Here’s something that won’t surprise you—it’s not easy being an indie, female musician of color.

Actually, it’s really, really, really hard. A U.S.-based study of popular songs found that those nominated for a Grammy Award between 2013 and 2018, 90.7 percent of those were men, while 9.3 percent were women. The same study found that 79 percent of the most popular artists of color from 2012-2017 were male and 20 percent were female.

Canadian vocalist Rosina Kazi told TVO that although the country’s musician pool is very diverse, the musicians promoted by mainstream platforms are not. “It ends up being very white,” she said.

Indie female musicians of color find themselves caught in a difficult intersection.

They look up to woman of color who enjoy unprecedented success (like Beyonce, Cardi or MIA), while struggling to pass through the many gates that will lead them to that point. The obvious solution? Remove the gatekeepers.

Enter music platform SoundCloud, which snubs mainstream decision makers, and instead empowers musicians and music-lovers. “As the world’s largest open audio platform that enables anyone to upload, SoundCloud’s audience, reach and diversity of content is unmatched,” says Megan West, Vice President of Content and Community from SoundCloud.

Indie female musicians of color find themselves caught in a difficult intersection.
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Available in 190 countries, SoundCloud should theoretically burgeon the musical careers of women of color. But does it?

According to TechCrunch, “Spotify is primarily a reseller of music inventory owned by record labels.” Alternatively, SoundCloud’s content is not gained by licensing deals, it’s uploaded by the platform’s users. This bypassing of major labels is particular useful to women of color; it means the bypassing of exploitation that women of color are typically exposed to and undermined by.

Dominican singer-songwriter Maluca Mala told Billboard, “[White men] have made millions off black, queer and marginalized peoples and paid them dust in return.” This practice dates back to the fifties, where instead of paying royalties, (oft white) labels would pay black artists a flat fee per song. Industry ignorant musicians would agree to this contractually, and lose all ownership rights in the process.

Over 60 years later, Prince told the National Association of Black Journalists, “record contracts are just like—I’m gonna say the word—slavery.” And of course, there continues to be a host of modern day allegations involving financial and/or sexual exploitation by record label bosses.  As labels have limited access to SoundCloud, uploaders have more financial and personal agency.

White men have made millions off black, queer and marginalized peoples and paid them dust in return.
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The limited influence of labels also means that an artist’s fan base dictates how well they do. “If people like [my music], then I’m doing something right,” Indonesian rapper Ramngvrl tells me. Influenced by the likes of M.I.A and Tyler the Creator, Ramengvrl sent demos out to a few labels before finding greater success on SoundCloud. She thought to herself, if I don’t find success on my own, “well, those labels are right, and I should probably try something else.”

Fortunately, the labels were wrong. After uploading “I’m Da Man,” a track about breaking Indonesia’s male-heavy hip-hop scene, on SoundCloud, Ramengvrl’ went viral.

The song pricked the ears of local hip-hop players, and Ramengvrl has since worked with the Indonesian rappers like Dipha Barus, Matter Mos, and Ariel Nayaka.

Lady Donli, a Nigeria-based artist, also attests the power of SoundCloud listeners. Through uploading her blend of RnB, jazz and hip-hop, the Abuja resident noticed that she had far-flung admirers of her sound. “When I started asking for music pledges, I actually had people from Tokyo donate to my music, which I thought was really cool.”

Unlike rival platforms Apple and Spotify, SoundCloud encourages musicians to network and meet like-minded industry professionals. This freedom to choose gives women of color agency, despite them being a minority in their industry. For instance, SoundCloud brought Ramengvrl together with her current management, indie collective Underground Bizniz Club.

Guitar-pop extraordinaire Nabihah Iqbal, also made a meaningful connection via SoundCloud. “I was discovered through that platform by Kassem Mosse, who subsequently put my first release out via his label Ominira,” she says. That was five years ago. Since then, the British Asian musician has put out two EPs and an album.

Where SoundCloud excels in creating networks, platforms like Spotify and Apple music primarily push latest releases and inventories owned by labels. As TechCrunch points out, “Most of the songs on Spotify you could find on Apple Music, Pandora or another streaming service.”

Because SoundCloud has the most unique content, it follows that the platform’s listeners are also the most prone to trying new things. A comparison by Forbes found that in contrast “many of Spotify and YouTube’s users (just to name two) are utilizing the platform to listen to old favorites, not necessarily discover new music.”

Therefore if a woman of color is limited by human listening habits coupled with systemic—and immediate—structural forces, SoundCloud may help them find spaces where these forces are weaker. “In Nigeria, we have about two or three women that are on the charts, and that’s it,” Lady Donli tells me. At the time of writing this article, only two Nigerian (Tiwa Savage and Simi) women populate Nigeria’s top 25 (the other women are Ciara, Jennifer Lopez and Camila Cabello). According to Lady Donli, it’s even harder to find success in Nigeria if you’re a woman that doesn’t do afrobeats/afropop.

