I love coffee, the culture that surrounds coffee and making music. A few years ago I was stuck in a creative rut, making music at home in my basement. My wife suggested that I leave my space to find a different space in hopes to obtain different results. So i packed up my laptop and midi-keyboard and posted up at a small coffee shop in NE DC. The coffee was killing, the space was awesome and the sensory overload from the blending of smells, sights and sounds helped to birth the Beats & Beans series. Beats & Beans Series is a citywide traveling residency. Presented weekly over the course of 2 months, the series provides a unique outlet and platform that seeks to: engage creatives with open discussions about sustainable non-traditional creative spaces (similar to the public library) and the creative economy while also serving as a conduit for open collaboration and community financial investment in neighborhood coffee shops. The free discussions are held in selected coffee shops throughout the city and feature an interview with a guest artist that will speak about; their creative process, the need for reimagined creative spaces and how artistic creation leads to investment in local businesses. In activating non-traditional creative spaces through site specific programming and designating these spaces as creative hubs, the investment in turn will contribute to both local economic growth as well as helping to build and sustain the local creative economy. Each conversation is filmed, hosted on a central site and posted on various social networks.