Meet the students behind ‘The Rutgers Anthem’

Uniting the Rutgers community one anthem at a time

As a musician myself, I know it can be extremely difficult to make music that resonates with people all across the board. You can make music for yourself all you want, but it won’t end up meaning much or making an impact unless it makes a connection with your audience. That was the objective for Senior Communications student Kennedy Hart and Junior Biology student Sara Sayed.

At the beginning of the semester, with the help of graduating senior Dan Toth – who aided in the recording, vocal production, and mixing/mastering – Kennedy and Sara put out “The Rutgers Anthem” which has without doubt captured the attention of both the Rutgers staff and student body.

 

Kennedy says he’s been around music his entire life stating, “the liberating feeling of making music is so uplifting and it’s even better when I can share my music with other people, because I know it has an affect on them”. Being from a Jamaican family, he has always played music around the house growing up, and says that Reggae has an affect on his style.

The same seems to go for Sara. Also having grown up in a musical family, she explained that hearing her parents sing inspired her to sing as well. Starring in her first musical when she was in just 8th grade, Sara went on to perform in every musical for her high school since then, and has won various awards through different organizations and performances for her abilities as a singer.

The song came about after Kennedy had previously made an anthem for his high school, and thought it would be great to do another one for such a big college like Rutgers. While talking about the inspiration behind the song he said, “We wanted to make a song for people who are coming to this school, people who already go to this school, the sports teams, the faculty, and just unify everyone and make everyone happy, but at the same time keeping it raw and authentic.”

The two musicians met at a show in which they were both performing, and Kennedy knew she would be perfect to sing the hook for the song.

Once the song was made, Kennedy said he knew he had to talk to university representatives in order for the song to get as big as he wanted it to. These ambitions eventually lead him to student affairs where Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Dr. Felicia McGinty, and Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Dr. Salvador Mena, shared their vision for the song and were instrumental in how they went about crafting the rough demo into the anthem that it is today.

The song, now on YouTube for your viewing pleasure, has been getting a lot of positive feedback from the student body. Sara says she has had strangers come up to her saying how much they love the song and even how they could imagine it being played on the radio.

Kennedy and Sara have performed the song live on a few occasions –  such as the student involvement fair as well as the State of the Division of Student Affairs Address – and have a few more performances in the works which I encourage everyone to attend.

The pair also says they are gearing up to make a music video for the song which will allow it to continue spreading farther and farther across the community.

Listen to the song here:

Follow Kennedy and Sara on social media to stay updated on their performances:

Sara Sayed
IG: @Saratheegyptian
Twitter: @saratheegyptian
Facebook.com/saratheegyptian (Sara Sayed Music)
Youtube.com/Lalila100

Kennedy Hart
IG: @kohsb
Twitter: @kohsb
Facebook.com/Kingofhartsfans (Kennedy Hart Music)
Youtube.com/theofficialkoh

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