Despite this boundary, Lady Donli’s SoundCloud has gained her recognition in the UK as well as Japan. “When I was in Nigeria, I’d get people in England messaging me and trying to get me to come for gigs down there,” she says.

Lady Donli continues: “I enjoy SoundCloud because it’s seamless. [You] record a song and post it. The internet does the rest for you. However, there’s a downside: SoundCloud’s struggles to monetize it’s content. “When money comes into play things become a lot more complicated, but the money is necessary. Everyone needs it to expand.”

And while these musicians enjoy a platform for sharing their work with voracious music lovers boasting an adventurous aural palette, at the end of the day, these women need to eat. Women — especially those hailing from ethnic minorities — are paid less in several sectors across the world. Of the 50 highest paid musicians in 2017, seven were women, and only one was a woman of color (what’s up Janet Jackson)!

Women of color systemically earn less, and focusing their efforts on SoundCloud could perpetuate this ongoing injustice despite increased visibility.

SoundCloud’s business model is precarious, and potentially puts the musicians at risk who use it as their main platform. After all, SoundCloud nearly died last year. Investors considered pulling out after finding that that the platform had raised over $230 million in funding with little monetzsation progress to show for it. During this period of uncertainty, Lady Donli tweeted, “SoundCloud wants to give me hypertension…really if SoundCloud shuts down I’m done releasing music.”  

“When money comes into play things become a lot more complicated, but the money is necessary. Everyone needs it to expand.”
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Many other musicians showed panic and deep concern as well — if the platform went, so would its huge archive of uploaded music. Happily SoundCloud managed to secure rescue funding and has lived to see another year. However, the company is still at risk. Via its 2017 annual report, Twitter wrote off the $66.4 million it invested in SoundCloud, because that money is “not expected to be recoverable within a reasonable period of time.”

SoundCloud gives indie women of color the agency and recognition that is harder to find with mainstream outlets. However, it’s focus on free sharing is a double edged sword, so for these women, relying on SoundCloud isn’t an option.

Although she credits the platform as being instrumental to her career, Iqbal recognizes that, “it’s not the only platform, and so I don’t think its collapse would have too much of an impact on my career. People can find alternative ways through which to listen to my music.”

Likewise, Ramengvrl is determined not to go down with the ship if it sinks. “I’d still find a way to get my music out there. Either through YouTube or through Instagram, or probably the old school way (sending mixtapes to local collectives),” she resolves. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

By Aparna Rae and Ruchika Tulshyan

It’s International Women’s Day, which means corporations, governments, and nonprofits are amplifying the few women leaders they have on social media, complete with inspirational quotes like “she believed she could, so she did.” Everywhere you look, there’s a general celebration of how far women have come (as well as the inevitable tone-deaf or entirely hollow brand marketing stunts). Cutesy hashtags like #PressForProgress are being used liberally and in cities across America, organizations are hosting power breakfasts, lunches, and happy hours to celebrate the power of women.

The irony of this day is that, in reality, the picture couldn’t be bleaker. While organizations are honoring the women in their ranks with social media posts, they are simultaneously fighting against progressive pay equity legislation and pushing back on a call to transparency with respect to hiring practices. We are still not being paid equally for equal work, abortion rights are still under constant attack, and on the whole, millennial women are worse off than their mothers and grandmothers on a number of measures.

To be sure, recent movements to bring light to the issue of gender equity has created shifts for one group; there is one set of women who have progressed significantly in the past decade — white women. And it’s often to celebrate their progress that days like this one and “Equal Pay Day” were created.

There is one set of women who have progressed significantly in the past decade — white women.

White women have long relied on — and sometimes even forced — women of color to comply with their rising status. We have long been responsible for getting white women to this place of (semi-)equity with men: We washed your clothes and cleaned your homes, and even when we made it into corporate careers, we took the lion’s share of “office housework,” like making coffee and ordering lunch, so you could head to the corner office. And while white women nationally have experienced slow but steady gains — making on average 80 cents on $1 — African American, Latinx, and Native women have seen steady declines in pay equity.

So on International Women’s Day in the year 2018, during the #MeToo and #TimesUp moments, we can’t help but call out the gross inequity experienced by women of color. This does not take away from the various strides (some) women have made, but we are weary from watching women of color in our professional lives get sidelined, struggle to see their education and experience convert to professional gains, and work harder than their white peers — only to still ultimately come out on the losing end. We encounter too many well-intentioned gatekeepers who are downright frightened by the reality of diversity — where women of color, queer women, trans women, nonbinary people, and women with disabilities all have a seat at the table.

