Member Spotlight #40: Kaitlyn Davies

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For this month’s Member Spotlight we spoke to Kaitlyn Davies (she/her), a Canadian based in Lisbon, where she works and collaborates at the forefront of music and technology. She explores this nexus through research, facilitation and community organising in her roles at Friends With Benefits and Refraction DAO’s, and hosts radio shows on Refuge Worldwide and Cashmere Radio. Kaitlyn was kind enough to tell us more about her work in web3 and beyond, as well as to share some of her learnings and advice from her career so far.

shesaid.so: Tell us a little more about yourself, and your career journey so far.

Kaitlyn: Hi! I’m Kaitlyn, a Canadian based in Lisbon via Berlin, New York and London. I got my start in the music industry helping out at a university radio station in Toronto while I was in high school, which led me to an artist and brand development company where I held roles across public relations and artist management. I was feeling the itch to engage with bigger markets and live outside of my hometown Toronto, and ended up moving to London, UK in 2016. My time in London started out with me working in film festivals, but I could sense I wanted to be back closer to music. Through a stroke of luck and good timing, I ended up in the Boiler Room offices (which is where I first got introduced to shesaid.so!). Boiler Room was a wild ride and I spent time in both the London and New York offices over the course of the next 2 years, while also working on summer music festivals back in Canada. My visa in the UK was coming to an end but I wasn’t ready to leave Europe, and decided to move to Berlin in 2018. In Berlin I switched from working primarily in events and marketing to the recorded music industry, where I spent time in the !K7 Records offices before landing in the digital content operations department at SoundCloud for three years. 

While I was at SoundCloud, I started a collective, CO:QUO, with two amazing humans + fellow shesaid.so members, Mel Powell and PortraitXO. Our focus is to facilitate events, conversation and practice-based education across music, technology, art and science, and we’ve collaborated with artists, collectives, brands, and governmental funding bodies to bring our thinking to life. Operating at these intersections with CO:QUO and alongside some personal research, I inevitably ended up exploring blockchain and web3 technologies at the beginning of 2021. This research culminated in a series of digital events I produced with the collective exploring the future possibilities and limitations of technology for the music industry. This marked the beginning of my professional journey in the space, where I now work with and for two cultural DAO’s (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) Friends With Benefits and Refraction leading membership and curatorial partnerships, respectively. There is so much more to be said in between all of these lines, but an interest in the way humans, communities, art and technology interact has been the driving force behind what I do, why I move, and why I stay up late on the internet or at the rave. 

shesaid.so: What do you consider some of your greatest career achievements, and why?

Kaitlyn: Although I’d consider CO:QUO more of a personal project than career achievement, starting the collective has opened so many doors and given me the opportunity to pursue ideas collaboratively. I’m so proud of the work we’ve done, from our first residency at the Night Embassy to our monthly radio show on Refuge Worldwide.

This summer, I had the pleasure of working on the programming team for the inaugural FWB FEST in Idyllwild, California. The extended Friends With Benefits fam gathered in the forest for some big discussions, wicked musical performance, and one of the most magical sunsets I’ve ever seen. Pulling off this event with our dream team, and receiving positive feedback from our community was a big career highlight. 

Literally, the day after FWB FEST ended, our curatorial team at Refraction huddled up to begin decision making on our Creative Grants programme, which has been such a rewarding process from day dot. The programme has allowed us to decentralize our operations and collection, while supporting members of the DAO in realizing creative projects all over the world. The redistribution of capital and lowering barriers to entry are a huge part of why I decided to get involved in web3, and this project has helped drive that mission. 

shesaid.so: What are some of the challenges you've faced, and how have they shaped you and your career?

Kaitlyn: I started in the industry pretty young and often found it hard for people to take me seriously. I won’t say those days are totally over, but I’ve grown into my various roles over the years and know how to stick up for myself after living and working through those interactions. 

The music and creative industries are incredibly precarious and extractive. Taking on second (and third, and fourth) jobs, having projects fall through at the last minute, and the personal and nepotistic nature of the industry are all realities that can be very unkind to workers. Thankfully, these realities can have silver linings. Getting to work across disciplines, on varied projects, with people I’m lucky to call friends keeps me motivated. 

shesaid.so: Your career to date has spanned several areas of the industry, from the intersection of music and tech as well as research and community. What are some of the key skills that have helped you get where you are today?

Kaitlyn: Staying organised, curious, and positive has brought me a long way. Spreadsheets are here to help and have helped me manage big projects and keep track of ideas and resources. When my curiosity is dwindling, I know it’s time to pick up a book or trawl a dark corner of the internet. Keeping a (mostly!) positive outlook helps me drown out a lot of noise. 

Criticism is care, and being open to feedback is really important. I tend to go all-in on projects, and can put blinders up which don’t allow me to collaborate or work effectively. It can be tough to hear, but it’s important to stay in service of the project or community you’re trying to serve, not yourself. 

shesaid.so: Here at shesaid.so we continue to curate informative and discursive Web3 content which has inspired questions from artists, managers, labels/publishers and more. For those dipping their toes in to Web3, could you tell us a bit more about your work in this space so far and any ways people could find out more?

Kaitlyn: My work in web3 focuses around community stewardship, curatorial practice, and knowledge sharing. Admittedly my financial literacy could be better, and my technical skills aren’t as sharp, but I’m working on it! An amazing aspect of the web3 community is how willing folks are to help and answer questions. 

In my experience, it’s difficult to toe-dip without totally diving in, but a great resource for folks at all levels of web3-knowledge and across different industry sectors is the research and Discord community stewarded by the folks at Water + Music. I am always referencing their published research, and the discourse that goes on in their Discord is impressive. 

Friends With Benefits and Refraction also have editorial arms that are publishing thought-leading ideas around DAOs, online artist communities, and creative uses of technology that readers might find illuminating. 

shesaid.so: Can you tell us about Refraction and what we can look out for from the community?

Kaitlyn: Yes! RefractionDAO is a group of artists, culture workers and creatively inclined people collaborating on ongoing events, releasing NFT projects, and producing written, visual, and audio content around art, culture, and music today. We’re enabled by blockchain technology, meaning that we have a governance token called $REFRACT, which helps us compensate community members for their efforts, while increasing their say in DAO-wide decision-making. We primarily convene on Discord and at in-person events around the world. 

We’ll be closing out the year with Refraction Festival Miami during Art Basel, and a series of events in Tokyo accompanied by an NFT drop of the artwork displayed— stay tuned! I also mentioned our ongoing Creative Grants projects, which you can check out here.  If any of this sounds interesting, you can apply to join the DAO here. 

shesaid.so: You host radio shows on Refuge Worldwide and Cashmere Radio. What kind of music are you loving at the moment that we can expect to hear from your shows?

