Curtis Sullivan ’28, a junior from Boston, is also known as the rapper Mo Knowledge. Many may know his music from performances here at Milton, including this year’s Transitions Beatnik and his Martin Luther King Day performance last year. Sullivan has integrated his art and sound into the Milton community, and recently released three singles on Spotify, Apple Music, and TikTok.
When he was younger, Sullivan’s passion for music grew from the hours of old-school hip-hop his father played while driving him to school. He would “learn the lyrics” of rap songs by artists such as Nas and Rakim, who influenced the music he listens to and makes now. In middle school, he started playing the cello and got involved in classical music. Sullivan admits, however, that he has “always had aspirations around hip-hop” and “always kept thinking about it.”
Then Sullivan came to Milton Academy; “[Milton] was the space for me to branch out and find people, and it was what I needed to be able to start making my own music,” Sullivan explained. He values students like Ime Ebong ’28, who often collaborate with him, and highlighted that Ebong was “one of the main people who helped [him] out” to express himself through music.
Last summer, Sullivan interned at the Boston Music Project, which gave him the chance to learn how to put music together, record, layer beats, perform, and cover songs for larger crowds. “That was a really cool opportunity,” said Sullivan. The internship let him network and boost his publicity, but more importantly, let him publish his own music. His first song, “To Whom It May Concern,” was released on streaming platforms on August 24. After his debut, he was featured on a song by fellow internship attendee Deurick Gomes.
From his bedroom, Sullivan self-recorded on a microphone and worked on computer software for mixing and mastering. When writing songs, he would also reach out to others to make beats for him. More recently, though, Sullivan is also “exploring his producer side, trying to put together some of his own beats.” Specifically, Sullivan noted that, though he likes “sampling older songs and putting them together, it’s hard to put it on streaming because it’s not your own stuff.” Thus, Sullivan approaches sampling by finding others who play an instrument and asking them to send him a melody or beat. This tactic avoids copyright issues.
When it comes to writing lyrics and coming up with ideas, Sullivan’s process isn’t linear. Ideas usually come from “creative sparks.” He would find himself in class or in the car and “think about something crazy”; then, he would write the thoughts down in his notebook and “come back to [them] later, so [the idea would keep] sparking.” For example, his song “To Whom It May Concern” transpired from a thought while he was in the shower listening to J. Cole. Later that day, Sullivan composed most of the song, thriving on that “spark.” He described these rushes as “feeling a certain, creative way, like you’re observing everything that’s going around you, but you’re looking inside [of the observations] and making quantum leaps.”
Yet being an artist doesn’t come without deterrents and difficulties. As a Milton student, Sullivan finds it hard to make time for music. Despite his busy schedule, he works on music during free periods, maintaining consistency. On weekends, he posts freestyles or small clips on TikTok, in addition to honing his craft.
Sullivan describes his musical voice as still evolving; he says that every day he tests and freestyles something new. “A huge inspiration for my music is being Puerto Rican and black. In one of my songs, I talked about being black in the U.S. and how we’ve got to stick together against the negative connotations against us.” Sullivan also strives to incorporate messages of self-identity and confidence: “[to be] yourself authentically, to be free, and [to] not care about what others think.” Sullivan makes the music because he “wants to inspire people, motivate them in the best ways, and let them know that they’re not alone.”