We are the invisible women, kept on the sidelines by our supposed allies — white women.

How Equal Pay Day Excludes Women Of Color

And you, our cis white women and allies, you are in a powerful position to speak up and disrupt the status quo. You can and should lend your voice, your credibility, and your power to women around you. Stop being bystanders, refuse to take the easy path of stepping back and waiting for the first domino to fall before taking action.

Allure’s Hailey McMillian says it best:

“For those of us who count ourselves as feminists, this also means not telling women of color to hold on, to not rock the boat, to not agitate too loudly, to sublimate ‘racial concerns’ and unify as a single one-size-fits-all (read: white) feminist movement, to wait for the eventual coming of an eventual better day.”

In the name of gender justice, we have come to bat alongside you at every step of the way. Last year, women of color helped save Alabama from electing a known racist pedophile, not to mention voted in the highest percentages against Trump. For decades, we’ve done the labor for you and now it’s your turn to be an ally to us in the gender and racial justice movements.

You, our cis white women and allies, you are in a powerful position to speak up and disrupt the status quo.

Here’s how you can step up as allies to invisible women this International Women’s Day — and every day going forward.

1. Recognize your bias.

Do away with loaded/stereotypical descriptions of women of color. Here’s a list of 15 things you should never say to a person of color. Recognize that you benefit daily from white supremacy; it’s time to do the hard work of looking at your biases, discomfort, and issues that have been informed by your white privilege. Recognize that women of color are not “angry,” “timid,” “brash,” or “aggressive” — like you, we have different personalities and styles.

2. Look at your community. Do you and your family have any friends of color?

Here’s where we find the opportunity for the most change — and the most resistance to it. A whopping 75% of white people have no non-white friends. We aren’t volunteering ourselves or any other person of color to be your token friend. But if this is your reality, and yet you are applauding yourself on “International Women’s Day” after you marched in the Women’s March, your feminism is irrelevant; true equality can only be realized through an intersectional lens.

Why The White Feminism Of The Women’s March Is Still On My Mind

3. Assess where women of color are in your organization.

Women of color don’t aspire to lesser roles; in fact, women of color are equally skilled and more interested in leadership role than their white peers. If you see a woman of color in your organization, ask yourself: Are they in a senior or decision-making role?

Collectively, we have experience in the media, finance, academic, government, nonprofit, and startup communities. In every sector we have found ourselves in, we’ve met the intelligent, eager woman of color ready to assume leadership roles — who were too quickly dismissed by their white counterparts. Even in the countries we have worked in that operate largely outside of the U.S. — expat white men and women hold decision-making, leadership positions. Women of color are few and far between, relegated to the lowest of roles: janitorial, entry-level, administrative.

In every sector we have found ourselves in, we’ve met the intelligent, eager woman of color ready to assume leadership roles — who were too quickly dismissed by their white counterparts.

4. Invite women of color to the stage.

Does your event have any women of color? If you are serving non-white groups, it is your responsibility to ensure equitable representation on panels. Here in Seattle, we are invited to hundreds of events where organizers consider themselves “woke” because white women are on their panels — what more could they possibly do? Until women of color are seen as thought-leaders and experts on equal footing with white women, we have not made real progress.

5. Finally, mentor, support, and connect with women of color in your community.

As you grow in your own lives and leadership, you have the opportunity to say “yes!” or “no, not so much” to another woman finding her own way. Think about how you introduce her with an extra word of support, include her in an interesting conversation, connect her to another awesome woman. Think about how you may have whizzed through the day choosing not to do these little things. Instead, choose, always, to help advance women who don’t look like you.

By Kali Holloway

Racism is the Trump administration’s magic wand, a device it uses, to great effect, to dazzle its base, whose own proud bigotry dispenses with the need for suspension of disbelief. In the face of controversies and criticism, Trump race-baits not just for cynical political reasons — though that’s part of it — but because he, too, is deeply racist, so much that his presidency is basically a live-action revenge fantasy against the country’s first black president.

Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson is the most recent target of the noxious output produced when Trump’s racism meets his unvarnished misogyny, revealing the particular contempt he holds for women of color, especially those powerful and uppity enough to publicly call him on his many failures. And if there was any question about whether Chief of Staff John Kelly endorses Trump’s targeting of women of color, recent events show this an all-hands-on-deck team effort.

Like Trump, Kelly’s zeal for demeaning and insulting black women cannot be derailed by the actual truth. On Tuesday, Rep. Wilson told press that while speaking with the grieving pregnant widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, Trump — who only bothered to make the call after a reporter questioned his 12-day delay in doing so — dismissively stated her husband “knew what he signed up for, but I guess [his death] still hurt.” Trump denied making the remark, as did his press secretary, but Kelly affirmed Wilson’s story during a damage control-focused press conference Thursday. That conflict was just one of several issues with the integrity of Kelly’s speech.

