You don’t attend CBA — you belong to it. From the first day you are placed in a House, given a company to run and a family to build with. This is ten months of belonging, competing and creating — and a name you carry for the rest of your career.
Every student joins one of twelve permanent Houses — living institutional identities, each with an archetype and a role in the creative economy. Your House is not a class group you leave behind. It is a lineage you carry for life.
A House is not a study group — it’s a fully-staffed creative enterprise. Each one runs twelve professional departments, and every student holds a real role inside one of them.
Scouting, management & artist development.
Rights, publishing & the money that flows.
Press, airplay & the public story.
Streaming strategy, pitching & playlists.
Making the work — sessions, sets & shoots.
Edit, mix, colour & the finished cut.
The feed, the campaign & the community.
Getting work to platforms & audiences.
Image, wardrobe & the visual identity.
Product, merchandise & the House brand.
Collections, campaigns & the runway.
Contracts, clearances & the deal.
At the halfway point the Houses merge into larger groups. Each group pools its sub-companies and takes on a single mission: develop one Artist, one Director and one Designer — together, from nothing, to release.
Now the three Schools are no longer separate. Music, Film and Fashion work the same talent, the same brand and the same release — and every group competes on the sharpness of its strategy.
Signed, developed and released by the group’s Music side.
A filmmaker built and premiered by the group’s Film side.
A collection launched by the group’s Fashion side.
Every decision is a competitive move against the other groups.
Every week the standings update. Houses and groups earn their place through the work they ship — not the promises they make.
Timed challenges across the sub-companies — planning, pitching and delivery under pressure.
Real work shipped to real audiences. Points follow what actually reaches the world.
Houses assess Houses. Faculty weigh in. The strongest strategy rises to the top.
Updated weekly. Public. Fiercely — and friendly — contested.
The year builds to a single climb: every group’s strategy sharpened into one plan, and one night where the whole cohort takes the stage.
Groups compete on plans. Every group presents its go-to-market strategy for its Artist, Director and Designer — and defends it against the others.
The cohort converges. The best thinking merges into a single, coordinated plan that carries all the work to market together.
The designer walks their collections
Every group’s Designer presents a finished collection to a live audience and the press.
The directors premiere their work
The films built across the year screen in full — a premiere for the directors and their teams.
The Artists take the stage
The developed artists perform live — the release, the crowd and the moment it all comes together.
CBA runs a student-led culture and welfare system. Your House is your first family, but the whole cohort looks after its own — a network of people who have your back long after graduation.
Students run the traditions, the events and the House rituals that make the year yours.
A peer welfare system so no one carries a hard week alone.
Your House and your cohort become a network across the continent and diaspora.
Twelve Houses. One name you carry for life. Registrations for the 2027 cohort are open.
