INDUSTRY
Music business news, industry-wide takes, and technical texts.
ARTICLES
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“Take The Power Back: Black Artist-Owned Labels” by Michael A. Gonzalez, RBMA, January 2016.
- “Should Black Artists Care About the Grammys?” by Matthew Allen, The Root, January 2018.
- “Why Hasn’t the Hip-Hop Boom Pushed More Black Executives to the Top?” by Gail Mitchell, Billboard, April 2018.
- “Barbara Gardner Proctor, Who Founded Ad Agency and Brought Beatles Music to US, Dies” by Steven R. Strahler, Crain's Chicago Business, January 2019.
- “Can Black Artists Counter Music Industry Exploitation?” by Danielle Koku, gal-dem, March 2020.
- “An Inconvenient Truth” by Kanya King, MOBO, June 2020.
- “Racism in the Music Industry” by Jamal Guthrie, Route, June 2020.
- “More Than Words: Debate Over ‘Urban’ Is Just Part of Industry’s Push to Tackle Systemic Bias” by Gail Mitchell, Billboard, July 2020.
- “The Music Industry Is Wrestling With Race. Here’s What It’s Promised” by Ben Sisario, The New York Times, July 2020.
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“Amid a Racial Justice Reckoning, Pioneers of Rap, Reggae, and R&B Recount Their Struggles to Get Paid” by Marc Hogan, Pitchfork, July 2020.
- “The Black Music Action Coalition Wants to Hold the Industry Accountable” by Noah Yoo, Pitchfork, August 2020.
- “Brazil’s Black Trans Musicians: ‘When we join forces, we’re dangerous!’” by Carolina Abbott Galvão, The Guardian, August 2020.
- “Switched On: How Manufacturers Are Finally Waking Up To Underrepresentation in Music Tech” by Mick Wilson, DJ Mag, August 2020.
- “Black Artists Are Still Getting Ripped Off the Way Little Richard Was” by Drew Schwartz, VICE, October 2020.
- “The Grammys Got Black Music Wrong Again. Why Give Them Power?” By Andre Gee, Complex, November 2020.
- “Back to Black: How the Music Industry Reckoned With Race This Year” by Chanté Joseph, The Guardian, December 2020.
- “The DJ Lag Case Is One of Many Where the West ‘Forgets’ to Credit African Musicians” by Kampire Bahana, gal-dem, December 2020.
- “On Being Black: ‘Dear White Music Executives” by Ray Daniels, Billboard, February 2021.
- “Boomplay, the Biggest West African Music Platform You’ve Never Heard Of” by Spencer Franks, Chartmetric, February 2021.
- “Leaders of the New School? Music Departments, Hip-Hop, and the Challenge of Significant Difference” by Loren Kaijikawa, Twentieth-Century Music, Vol. 18, Issue 1, February 2021.
- “Social Music” by DeForrest Brown, Jr., CTM Magazine, April 2021.
- “Why Is It So Hard to Show Black Women’s Musical Genius Onscreen?” by Salamishah Tillet, The New York Times, April 2021.
- “A Year Ago, the 'Big Three' Record Companies Pledged $225 Million to Racial Justice. Where Did It Go?” by Drew Schwartz, VICE Noisey, May 2021.
- “Blackout Tuesday, One Year Later: Some Progress, but Racial Parity Is a Long Way Off for Music Industry” by Jem Aswad, Variety, June 2021.
- “What Black Music Month Means Now” by Nabil Ayers, Pitchfork, June 2021.
ARTICLES CONT’D
- “Black Music Is the Blueprint, Yet We’re Consistently Erased From Our Own Culture” by Tiffany Red, Variety, June 2021.
- “On Racial Diversity Test, BMAC Says Industry Is Barely Passing: 'Average Isn't Good Enough'” by Gail Mitchell, Billboard, June 2021.
- “How Nashville Has — and Hasn't — Changed For Black Executives” by Gail Mitchell, Billboard, June 2021.
- “The Music Industry’s White Dominance Is Holding Back Black Female Artists” by V.V. Brown, The Guardian, July 2021.
- “Cancel Yourself” by Harmony Holiday, Black Music and Black Muses, September 2021.
- “Neil Dominique Is Ready to Go From All-Star Manager to Top Label Owner” by Carl Lamarre, Billboard, October 2021.
- “Country Music Vows to Prioritize Racial Progress” by Tom Roland, Billboard, October 2021.
- “A $1 Billion Competitor for Music Rights Says ‘Content Is Queen’” by Ben Sisario, The New York Times, October 2021.
- “The Music Industry Has Failed Black Women Survivors” by Alexia Norton-Jones, Refinery 29, June 2021.
- “‘Made in Africa’ Music Streaming Services Look To Take on Spotify” by Seth Onyango, How We Made It In Africa, August 2021.
- “Recording Academy to Use Inclusion Rider for 2022 Grammy Awards” by Mia Nazareno, Billboard, August 2021.
- “Why Motown Records Inked Joint Venture with NBA YoungBoy’s Never Broke Again Record Label” by Dan Runcie, Trapital, September 2021.
- “The History of Black-Owned Record Labels” by Ashwanta Jackson, JStor Daily, July 2021.
- “Harvey Mason Jr. on Recording Academy’s Future: ‘We Needed to Improve and We Needed to Evolve’” by Melinda Newman, Billboard, September 2021.
- “Touring While Black” by Jacob Uitti, American Songwriter, February 2022.
- “15 Black British Music Execs Shaking the System (2022 Edition)” by Joseph ‘JP’ Patterson, James Keith, Chantelle Fiddy, Aaron Bishop, Complex UK, February 2022.
- “‘Compensation, Healing, and Closure’: One Man’s Quest for Reparations in the Music Business” by Jonathan Bernstein, Rolling Stone, March 2022.
- “On the Capitalistic and Racist Dynamics of Sampling” by Jean-Hugues Kabiku & Mathys Rennela, Technomaterialism, May 2022.
- “'It Started From Nothing.' Black NFT Artists on Inheriting the Legacy of Hip-Hop and Jazz” by Andrew Chow, Time, July 2022.
PODCASTS & RADIO
- “Brick by Brick: Jon Platt on Creating a Mighty Career and Culture” by Musonomics, July 2021. 34 minutes.
FILM & SERIES
- “Gamble and Huff Explain How They Created Black Music Month” by WBLS, June 2014, 5 minutes.
- “'In A Class By Itself' - The 1970's, Frankie Crocker, Building a Station” by WBLS, June 2019. 1 hour.