Kaitlyn: Big love to recent albums from Lucrecia Dalt, Sudan Archives, Moin, Marina Herlop and Alex G. I’ve definitely been in a moody guitar music and power pop phase recently after a summer of listening to a lot of UKG and techy-house mixes on SoundCloud. I am near constantly digging through Discogs and record store bins (I’ve been regretting not buying an All Saints 12” all morning), and am as big a fan of older releases as I am of new ones. Have had Brigitte Fontaine’s 1972 album Comme à la Radio and Little Annie’s 1992 Short and Sweet on repeat recently. Expect to hear all of this on upcoming radio shows! 

shesaid.so: Can you share one piece of advice that has stayed with you in your career and why was it impactful to you?

Kaitlyn: Being resilient is everything, and chasing your dreams is hard. There are ups and downs in every career path, but the creative industries are never-ending roller coasters. Realizing that it’s a skill and not a given to navigate the bumps has been integral to the way I go about my day-to-day. 

shesaid.so: Which people in the music industry are you inspired by, and why?

Kaitlyn: Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst, Liz Pelly, David Turner, Cherie Hu, Elijah, Bas Grasmayer, PortraitXO, Sarah Farina, DJ Sprinkles, Hanif Abdurraqib, Bob Boilen, Jessica Hopper, Kathleen Hanna, Patti Smith, Neneh Cherry, Britney Spears. Tirelessly, relentlessly, doing their thing. 

shesaid.so: How can people reach you if they want to connect?

Kaitlyn: Always there when you call, always online. 

Words by Clare Everson

Artist Spotlight: PortraitXO

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The shesaid.so Artist Spotlight is a monthly series where we highlight new artists from our global community that you should keep an eye on. If you’re interested in submitting yourself or your artist please contact us at hello@shesaid.so

Photo Credit Dan Gorelick

Rania, aka, PortraitXO, is a singer-songwriter, and visual artist, most known for her hybrid music and installation art. In December 2019, she was awarded the AI Mozart prize at Beats & Bits – the world’s first Artificial Intelligence music competition, and in March 2020 she had an artist residency with Sonar+D x Factory Berlin. This year she releases her debut AI album ‘Wire’ from NFT to vinyl on December 9th after premiering it at SXSW as an official artist. As well as all this, Portrait XO plays an active role in many communities, and is the creative director of SOUND OBSESSED, a hybrid arts community working at the intersection of art, sound, science and emerging technologies. We were lucky enough to have Portrait XO perform at our shesaid.so space (in partnership with ZORA) during Amsterdam Dance Event, and wanted to share some of her insights with you. 

shesaid.so: Tell us more about your artist journey and how your sound has developed to where it is today? 

My musical journey started from a young age when I learned classical piano and violin from 4-15 years old playing in recitals,  orchestras, and conservatories in LA.  I decided to stop when my piano instructor wanted to start preparing me for Juilliard and increase classes & practice hours per week.  I never felt called to pursue a career as a classical pianist.  At around 6 yrs old I fell in love with jazz one day when I was with my mom walking past a restaurant and an old lady was playing jazz piano.  My mom never allowed me to learn what I wanted because she was so strict about me learning classical music.  Since then, my relationship with music has been complicated.  It took me a while to figure my own journey from learning how to write and produce my own music to eventually taking vocal lessons.  I consider myself a late bloomer with my artistic journey because I never felt fully satisfied just expressing through music.  In school, I excelled at creative writing, drawing, painting, and music.  Because I didn’t have any role models to guide me, I tried my best to use my intuition to guide my decisions of what I wanted to do in life. Bjork and Radiohead were such big inspirations for me and they set the bar so high in my head that I wished to one day be able to express myself as fully as they do.  I used to do behind the scenes work in the music industry to get a feel for how everything worked from being a session musician to teaching private piano lessons and co-producing and co-writing with other music producers and artists.  Now looking back, I was desperate to break free from form all throughout my youth.  I got jaded pretty quickly from the pop music industry in LA from the way I was treated back then and never felt connected as deeply to the music I was hearing and writing until I discovered trip hop in the 90’s.  I became obsessed with UK music and moved to London from 2006-2015.  It was the most expensive decision I ever made but was worth everything because it was such an eye-opener for me and I grew so much more in ways I never would’ve otherwise.  Not through school, not through my peers or other influences around me.  I grew not just artistically but I learned a lot more about myself and my identity crises I didn’t know I was having while deprogramming how I was socially conditioned that was toxic while perceiving my past from the other side of the world. 

PortraitXO

The dissonance and hardship I felt growing up in E. LA from the systemic racism to generational trauma that is so deeply rooted in the entertainment industry became crystal clear after I moved away.  It’s not to say that I didn’t like any of the music I heard growing up in LA, I just felt a deeper pull to the UK because I fell in love with electronic music production that moved me so deeply.  I became obsessed with hunting for sounds I’ve never heard. 

The darker and quirkier the sounds were, I felt parts of me releasing through sound – traumatic parts of my past that were trying to seek catharsis for healing.  I never knew music could do that.  And it’s such a paradox, how music can be so healing and powerful at the same time, the artistic journey can be so challenging sometimes.  Making music and sound is such an intricate journey for me.  The more complex my feelings are that I want to articulate, the longer I have to take sometimes to play with sounds until I feel they align with whatever it is I’m trying to express.  Whatever I can’t articulate with words or imagery, I turn to sound.  Music helps me communicate what can’t be spoken, written, or drawn, but felt only through sound.  

