#105 5 Projects Supporting People of Colour Within Music
Black Lives in Music
Seeking to address lacking opportunities and support for people of colour in the music industry particularly within Jazz and Classical music. Their vision is to fuel artists with ambition and create possibility. BLIM aspires to work with companies and organisations throughout the UK and create an open dialogue in the “spirit of working together”; forging strong relationships with the hope of creating equal opportunities for people of colour.
The African Concert series
A programme founded by Nigerian-Romanian pianist Rebeca Omordia in 2019; this concert series seeks to showcase the depth of diversity within African art music. It seeks to educate across varying ages and cultures, highlighting “a neglected group of composers and performing artists… who seem to be airbrushed out of our canon of classical music”.
Black Band Camp
More of a movement than a company/orginsiation; Black Band Camp is a volunteer backed project. Founded by a group of friends, this project is not strictly associated with Bandcamp, but seeks to create a strong directory of its own. The aim of this is to create an ever-growing crowd-sourced list of Black artists, producers and labels.
Black Music Action Coalition
Supported by the likes of Billie Eilish, Cardi B, Harry Styles, and Lil Nas X; this nonprofit organisation formed to address issues of systemic racism within the music industry. They represent a strong array of producers, artists, songwriters, managers, labels, attorneys and other music executives. BMAC continues to combat long standing challenges faced by people of colour that simply transcend “a fleeting moment of uproar and activism”.
Equity in Audio Pact
This initiative, led by Renay Richardson, urges audio production companies to sign up to five actions:
1) Pay Interns. 2) Hire LGBTQIA + people of colour on projects not only related to their identity. 3) Release your race pay gap data as well as gender pay gap reports. 4) No longer participate in panels that are not representative of the cities, towns and industries they take place in. 5) Be transparent about who works for your company alongside their role, position and permanency.
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