For over a decade, Rhythm Science Sound has worked to support our home neighborhood of Smoketown, our city of Louisville, and our wider state and region through meaningful arts, culture and education programming. We regularly offer a range of free or low-cost education and/or cultural events, providing community workshops, classes, pop up markets, music performances, dances, etc.

RSS has become known for our impactful, wide-ranging yet holistically integrated, combination of disciplines and creative fields. Weaving together creative technologies, deep cultural and historical learning through music, and a focus on community building, accessibility and inclusion. We are honored to have become known as good stewards of the powerful and vitally important musical and social legacies that our work connects with(jazz, soul, reggae, hip-hop, house music, etc). Indeed, it is this very act of successfully stewarding and transferring these musical legacies into future generations through the combination of all our activities at RSS, that is the true measure of our work. Seeds that we hope and pray will bear the essential fruits of joy, resilience, creativity and innovation into the future.

Co-founded and Co-operated by Scz and Jared Zarantoenllo, RSS is not a non-profit, but rather a small business/social enterprise leveraging our personal income from our creative labor as artists, teachers, DJs, music producers and designers to create what we feel are necessary cultural and educational resources and to share them with youth and community. Since officially establishing RSS in 2015, we've been committed to a financial model which has allowed us to slowly and incrementally build greater capacity and reach further into our community, while working towards greater self-sufficiency and sustainability for our activities. This has meant operating on a shoestring budget year after year, doing a lot with a little, and investing as much as possible back into the project in order to deepen our work and be able to serve and reach even more curious minds.

However, like so many in our community, we are living through hard and uncertain times. In difficult times, creativity, learning and curiosity are always the first to suffer. Our work at RSS has always sought to fight against this curtailing of cultural enrichment by bringing moments of joy, learning, creativity, critical contemplation and cultural engagement into the lives of those in our community and beyond.

But these past years have been especially hard and we've all seen and felt a real reduction in the support available to artistic and community endeavors, while also experiencing the high increase in the costs of living, supplies, raw materials, space, etc.

As we journeyed into these increasingly uncertain times, we knew a more sustainable path would be needed for RSS. So in 2025, this meant taking a big risk and expanding our business into a larger education studio and shopfront with hopes that we could further transition away from unpredictable sources of external funding through generating more self-produced, self-directed in-house income. By beginning to charge sliding-scale fees for programming and events, selling more of our RSS designed technology and merch, and offering a range of goods and services for those wanting invest in their musical and artistic journeys, we hoped to further move towards sustainability and create a more stable support structure for our community focused endeavors.

But as mentioned, times are hard... and while we've seen an even greater blooming of community around our expanded RSS studios and programming, it hasn't translated into a growth in financial support that we were counting on.

So this is where we come to you with our request for help...

For years, RSS has given time, talents, resources & spaces to community and youth, and have until now, asked for very little in return. In addition to our work at RSS, we've poured ourselves into supporting others' dreams and work in the community. We've written grants for organizations, facilitated and trained folks on many aspects of cultural & community organizing, provided and coordinated labor for community festivals & events, and provided mentoring to thousands of young folks in our community. We've done all of this because our politics are rooted in a belief in mutual aid and open generosity. We are now humbly asking community to share those politics, and if you are able, pour your support into RSS.

If you believe in this work, and want to see RSS continue to be a presence in the cultural fabric of our community, please consider contributing and/or sharing this fundraiser which will help us maintain and further this vital work into the future.