I hit a creative depression at some point because I wasn’t happy with anything I was creating while living back in LA between 2015-2018.  I was always into looking for new tools and instruments for inspiration to help me break out of ruts.  Around 2015, I met CJ Carr (½ of Dadabots) and since then my life has never been the same.  He was knee deep in his AI for music research and started talking to me about the future of AI and music.  It was so abstract to me at the time, I couldn’t imagine what anything AI generated could sound like.  I was in LA from 2015-2018 before I moved to Berlin and for 1 yr I decided to write as much as I could.  I wrote over 200 songs in a year and was happy with maybe 5% of it.  When CJ and I collaborated during our artist residency at Factory Berlin x Sonar+D from 2019-2020, we decided to use 1 hr of my recorded vocals as the training dataset for our first AI audio experiment.  I handpicked recordings of my singing from unreleased music I liked and whatever I had released up to that point.  In 2 ½ days, CJ trained this recording of my voice into his custom AI SampleRNN model and generated 10 hours of new audio for me to play with.  I had no idea what to expect and allowed myself to surrender completely to these strange outputs that led to discovering a process I fell in love we call ‘neural vocal duet’ – a co-creation of writing lyrics and melodies with my AI ‘other’ voice.  This is what gave birth to my AI audiovisual album ‘WIRE’ that is releasing this December.  It was originally supposed to release in 2020 but after the pandemic hit, I lost energy and decided to pause everything.  I got introduced to Thomas Haferlach who started pollinations.ai and ended up spending most of my lockdowns experimenting with these exciting new open source AI models that helped me create all the visuals I now perform live with, and music videos that will be releasing soon.  My obsession with human-machine collaboration that started from being a music gear junkie from instruments to plugins has grown even deeper with the unlimited potential of AI tools opening new forms of expression.  While I don’t feel like I need AI to be a better artist or producer, I always love discovering new tools that push my boundaries and enhance the way I craft my work.  It’s important that I keep evolving and continue trying new approaches to stay inspired and allow curiosity to lead me to new places I never imagined.  

shesaid.so: When did you start connecting visuals to your music?  

I’ve always been inspired by visuals in some way.  Sometimes while I write music, I write to a scene in my head, or a movie that has a soundtrack or theme I love.  And these scenes are based on personal stories of me and people I’ve encountered who left emotional experiences that trigger me to write about them.  My artist name is actually derived from finding my creative process similar to a portrait painter.  As painters use a canvas, paint, and brush to make a portrait of their subject, it’s the same way I approach songwriting and music making.  When I have finished pieces of music, I immediately need to have visuals that match the music to help complete the storytelling.  I’m also pretty introverted onstage as I am offstage and fell in and out of love with performing because I never enjoyed having bright spotlights on my face onstage.  Since I started performing with visuals, I’ve fallen back in love with performing again.  Visuals to me are just as important as the music.  And I really need the visuals to enhance the music, if they don’t match I don’t feel satisfied.  I want my art and music to be the focus of my performances and give people immersive concerts where they can experience what feels like a journey of many movements.  

shesaid.so: Why did you make the decision to move to Berlin, and how have you found living and creating from there?

I have a tendency to fall in love with people’s stories I admire.  I love David Bowie’s legacy as a creator who was so immersed in expressing himself in so many ways.  I remember falling even more in love with his artistic journey when I went to his exhibition at V&A in London.  The way he expressed himself through fashion, acting, and music was so inspiring.  His period living in Berlin was really intriguing.   I also loved the collaboration he did with Ty Roberts who created the software for Bowie to randomize new words called ‘Verbasizer’.  After I moved out of London, I was interested in Berlin and a small handful of my friends who already lived here convinced me to move.  It was an easy decision for me because 2015-2018 in LA was my second shot of testing myself to see if I can imagine living there again and I felt more drawn to Europe’s way of living and socializing that make me feel more connected.  I also need to be in places that help me feel creatively inspired.  I love that in Berlin no one cares who you are or what you’ve done or been in the past.  You can find the most avant-garde art experiments to higher end produced work and I love experiencing it all.  There’s no paparazzi culture in Europe that influences the way people create their art and music.  There’s way less focus on commercial success which I think is a crucial headspace to be in to create authentically.  I love the public discourse in Europe about art in general, how much is considered in the process of creating.  

AI Self-Portrait

shesaid.so: What do you think are some of the misconceptions people may have about Web3 and creativity? 

I think a lot of people feel put off by ‘crypto bros’ and see NFTs and web 3.0 stuff as temporary hype that’s dying out.  Also because there’s a type of large scale generative art that happened in the first big wave of NFTs that made people associate NFTs not as ‘real art’ but more as visual symbols to be part of this crypto art movement and communities.  There’s still some negative feelings being thrown at people doing any kind of creative work on chain.  I mean, it’s all just software that functions differently to ‘web 2.0’ because the fundamental basis of the technology makes everything transparent, shared, and visible.  All these tools on chain open a lot of interesting questions which aren't really yes or no to do anything in Web 3.0, but in what context does it make sense to do things on chain that we can’t do in Web 2.0.  Like social media I think makes so much sense to be decentralised e.g. LensProtocol.  I love what arpeggi.io is doing - a DAW in Web 3.0 which opens an interesting new way to share stems, create, and share music.  I get triggered when anyone refers to me as a ‘NFT artist’ or ‘Web 3.0’ artist. 

Technology doesn’t define me, I use a lot of different tools for creation from piano, painting, to synths, 3D art, and AI.  It’s so weird that we even have this terminology ‘NFT artist’.  When we started transacting using paypal to buy and sell goods, if you were doing this with art, we never called ourselves ‘paypal artist’ so it’s weird to me.  Like if I was to make music primarily with synths, I’d never call myself a ‘synth artist’.  I’m an artist who makes music and art with a lot of different mediums.

As for Web 3.0, I’m enjoying experimenting and exploring what we can do with new tools that are opening up.  I love going to hackathons and having conversations with people in cryptography to better understand the limitations and possibilities of new technology.  I teamed up with someone new at ETHBerlin recently and won a little award from one of the sponsors - LensProtocol.  We’re about to kick off a little game there soon.  I love learning about emerging technologies as they happen, it’s inspiring to witness and be involved in early experiments because continuous experimentation is what keeps me inspired to create in new ways.  I never want to be pigeonholed or feel boxed into any set ways of creating.  I think it’s good to stay curious and keep our brains active.  

Portrait XO and Richie Hawtin at the ADE 2022 shesaid.so official space

As part of Refraction Festival DAO, SOUND OBSESSED received some grant funding to build a sonic innovation archive which I’m excited about.  We’ve been working with a developer and will be launching the first collection on November 18th using ZORA.  This archive will feature innovative works in and for sound featuring sound artists, musicians, scientists, and robotics engineers.  I’m really excited about creating a new space that will celebrate these exciting movements at this intersection of art, music, science, and technology.  What started as my personal collection of the most inspiring people I’ve met throughout my journey, I’m excited that there will be a home now where I hope will serve to be a way to celebrate the painful and inspiring process of innovation, and also involve more people to be part of the journey to learn about interesting alternative ways to create.  I hope this to be the beginning of what will eventually become a book and expand to involve more people I have yet to meet.  There will be 2 parts of this sonic innovation archive that celebrates the innovators who build new tools, and the validators who create with these new tools and/or integrate them with other tools/their workflow in interesting ways.  

shesaid.so: For musicians interested in collaborating with AI, whether for visuals or sound, are there some tools which you could recommend for them getting started, which are fairly accessible?

