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"The Digital Media Center for the Arts was paradise. It allowed me to dive head-first into a number of fantastic projects that still influence me today."
While at the DMCA, Wills completed his first radio documentary, Son of Sun: A Delta Blues Documentary. The documentary was comprised of recordings that he captured while living in the Mississippi Delta. He compiled, edited, and mastered the recordings at the DMCA. After graduating Wills continued his documentary work in the audio studios at Smithsonian Folkways.
Another mainstay of his the work at the DMCA was founding The Yale Sessions. The project is a recording initiative that brings together Yale musicians annually to record an album of new music. Their first record was an amalgamation of bossanova, hip-hop, and jazz which represented Wills' first experience as an executive-producer.
Wills is currently working as a co-producer for AfroPop Worldwide on Public Radio International. He also recently interviewed fellow Yalie, Jon Cohen, for a four-part radio-series on Bob Dylan hosted by Patti Smith. Building on field recording skills that that Wills developed with Lee Faulker at the DMCA, Wills traveled in February of 2008 to West Africa where he gathered music and sound in cooperation with CARE International in Ghana, Togo, and Benin. Besides his work in radio and field recording, Wills is now helping produce a Mississippi Delta Blues concert series in conjunction with 651 ARTS in Brooklyn.
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