ourselves — we’re not signed to a label,” Badamo said. “We created our own LLC to collect royalties, handle distribution and manage merch, so we really learned the full business side of music while making it. At the same time, we just live and breathe it — whether it’s recording, playing shows or helping other student artists.”
From lending their house to fellow artists to record to having conversations with professionals in the industry, Badamo said he wanted to build something new at Penn State.
“When we got to Penn State, we realized there wasn’t really anything focused on the music industry side of things. There were performance groups and festivals, but nothing teaching students how the business actually works,” he said. “So, we decided to build something that combined our interest in business with music and actually created opportunities for other students.”
For Badamo, having a passion is not just fun — it’s vital. And, he said, music has been a huge part of his time at Penn State.
“We live and breathe music. We record for other student bands, we play shows and we’ve built a whole ecosystem around it. It’s not just a hobby — it’s something we do constantly. It’s not just something we do on the side — it’s a huge part of how we spend our time and what we care about,” he said.
Rhapsody in research
Combining his love for music and research, he focused his Schreyer thesis on music.
“My thesis is about A&R — artists and repertoire — and whether talent scouting teams can use machine learning and data analytics to predict how successful certain releases might be, or which demographics might be most lucrative for an artist,” he said.
The idea came to him when talking to a professional in the industry for his club, he said.
“A few years ago, I met someone in the talent scouting side of the music industry, and he explained how labels are increasingly using data to find artists — who’s blowing up on TikTok, who’s trending, and why,” he said. “That conversation made me realize there was so much more to explore about how machine learning could support A&R.”
While inspiring his research, he said, it also helped him to learn to reach out to others.
“I always tell students to use the title of ‘student’ anywhere you can — it can walk you through so many doors. I met managers and industry reps who work with big name artists just because I reached out as a student,” he said.
His thesis adviser, Ferdi Eruysal, assistant clinical professor of supply chain and information systems, said Badamo’s intellectual depth was clear from the start. Meeting in his spring 2024 MIS 301: Business Analytics course, Badamo showed passion in information systems.
“I have been honored to work with Hunter throughout his thesis process, during which he exceeded my expectations,” Eruysal said. “He is a true professional with exceptional communication skills, strong work ethic and intellectual maturity.”