Yes, I have 2 published documents on my website https://portraitxo.space/AI-Song-Contest-2021 and https://portraitxo.space/EXPRESS-MINE that feature my workflow, links to tools, and audio examples people are free to download and use however they’d like.  I just ask people to share how they integrate any of my material cause I’m always curious if they do get used and how.  There’s also Dubler by Vochlea that has a smart AI calibration system that allows your voice to be calibrated to their software allowing you to compose from your voice straight to MIDI real-time that works really well.  There’s an amazing new real-time AI audio synthesis plugin for Ableton my friend Moisés Horta Valenzuela created that is releasing soon that’s been really fun.  I’m really into creating instruments from my own datasets so if anyone wants to try a similar approach, the 2 links I provided is how I first experimented creating my own instruments without knowing how to code and using google colab notebooks.  A few months ago, google released a DDSP-VST that now allows people to create their own instrument and do real-time tone transfer with a plugin: https://magenta.tensorflow.org/ddsp-vst.  Examples: https://sites.research.google/tonetransfer.  I haven’t played with a lot of the MIDI related AI stuff mainly because I love working with raw audio.  I love the glitches and morphing that happens.  

shesaid.so: Who are some of the creatives inspiring you at the moment?

Bjork continues to be an inspiration, the level of details that goes into everything she does from what she wears to how she writes and performs.  I just love how she builds entire worlds around her music.  I also love James Blake, FKA Twigs, Joy Orbison, Max Cooper, Floating Points, and have been listening to Jon Hopkins and Aphex Twin a lot again recently.  

shesaid.so: Your work really brings together the worlds of art and technology. Did you always have a brain that was drawn to science and creativity, or has one come more naturally to you?

Photo Credit Factory Berlin

I wasn’t good at all science classes, but somehow I excelled in physiology.  When it came to drawing internal and external human anatomy, I always created really detailed drawings and I was able to hold everything I learned because it was all so fascinating.  I couldn’t get my head around chemistry because it was just too abstract for me.  But the way our human bodies work is so interesting.  I think if I didn’t do music, I would’ve pursued physiology or neuroscience.  My music artist friend Simonne Jones who happens to have a scientific background phrased it once so elegantly, ‘science is art, and art is science’.  I wasn’t always so scientific as a music artist, but the more I became involved and interested in science, the better it helped me create sonically and visually.  I’ve found that the better I understand how things work (the science of how everything works), I can break everything down and get really granular.  I think I’ve become more detailed with how I work because understanding how scientists work with doubt has helped me approach doubt and my own processes in helpful ways that pull me out of getting into existential crises when I feel a creative block like most artists do.  I’m constantly on a search to discover where humanity lies between art and technology.  Scientific methods help me with my ongoing research in different fields of interest, art helps me translate new discoveries, and technology helps me create experiences that translate science into art.  Music is the glue that binds everything and translates emotions and unexplainable aspects of life.  And when you break everything down to its core, everything has a frequency - colors, sounds, flavors, smells, feelings, thoughts, energies, temperature, and even our memories - frequencies beyond sound.

shesaid.so: We’re nearing the end of 2022 which has been a busy year for you! What are you excited about bringing to life next year?

I’m excited about new projects for next year, a lot of new collaborations have been building and forming this year.  I’m looking forward to spending this winter creating new work inspired by everything I’ve soaked up from this year.  It’s been so intense to go from 0 to 1000 but I’ve loved it all so much.  It’s been such an isolating few years for me so connecting with people IRL has brought me back to life.  I can’t wait to release new work next year and would like to tour more.  New things I want to create keep getting added to my ever growing to do list, but I’m really excited I get to collaborate with some really amazing artists and scientists that will be releasing/launching next year.  

shesaid.so: shesaid.so is a community guided by intersectionality. In your opinion, how could the music industry do better in terms of inclusivity? 

Mindfulness and staying curious instead of assuming would be a great place to start all conversations.  Educating each other about the challenges of being part of the industry and helping each other grow in ways that’s emotionally supportive is something I wish I had when I was figuring things out.  I have my own set of traumas from the industry and I stepped away from the music industry for a while to heal and build myself up again.  Having open spaces that allow hardships to be expressed and feel heard and supported is a really great thing to have.  I hope these types of activations continue to be present at events and festivals to be openly talked about.  Having public discourse about really difficult topics is a great way to let people know that they aren’t alone. 

shesaid.so: How have communities played a role in your development as an artist?

While I never felt like I was part of any big community, I have a small pool of people that are like family to me.  I don’t know where I’d be without them and they are my community.  I have ADHD and am constantly working nonstop.  Sometimes I don’t know when or how to stop taking on new work, especially if they’re really exciting and fun.  Because I take on a lot of work, I don’t have a lot of time to spend with a large amount of people on a regular basis.  I divide my time working alone intensely, collaborating with other artists/producers, or on the road at events/festivals.  I have a small community of artists, mentors, and friends who are my backbone to get through really difficult times.  I try my best to give back to communities in whatever ways I can when I have time for it because I think accessibility to new tools is important, especially to groups of communities that would even know about how to access new tools when they emerge.    

shesaid.so: what do you think are the successful ingredients to build a strong community? 

Being able to hold space for each other in times of need.  Being able to feel seen, heard, and supported.  Having shared values.  Manifesto and code of conduct that everyone respects e.g. no homophobia, no sexism, etc.  

Portrait XO at SXSW 2022

shesaid.so: And finally, could you share a few bullet-point top tips for artists just starting out? What would you have loved to hear?

You don’t need the validation of everyone.  Find someone who can be your mentor to guide parts of your journey.  Not everyone will look after your best interest so build a strong community even if it’s just a small number of like-minded friends who are also aiming for similar goals and support each other.  Create goals not plans because plans will always change and learn how to reward every effort instead of seeking gratification from awards, prizes, fame, and anything that’s out of your control.  Filter out opinions because everyone has an opinion.  Be selective with who you ask for constructive feedback when you need it, and ask for it from the right people that are relevant to what you feel will help you.  Getting constructive feedback is very different to asking a random person if they like your work or not.  It’s more valuable to get feedback that’s helpful from someone who is more experienced at what you want to achieve to understand what you can improve/better, and what you’re doing really well in.  But even more experienced people are often times changing and evolving.  It’s a long journey, so staying focused on processes that keep you excited is crucial. 