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Like Trump, Kelly’s zeal for demeaning and insulting black women cannot be derailed by the actual truth.
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The chief of staff said he was stunned Wilson had listened in on the call, though she is a longtime friend of the Johnson family whose presence was requested, and Kelly himself had also been listening to the exchange. He claimed he longed for the days of his childhood, when women and Gold Star families were “sacred,” despite his high-visibility job working for a man who brags about sexual assault and insults the parents of dead soldiers. Kelly also took special pains to degrade and humiliate Rep. Wilson using a fake news story about her behavior at a 2015 dedication of a FBI Miami field office.

“[A] congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there and all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call he gave the money, the $20 million, to build the building. And she sat down, and we were stunned. Stunned that she had done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned. But you know, none of us went to the press and criticized. None of us stood up and were appalled. We just said, OK, fine.”

Backed by a Miami Herald report and footage from the event, Wilson revealed the numerous falsehoods in Kelly’s retelling. The money for the building was secured before she was serving in Congress, and nowhere in her speech did she take credit for raising the funds. Instead, she highlighted her role in both sponsoring and expediting passage of a bill to name the building after two FBI agents who had been killed just four days before the event. “Rep. Wilson truly did the impossible, and we are eternally grateful,” former FBI head James Comey said in his remarks, according to Florida’s Sun Sentinel.

Let’s be clear here: Kelly didn’t misspeak or misremember Wilson’s words. He intentionally told a story meant to play on the stereotype of a money-grubbing black woman — like Ronald Reagan’s fabricated welfare queen — who is loud, wrong, unqualified and unfit to hold a prominent position, and always looking to get over on someone else’s dime. (The phony scene is also an implicit knock against Obama, who was often accused by white racists of giving copious handouts to black folks.) It’s not incidental that Kelly referred to Wilson as an “empty barrel,” a vessel whose only use is making “the most noise,” suggesting he holds her in such low regard he refuses to utter her name. Kelly deployed that racist misogynoir caricature not just against Wilson, but by extension, the family of a soldier whose sacrifice this administration pretends to value.

Spreading that racist image meant so much to Kelly, a Gold Star parent who knows the pain of losing a child, he went to the trouble of assembling a room of press to trash Wilson in the hope his lies would trounce the truth. What’s more, he couched the attack in soaring, laudatory words about god, country and young lives lost on battlefields, knowing his Gold Star status would add emotional heft to those words. This, we’re supposed to believe, is what the Trump administration considers “respecting our troops.” If the dictionary is lacking a definition for the words “politicization” or “opportunism,” a freeze-frame of Kelly mid-speech should fill the space.

Other racist talking heads followed Kelly’s lead. Tomi Lahren posted side by side photos of Wilson and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, accusing the former of “anti-Trump tantrums” and the latter of being “crazy.” Former Sheriff David Clarke, the gigantic hat wearing black Republican who probably has “One of the good ones” tattooed somewhere on his body, labeled Wilson a “buffoon” for her slightly smaller hat. Alex Pfeiffer‏, who writes for Tucker Carlson’s white nationalist-favored outlet the Daily Caller, tweeted that he’s “seen Frederica Wilson in Miami airport multiple times,” always “driven on a golf cart” by Miami police. “That’s the type of person she is,” Pfeiffer wrote, which is a long-winded way of calling a 75-year-old woman lazy, blackness being her preexisting condition. I scoured Pfeiffer’s tweets to find the one where he criticizes Trump for lazily driving his golf cart across the greens, but couldn’t find it for some reason. (Just kidding. I know the reason.)

Trump and his team try to shut down white women and men of color as well — see Trump’s rich history of woman-hating or his unhinged tweets toward outspoken black athletes — but Wilson is the recipient of a level vitriol they save for women of color. In recent weeks, Trump has launched attacks against ESPN anchor Jemele Hill for stating facts about his deeply held white supremacism, and fired upon San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz for pointing out his cruelty and ineptitude toward the Puerto Rican people. This White House’s agenda is specifically designed to cause harm toward all Americans who are not white, male, heterosexual, cisgender or Christian. But it has an intolerance for black and other women of color that is unmatched, and in many ways, not even concealed.

“The sad part about it is, he didn’t know La David’s name,” Wilson told Politico, revisiting the insult that was Trump’s condolence call. “He kept calling him ‘your guy.’ Your guy did this. Your guy did that. Nobody cares about Mr. Trump. He’s not beloved. He’s not revered. So they don’t care. But I care…The conversation in my community is that he is a jerk. He’s not a real president.”

This story originally appeared on AlterNet. Republished here with permission.