“Pass The Mic” Teaches Us How Innovation—And Bringing Joy—Hinges On Adaptability

DJ Cassidy’s reel

DJ Cassidy had played the music at Jay-Z and Beyonce’s wedding, P-Diddy’s 50th birthday party, and both of President Barack Obama’s inaugurations. And for the better part of a decade, Fred Brehm and Ian Park of Special Operations Studios (SOS) had been editing Cassidy’s music videos and behind-the-scenes footage.

It was a great career, performing at that level. But live events—or making videos about them—was instantly a bad business to be in when the COVID pandemic struck.

Instead of hunkering down to ride the storm out, Cassidy and SOS pivoted efforts spectacularly. And the results of that pivot are going to be on display tonight at the BET Hip Hop Awards, when the final episode of their viral video sensation Pass The Mic will air.

I’ve often written that innovation is primarily about adaptability. The leaders and organizations that go the distance—that don’t just get lucky but continually make their own luck—tend to be folks who are stubborn on vision but flexible on strategy. And the story of Pass The Mic is a terrific example of this.

Vision x Strategy

“Early in the pandemic, I had a vision of celebrating the everyday heroes around the world by connecting my musical heroes in the most intimate sing along of all time,” DJ Cassidy said.

Park added, “This was a time when none of us could go to shows, we couldn’t go see music, and on top of the pandemic raging, we had lost the very thing that brought so many people joy.”

DJ Cassidy’s vision was a “sing-along” show where famous musicians would videoconference in from their homes and sing together. Cassidy would mix their music together in a continuous, 30-minute flow of performers joining in and out. Ultimately, the vision was to shine positivity out into the world during such dark times.

Turns out, this was not so simple. In those early days of COVID, many of us were not as used to video calls as we are now. And getting high-quality video and audio from a star’s home is still not so simple as flipping on Zoom. To get the music to match up and sound great, Cassidy and SOS had to deploy camera operators in N95 masks to mega-stars’ homes to set up live recording.

Putting together a celebrity sing-along was a surprising slog the SOS team recalls—“We had, like, Bobby Brown or Big Daddy K having wifi problems,” Park said, and, adds Brehm, “LL Cool J was having problems connecting his airpods…”—but the result was an instant hit.

“We did one episode, and the reactions were insane,” said Park. “People were saying, ‘I just lost my kid, I haven’t smiled in a month, and for these 30 minutes I was just beaming.’”

BET quickly came knocking, offering to turn Pass The Mic into a series.

Now, tasked with upping the ante, the SOS team had to solve even more technical challenges. But, they say, it was the vision of bringing joy to musical fans during the pandemic that kept them going—and made it possible to adapt quickly even when it was hard.

“It’s such a simple project on paper,” Park said, “but the fact that the genres were changing, the CDC rules where changing, vaccination statuses were changing, and every episode had something that was changed—in any other time this could have been done so much more easily.”

“—except for the scheduling,” Brehm added. “It would have been impossible in any other scenario.”

This is why, now that pandemic restrictions have loosened and musical artists’ schedules are getting busy again, Pass The Mic ends tonight on the BET Hip Hop Awards. (For now.)

DJ Cassidy and the SOS team still have the vision of bringing joy to audiences through music. During that moment in time when live events weren’t possible, they pivoted and created something wonderful.

Shane Snow is author of Dream Teams and CEO of the film tech company SHOWRUNNER.