Journal every part of your journey and celebrate every time you grow and expand and make growth your prime way to feel fulfilled.  If you don’t feel like you’re growing, ask why, and get really granular with understanding what you need help with to move forward.  Journaling is not only the best form of therapy, but it’ll help keep track of your own progress so you can mentally reward your efforts. 

When you do what you love consistently and keep sharing, things do happen over time.  But when the time to go happens, I don’t think anything can really prepare you for the extreme propelling movements that can be really overwhelming.  So having supportive people and mental work like meditating and journaling can help feel grounded when things feel shaky.  The higher the exciting times can lead to feeling really ungrounded after with massive comedowns.  Sit in testing times to feel the ground and breathe, stay in the mental state of gratitude for all the challenges and ask what are the lessons from them.  Accept that what works for you now will and most likely change; continuously evolving and changing is exciting.  And the timeline of when and how things take shape is unpredictable, so learning how to be patient is also vital.  When there are moments of frustration because something isn’t working out the way you thought you wanted, surrender your thoughts into writing and let it all go.  There are always new opportunities and life does support your dreams, just not the way you ever imagined or expect them to happen.  

Check out Portrait XO’s NFT to Vinyl campaign here:

https://marketplace.twlvxtwlv.com/campaign/PortraitXO

Official promo video for Portrait XO’s NFT to Vinyl campaign

Stay up to date with PortraitXO through her social handles, bandcamp and via the following discord channels:

www.portraitxo.space

instagram.com/portraitxo

twitter.com/portraitxo

shesaid.so Mix 043: Venessa Michaels

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The shesaid.so mix series aims to spotlight the diverse artists within our community. We’re committed to championing underrepresented voices from around the world, focusing on female, non-binary, trans and queer individuals. Our monthly mix series allows our contributing selectors to showcase their unique backgrounds and inspirations by creating exclusive, 30-minute live recorded soundscapes. 

The shesaid.so Mix series continues this month with Venessa Michaels, the Los Angeles-based producer who's become known for her self-coined ‘2090’ genre: a retro-futuristic sound blending various forms of club music with Y2K-inspired hip-hop and pop. 

The genre-blending producer has collaborated with big names such as J.Worra, Lil Texas, and Kaleena Zanders; toured with NIKI, Raury, 6lack, Party Favor, and Krewella; performed at festivals such as Coachella, Splash House, and Camp Flog Gnaw; and created the theme song for the DreamWorks Netflix show KIPO and the Age of Wonderbeasts. 

Venessa Michaels is gearing up to release her debut album, Sent From Saturn, a full-length project that will see the artist evolving in real time. With a lavish mix of various dance and pop genres, the new album promises to showcase Michaels’ versatile skill set and eclectic aesthetic sensibilities. 

We caught up with the producer ahead of her newest single, “Needed U” - a breakbeat and tech-house heater dropping this Friday, November 18. 

Tell us the story of how you fell in love with music.

Venessa Michaels: My Mom and Grandma provided me many opportunities to fall in love with something creative. I entered piano lessons at, like, 2 years old, and was apparently patient enough to learn even at that age. That led to eventually taking classical guitar lessons and I fell deeply in love with the instrument. I’ve always been obsessed with music, and so that was the passion that I chose - or maybe it chose me.  My mom was the first person to suggest DJing as something I should try.  At first I was like “NoOoOO I don't wanna be a DJ,” and then I gave it a shot. Obviously it stayed with me, and probably will till I'm 100 years old.  

How has your community, background or upbringing influenced your sound?

Venessa Michaels: I grew up in San Diego and was very heavily influenced by West Coast music & whatever I heard on the radio. I have very specific memories of listening to No Doubt, Sublime, ODB, Mariah Carey, The Offspring, Timbaland, Missy, Aaliyah etc. I really LOVED that era’s music. I would burn CDs all the time. Then I got to experience some Northern California influence when I went to school at UC Santa Cruz - with Mac Dre, Too Short, E-40, etc.  That music contained so much hype - and it was soooo fun.

I mean, I’ve absorbed a large variety of influences. I’m also a DJ, so my influences ALSO include the dance world.  Like everyone knows the A Trak remix of Heads Will Roll. That song was so iconic and it definitely got me interested in uptempo dance music. It's safe to say I love all types of music & am grateful to have heard so much of it.  I know it has influenced my songwriting, producing, and everything else. 

Who or where do you draw inspiration from?

Venessa Michaels: My friends are all really talented people. I am so inspired by their drive and passion, and it only comes back around.  

Is there a theme to your mix? What can listeners expect to hear?

Venessa Michaels: This mix is for the house heads! Enjoy.

What are you currently working on, and what are you looking forward to in 2022? 

Venessa Michaels: I’m getting ready to release my debut album, Sent From Saturn, in the new year. I also created a new sample pack with LANDR called "Club Basics" using their Chromatic plug-in; I’m working on producing more of these. I’m really looking forward to all these releases - I took a year off dropping anything  original, and this will be the first time I drop a full length project. 

we.grow x Power Up Mentoring Program 

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We're joining forces with POWER UP - an ambitious, long-term initiative which supports Black music creators and industry professionals and executives, as well as addressing anti-Black racism and racial disparities in the music sector.

POWER UP are calling for an experienced and diverse cohort of mentors to volunteer and get involved in this mentorship scheme, focusing on mentoring outstanding Black music creators and professionals who are at a crucial career tipping point. The mentorship scheme will run in tandem with the POWER UP Participant Programme at the beginning of January 2023, and shesaid.so are the mentoring partner and mentorship managers.

To achieve our aim, POWER UP X shesaid.so are looking for acclaimed music professionals, both creators and executives, to mentor and coach future industry leaders.

If you have a deep understanding of the barriers faced by Black music professionals; extensive experience within your area or a specialist skill set, please apply through the link below. POWER UP X shesaid.so recommend mentor pairs dedicate 2 hours per month to the 4-month scheme.

Mentors will be matched with mentees based on experience, aims, needs, background and requirements by a panel of mentoring experts from shesaid.so. Training and support will be provided alongside regular check-ins with your shesaid.so mentorship manager.

To register and join our cohort of Mentors for shesaid.so and POWER UP to choose from, please complete the following Google Form by close of play Monday 28th November 2022:

POWER UP x shesaid.so | we.grow Mentor Form

Eight years of shesaid.so

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The shesaid.so community is celebrating 8 years of awareness, connection and education. Join us as we take a moment to reflect on what we achieved over the last 12 months and what the future may hold.

So far this year; we featured interviews with some of our favorite artists and music industry execs, showcased up and coming talent, embarked on several industry partnerships and projects, discussed issues that are at the core of our community and explored the latest trends in the music industry.

