Danielle 'Queen D.' Scott Named Assistant Chair of Ensembles

Berklee has named Danielle “Queen D.” Scott assistant chair of the Ensemble Department, a position she began earlier this month. Scott, a Berklee alumna, was the first female MC in the college’s pioneering Jazz Hip-Hop Orchestra as a student. She made Berklee history as the first MC to teach at the institution when she joined the faculty in 2006. 

As an assistant professor, Scott developed two hip-hop courses centered around women and social change, and recently codirected campus tribute concerts for honorary doctorate recipients Sylvia Rhone and Missy Elliott. 

Scott’s talent and expertise has taken her around the world as an educator and artist, teaching master classes and workshops in hip-hop history and lyrical analysis as well as R&B and hip-hop vocal performance. She roots her teaching in the appreciation and examination of cultural context that challenges her students to investigate art beyond technique, expanding their creative expression through deep understanding and integrity. 

Scott deftly combines her classical background as a pianist, her fluency in technology and production, and her lifelong fascination with wordplay to fully immerse anyone in her orbit in lyrical and musical storytelling. She is currently working on a new album exploring black feminine identity.

Watch Danielle “Queen D.” Scott perform "Invisible":