{"id":245803,"date":"2026-03-31T23:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245803\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T23:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:12:08","slug":"uc-berkeley-grads-question-whether-to-stay-or-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245803\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley grads question whether to stay or struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spring is about to release another wave of UC Berkeley graduates into the world. While some will follow the money\u2014chasing AI startups and tech salaries across the Bay\u2014many artists will stay closer to home, drawn to the East Bay\u2019s creative legacy and slightly more forgiving rents.<\/p>\n

But as commencement nears, a harder question sets in: Is the East Bay still a launchpad for a creative life, or just a holding pattern until something better comes along? For young artists, the region\u2019s reputation as a cultural incubator now collides with rising costs, shifting scenes and the constant pressure to survive.<\/p>\n

In a place that once promised freedom to make something new, today\u2019s graduates are left to wonder what, exactly, is still possible\u2014and at what cost.<\/p>\n

Senior anthropology major Elliot Kempf, a virtuoso of psychedelic rock guitar and one-handed cigarette rolling, is a serious student of the scene. According to him, an underground war is raging between the veterans of jazz and blues and a new-wave transplant of high-ticket electronic music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can charge more at the door to these EDM-loving crowds, which is good for a broke artist,\u201d Kempf says. \u201cBut these are still the same guys jacking up rent and gentrifying the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

His own journey is committedly retro. He plans to weed his way through the grassroots legacy of a fading psychedelic scene, giving one last distorted war cry against the \u201cyuppie-DJ boom.\u201d Lately, however, his band practice has been sidelined by the bummer of apartment-hunting.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, the rent here is no joke,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ll need some coffee-squirting day job and at least three roommates to ever hope to strum my guitar out here professionally.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the rising costs, Kempf remains loyal to the East Bay\u2019s network of venues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have some of the best music and art venues I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d he said. And with space to plug in and play, of course, comes opportunity and pay. The sheer number of venues and local music lovers ardent to rock out sweetens the idea of East Bay migration for many Berkeley musicians. These are the establishments where connections are made and careers are born over a handshake and a cigarette. However, this comes with a risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be daring, with this overhead and shifting techno-tastes,\u201d Kempf said. \u201cThis can be very hard for a young artist, trying to stay true to one\u2019s expression, as outdated as mine might be.\u201d However Kempf and his band, the Used Salesmen, will jam in the East Bay for as long as they can.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>RETRO SCENE Senior anthropology major Elliot Kempf is a virtuoso of psychedelic rock guitar. (Photo courtesy of Elliot Kempf)<\/p>\n

The advent of EDM in the Bay doesn\u2019t feel dystopian to all UC Berkeley artists. In fact, it\u2019s deeply bled into the body of student culture. Everyone\u2019s affected, especially the posers. The clich\u00e9 of the guy loitering around the party with an acoustic guitar has evolved: Instead of a twangy Yamaha, now he wields a DJ controller and a MacBook.<\/p>\n

Madison Rojas, a fourth-year English major who rents out her DJing services to UC Berkeley fraternities and philanthropic functions, is excited to explore this brand of music locally. In Oakland, she prophesizes a lucrative future for her and her turntables.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BPM of the Bay is picking up,\u201d she said, miming the classic DJ vinyl-scrubbing move. \u201cPeople want to dance more than ever, and people in the East Bay happen to be really good at it. You know how compatible hyphy music is with EDM? Very.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, Rojas tested the waters at an Oakland house show. Her goal was a bold Bay pastiche: remixing Mac Dre with Skrillex. A technical tightrope walk, the crowd\u2019s reaction proved more volatile than anything she\u2019d ever faced.<\/p>\n

According to her, through the alchemy of EDM, what started as a red-cup house party boiled over into an all-out street festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mac Dre started it out of course, and everyone was bumping,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cThen, to their surprise, I started sneaking in blips of Skrillex. Everyone seemed pissed up until the beat dropped. It all came together, and people went crazy. The crowd multiplied, strangers came up from the street and hopped in until there wasn\u2019t any more room. God, what a scene out there. Wild, evocative, charged. I want to live around those vibes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rojas has already rented an apartment in Oakland with some friends. She\u2019s very optimistic about the viability of her DJ career blossoming in this soil.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>TURNTABLE PROPHET Madison Rojas, a fourth-year English major, rents out her DJing services in the East Bay. (Photo courtesy of Madison Rojas)<\/p>\n

The exodus isn\u2019t confined to musicians. Fine-art specialists also nervously weigh the East Bay\u2019s potential as a workshop. Bella Veale, a talented painter preparing to toss her academic cap, sits in her makeshift apartment-gallery surrounded by eerily accurate self-portraits. To her, the livelihood of a local material artist can feel bleak.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of my friends who graduated last year are stuck doing commissions,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re exquisite talents, but they have to pay the bills. They\u2019re mostly painting pictures of people\u2019s dogs and dead uncles.\u201d To Veale, this is the death of the \u201cartist\u2019s thesis,\u201d executed by the fiscal reality of the Bay.<\/p>\n

The alternative is the artist residency, particularly in Oakland. These programs provide the holy trinity for a blossoming creator: time, space and a stipend. Yet, even residencies have limits. Veale notes that the art world requires a social stamina that doesn\u2019t always come naturally to introverted creators.<\/p>\n

Gregarious by nature, Veale recently hosted several local galleries. She observed a \u201ccollective thirst\u201d for homegrown, nascent artwork. \u201cWe need more, more like this!\u201d attendees told her. Though this gives her hope, she plans to try her luck in L.A. first.<\/p>\n

Freedom of expression is baked into the East Bay\u2019s identity, but for a new generation of artists, it comes with a price tag that\u2019s getting harder to ignore. The venues are still here. The crowds are still hungry. The ambition hasn\u2019t gone anywhere.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s changed is the margin for survival.<\/p>\n

For the class of 2026, staying means improvising\u2014cobbling together rent, work and art in whatever way possible. Leaving means risking the loss of the very scene that drew them here in the first place. The East Bay may still be a place where creative lives begin, but increasingly it\u2019s a question of who can afford to see them through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spring is about to release another wave of UC Berkeley graduates into the world. While some will follow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144,149],"class_list":["post-245803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-uc-berkeley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}