Our 2022 highlights:

Stay tuned as we’ll share more about our achievements throughout the years!

For the rest of the year, we are taking some time to recalibrate and prepare for some exciting announcements in 2023. Take a moment to read an open letter from our founder Andreea Magdalina as she reflects on the past and hints at what the future may hold.

Dear community,

As we take a brief moment to celebrate our 8th anniversary, I feel compelled to deeply reflect on our past achievements and take our time contemplating the future.

We've learned and achieved so much over the last few years together with our members and partners. From countless events and online sessions, through to mentoring programs and editorial content that strived to educate and bring the community closer together. Since shesaid.so's launch as a passion project back in 2014, our community has seen and played a part in key moments for the music business and the diversity and inclusion movement - including a pandemic, #metoo, BLM, streaming, the rise (and lows) of the creator economy, web3 and NFTs to name a few. While some of the wider milestones in our society feel like setbacks, we cannot help but move towards the future with a deep sense of hope.

As we look towards the future in a sustainable way, it's imperative that we take a long term and deep thinking approach. Prior to the pandemic, our public-facing focus was on creating awareness of our mission & goals via events. The global shift to the digital space forced our community to find new ways of connecting and collaborating with one another and, in some cases, embrace new technologies that are once again reshaping how we produce, distribute and consume online outputs via blockchain. Not only that, but our community has evolved from a group of mostly female music executives to include people of all genders who work in music both in a creative and business capacity; we have grown larger in the US where our identity and our bodies are highly politicized; we have welcomed more artists than ever before and we have expanded in new territories while others have folded.

New questions around identity, community, economic value, inflation, digital governance, privacy and ownership have emerged, pushing the music & creative industries to reimagine their place in the world and on the internet. shesaid.so is no stranger to these questions. As a community, it feels we have arrived at a crossroads: on one hand, we have accomplished our mission to drive awareness of diversity and inclusion, and, on the other, it feels as if this newfound social awareness has created more polarization than ever before. If conversation & awareness were our goals thus far, where do we go from here? What is our place in the music business today and moving forward? Who are we and how do we capture this ever evolving communal agency that makes us, authentically us?

In order to find the most thoughtful answers to these questions, we are taking a step back from all major projects for the remainder of the year to make room for deep investigation. This means our annual Alternative Power 100 Music List campaign is indefinitely going on hold, along with our monthly editions of Artist & Member Spotlights, Community Town Halls and other recurring editorials. We are also going to evaluate our existing partnerships, allies and core members to ensure they continue to be in alignment with our values as we look towards the future with a renewed sense of standards. To improve transparency, we will rearticulate shesaid.so's vision, mission statement and values and reassemble them into a new cohesive documentation system that our community can easily reference internally and externally. Last but not least, we will explore new tools of organization and governance with the goal to increase community participation and reward members based on the level of their contributions. Big changes are looming on the horizon and, as a member, please rest assured that you will play a significant part in bringing them forth.

I'm filled with gratitude as I write this. The 19 year-old me who left Romania to be a student in London would have never thought that, 5 years later, a small act of registering a new domain name with an unusual tld would lead to what shesaid.so is today. While I'm working on clarifying what it will be, I think we can all look back with pride on what it has been. When I sat down to create the very first shesaid.so community platform (the same google group we still use today), I knew we may never reach the ultimate destination in my lifetime. To embark on a journey whose terminus may never be found is a strange feeling for anyone with a strictly logical mindset like mine was eight years ago. And yet I've learned more about myself and my destination from the hidden backwoods that this path has taken me on than I would have from simply crossing the finish line. I'm so excited to continue getting lost together in new ways on the way there.

Yours,

/AM

We are thrilled to welcome shesaid.so Iceland!

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Their launch event will take place at Loft Hostel on November 5, during the Iceland Airwaves Festival and Conference and you can RSVP HERE.

The Icelandic chapter is being started by Anna Jóna Dungal, Hrefna Helgadóttir, Kelechi Amadi and Kim Wagenaar. What they all have in common is having spent significant time abroad, where they individually came to appreciate the value of strong communities to share experiences, collaborate and accelerate career growth. The team decided to formalise themselves for women and gender nonconforming people under the banner of the global shesaid.so. The Iceland Chapter will aim not just to strengthen itself by connecting internally, but also build on this global brand to strengthen and build on connections to the international music industry. 

The goal is for the organisation to start in 2023 with four big events over the year and a series of smaller networking meet-ups. The chapter will be run by 5-8 industry professionals and artists who together make up the board, and then any woman or gender nonconforming person in Iceland can join as a member. Members will pay a small annual fee to access the events, the global community, job opportunities in the industry and much more and is open for all women and gender nonconforming people who work in music in Iceland. The organisation will look to educate, inspire, connect, and entertain its members offering up opportunities to network, and showcase talent both at home and away – which will serve the wider music community in Iceland by making the industry more equal and more visible. 

"When I moved back to Iceland during the COVID pandemic, I was really missing a sense of community around the work that I was doing. Getting the opportunity to connect with dozens of women through the Keychange program in 2022 made it click with Kim and I that this is what’s missing from the Icelandic scene: a safe space for women to connect around the work that we do in music."

– Anna Jóna Dungal, titill 

When they approached me, I instantly felt like this was something I should participate in. I‘ve worked mostly with women in my collectives as an artist and project manager, very powerful and legendary women whom‘ve inspired my in lifechanging ways. There‘s some crazy magic that happens when those projects work out. But those women-fronted collectives and teams are rarely the case in the music industry, and I think shesaid.so can path the way for that magic to flourish.

– Ása Dýradóttir, Mammút

We are thrilled to welcome shesaid.so Iceland to the #shesaidso family and extend our vision and mission further into the European market. Wishing the team a successful launch, and can't wait to see what they will accomplish! We’re so looking forward to seeing your success in our global community.

— Andreea Magdalina

Founder, shesaid.so

 

Event recap: shesaid.so showcase at the Roundhouse Rising Festival

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Thank you for making the shesaid.so showcase at Roundhouse’s Rising Festival a success!

Deto Black, Zanillya, TrueMendous

The showcase was all about the lyricism, powerful rhythms and empowering messages that these artists have created. You could feel how that had travelled through everyone in the room, leaving a feeling of longing to relive the night again.

The night opened with Flora Yin Wong, the room filling out quickly as she began her set. Flora's experimental, rhythmic tracks had the audience hooked, creating anticipation in the air for what the rest of the night would entail. Next was Zanillya, who only continued to build on the sturdy foundations Flora had built. The crowd warmed to Zanillya immediately, with her infectiously bright energy and impactful music pulsing through the audience.

This energy and enthusiasm within the crowd seemed to carry on through the night as they welcomed Truemendous to the stage. She had the jaws of everyone in the room touching the floor with her striking flow patterns and vocal techniques, carefully and articulately portraying her messages with an immense force that you simply could not ignore. We then had Deto Black to conclude our evening, she captivated the crowd with her powerful and magnetising performance in an instant. Hyping everyone up during her last few tracks they were sad the night had to end. Once Deto was finished the room was still humming with joy and excitement from the night, many people approached me to exclaim how brilliant the line-up was.

The highlight of the night for us would be seeing how much the audience and artists connect. We loved how welcoming and supportive the audience were towards each artist and how that was reciprocated right back from the stage. There was a fantastic exchange of energy, and we could feel that the artists used that energy to make their performances better than they could have imagined.

A big thank you to the Roundhouse staff for being great communicators and doing their best to fulfil every request we had on the day, no matter how big or small! It made all the difference to work with a team of people at the venue who were present and just as passionate to be there with us to make a great show.

Words by Vix Brand @vixkurtis

Photos by Jennifer McCord & Vix Brand

shesaid.so Mix 042: Ms. Mada

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The shesaid.so mix series aims to spotlight the diverse artists within our community. We’re committed to championing underrepresented voices from around the world, focusing on female, non-binary, trans and queer individuals. Our monthly mix series allows our contributing selectors to showcase their unique backgrounds and inspirations by creating exclusive, 30-minute live recorded soundscapes.

The shesaid.so Mix series continues this month with Ms. Mada, the Filipino-born, Miami-raised DJ virtuoso whose residency at Miami’s vaunted Club Space has made her an internationally sought-after selector.

Ms. Mada’s taste blends the Latin American influence of her childhood neighborhood, R&B/hip-hop classics heard on the radio, and local electronic music genres such as Miami Bass and Miami Freestyle - a combination that invokes a diverse map of the DJ’s vibrant Miami upbringing, This dynamic, home-sprung sound has led to performances at American festivals such as Ultra Music Festival, EDC, III Points (where she played a Boiler Room set), Splash House, Hard Summer, and Time Warp, as well as international festivals such as EXIT (Serbia), BPM (Mexico), and BAUM (Columbia).

Ms. Mada has solidified her place in the soundscape of Miami, opening and closing for many of today’s biggest names in electronic music. We caught up with the DJ ahead of her debut at the club night series The Warehouse Project in Manchester, UK.

Tell us the story of how you fell in love with music.

I can say that my earliest memory of actually falling in love with music was listening to Aaliyah - “Are You That Somebody”. I became obsessed with this song. Wanting to learn the lyrics so I could sing along whenever it spontaneously came on the radio. I wasn’t able to buy the single either because I didn’t know how or where to look, so I had to sit by my stereo with my empty cassette tape and hit record when I heard the intro coming on. This was right around the time I started to become more interested in listening to Hip-Hop and R&B right before I was exposed to dance music.

How has your community, background or upbringing influenced your sound?

I grew up as a Filipina in a predominantly Latin community, so I was exposed to all sorts of Latin American music— salsa, merengue, bachata, vallenato, cumbia, etc. Then there was everything else on the radio with Miami bass, freestyle, and the usual Hip-hop/R&B radio hits of the time being played in between. I always tell this story of how the turning point for me diving headfirst into electronic music was when my neighbor handed me a George Acosta CD when I was about 10 years old. However, I also think growing up in Miami was so enriching that without me even realizing at the time, the music of my adolescence would lay my foundation and eventually pave my way towards electronic music.

Who or where do you draw inspiration from?

I don’t have a particular source, but I will say that my DJ contemporaries turned friends inspire me a lot. Most of my friends are artists in their own right and we all share different tastes, but the way I can just nerd out with them about music is one of my favorite things.

Is there a theme to your mix? What can listeners expect to hear?

There’s no real theme to my mix except for the very last two tracks. I had to include some Miami staples. You’ll hear tracks by Austin Ato, Sweely, Moglis, MADVILLA, Planet Soul, and a classic that I consider as one of the soundtracks of my youth. (:

What are you currently working on, and what are you looking forward to in 2022?

Currently, I’m trying to get around to mastering my own tracks for release. I’ve been traveling on and off almost every week since July, but I’m not complaining. I’m really fortunate. As of right now, I’m really excited to check this one off my bucket list. My debut at Warehouse Project in Manchester for Music ON on November 18.

shesaid.so space at ADE 2022 // powered by ZORA

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The shesaid.so space at ADE 2022 powered by ZORA will feature a full day of programming on Friday October 21st at Lynk & Co’s flagship Amsterdam Club located right in the middle of all the ADE action.

The first half of the day will include activities related to the mentoring program as well as public facing talks, networking and electronic music. The second half of the day will exclusively focus on web3 discussions, performances and networking - plus a music NFT gallery and other interactive exercises designed to educate and showcase what’s possible within the web3 ecosystem.

Our goal is to create an inclusive environment where our global community attending ADE can connect with one another and other industry professionals, in addition to learning. The program will reflect some of the most ardent topics from the shesaid.so world - including diversity & inclusion as well as more industry-facing discussions. Last but not least, the space will highlight initiatives and creatives curated from the community and provide promotional opportunities for showcasing talent.


RSVP is required

https://par.tf/EGu7

Lynk & Co Rokin 75 1012 KL Amsterdam

Program Outline


11am-11:45am

Meta x Music Masterclass

  • Open to ADE Pro & Lab pass holders

  • Learning/Education

Description: Meta’s Artist Partnerships (Liz Miller) and Label Partnerships (Josh Nicoll) will run through all the latest best practices for Facebook and Instagram, including a run-through of our current music products and a quick look into our work in blockchain technology and the metaverse.

11:45am-12:00pm: Networking

12:00-12:30pm

AMA: Record Labels, DSPs & Publishing

  • Open to ADE Pro & Lab pass holders

  • Q&A format

  • This session will allow the audience to ask questions directly from our guest speakers.

  • Speakers: Liz Miller (Meta), Bina Fronda (Ultra Records), Isla Fabinyi (Sentric Music Publishing), Panos Polimatidis (Head of Artist Relations UK, Believe), Andreas Rizek (Head of A&R, North America, Ultra Publishing).

12:30-12:45pm: Networking

12:45-1:15pm

AMA: Agents & Managers

  • Open to ADE Pro & Lab pass holders

  • Q&A format

  • This session will allow the audience to ask questions directly from our guest speakers.

  • Speakers: Sarah Stam (Set The Tone); Lucy Atkinson (Earth), Jameson Thomas (IAMJT), Melanie McClain. Eva Greene (Black Acre); Alexandra Hale (Higher Ground); Hannah Shogbola (UTA).

WEB 3 Programming Kicks off

1:15-2:30pm:

Music NFT Gallery + Wallet Onboarding + Special NFT showcase & discussion TBA

2:30-3:15pm

Workshop: ZORA presents: Enabling Decentralised Music Communities; hosted by Kaitlyn Davies (Refraction)

  • Open to ADE Pro & Lab pass holders

  • Learning/Education

Description: From DIY venues to major record labels, community-building currently stands as one of the most difficult, rewarding and profitable means of being a music practitioner, particularly in the age of social networks and streaming platforms. Emerging technologies promise artists and fans new models for funding and participation but often add value back to the tech companies rather than the communities they claim to support. Could decentralised infrastructures offer music makers and maintainers more sustainable alternatives? Join RefractionDAO and ZORA for a crash course on web3 basics for music communities.

3:15-3:30pm: Networking  

3:30-4:00pm

AMA: What the hell is Web3?

  • Open to ADE Pro & Lab pass holders

  • Discussion/Debate

    TBD speakers: Michail Stangl (ZORA), Kat Young (ZORA), Kat Rodgers (Water & Music) & Cece Palmquist (beta.catalog.works).

4:00-4:15pm: Networking 

4:15-5:00pm

Web3 Artist Interview

In conversation with Richie Hawtin & Portrait XO; hosted by Andreea Magdalina (shesaid.so)




5:00-7:30pm

Web3 Mixer

  • Open to all with RSVP

  • Networking 

  • Free drinks

  • Live AV performance by Portrait XO

  • shesaid.so DJs: SUCHI & Karen Nyame KG

we.grow at ADE Mentoring Program 2022

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In 2022 the shesaid.so x ADE mentoring program is back under a new, inclusive name, we.grow at ADE. This year five mentees from the electronic music sphere and five mentees with a more specific focus on the web3 space will be invited along. Mentors are curated from the global shesaid.so community and mentees are invited to apply via the ADE website.

Program Outline

  • 10 mentors & 10 mentees (5 electronic music + 5 web3)

  • 1 Mentor handbook

  • 1 Mentee handbook

  • 1 Mentor/Mentee training session

  • 3 private events

Mentors & Mentees

This year we are excited to invite 5 mentees from the wide electronic music space and 5 mentees with a more specific focus on the web3 space.

The web3 track of the scheme will take place in partnership with ZORA - The open protocol to buy, sell and curate NFTs on Ethereum. We feel particularly aligned with them as a partner, as reflected by their Manifesto.

Web3 is a growing technology area that is changing the music industry as we speak and it is our desire to educate our community about opportunities within it and offer them the chance to learn from the best leaders in this space.

For the regular electronic music track of the scheme, we teamed up with YouTube Music and Meta to host a kickoff and a closing brunch events for mentors and mentees. This is an opportunity for us to create connections for the we.grow participants to these powerful companies. 

Mentees! Apply for a chance to be selected in the program here!

Submission period has been extended to Thursday, Oct 13th

Please note that after sign up, the shesaid.so team will pick 10 lucky mentees to follow this years' we.grow mentorship. Mentees will be contacted on October 14th.

Hispanic Heritage Month

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shesaid.so honors Hispanic Heritage Month, featuring stories of industry leaders. Curated by Maria Gironas

Alongside our friends in the US, we’re excited to be celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month! We partnered up with shesaid.so community member Maria Gironas to spotlight stories of premiere music industry pros from the Latinx community, digging deeper into the various cultures that exist and influences that make them who they are today. They’ll be sharing their favorite artists, family traditions, and more of what it means for each of them to be Hispanic/Latino/Latinx. 

Check out all of the video features on our socials (from Thursday, Oct 6 - Friday, Oct 14) and see below for quick snapshot interviews to get to know them even more!

Maria Gironas

Maria has followed two north stars throughout her career: elevating marginalized communities and empowering creatives to embrace technology. Over the past 10+ years, these pillars have guided her career through companies that span the entertainment and tech industries such as Reybee, Fender, YouTube, Q&A, Human Re-Sources, and now Reddit. Through her own company – Cool Shit, Cool People – she continues these missions by working on artist development, talent relations, and integrated marketing with clients like Wide Eyed Entertainment, Casper, Downtown Records, VLVT Tree and more.


Questions

What’s a song that best represents you?

Woof hard one but the first one that came to mind was "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings" by Caroline Polachek. It's a sad banger and I think that best describes me.

What’s one of your favorite family traditions?

Instead of Christmas Day, my family celebrates Christmas Eve. We stay up all night until midnight and countdown until Christmas Day and we all hug and kiss each other then immediately open presents. We also do Minute To Win It challenges and a talent show so we all stay up, haha.

What’s one secret or piece of advice you have for anyone who’s Latinx wanting to enter the industry?

When I started saying I wanted to work in music, I kept getting "you should work in Latin music." It's important for Latinos to be representatives in the Latin music market, but I also think it's lame to pigeon hole someone. I want to work on everything, metal, rock, pop, latin, jazz and more. My advice is don't let anywhere tell you where you fit in.

Favorite dish?

I'll go with a Bolivian one: Silpancho. It's like a steak milanese with rice, fried potatoes, tomatoes, onion, and an egg on top. My Mom makes it better than anyone and will fight anyone who says otherwise.

What’s your dream?

Enjoying the ride to live up to my potential. What is that you ask? Still figuring it out, and that's okay. Trying to remain present and savor this great life.

Who’s your favorite Latinx artist right now?

Angel22, no question. They are the future and the now of Latin music.

What is something unique about your nationality you want people to know?

Although not the most talked about of Latino’s, Bolivians are an extremely rich culture of people (maybe I’m biased). But the facts are the country recognizes over 30+ languages spoken, we have cholita wrestling (look it up it’s sick), and over 60% of the country is indigenous.

Socials

Instagram: @mariagironas

Twitter: @MariaGironas

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariagironas

Dani Sala

Dani Sala has been behind the scenes creating cultural moments with artists, producers, and songwriters for 5+ years. Based in Los Angeles, she’s an Artist, Writer/Producer Manager for Wide Eyed Entertainment which is best known for working with creatives like Julia Michaels, Becky G, Di Genius, Elena Rose, and ANGEL22, amongst others. Prior to those roles, she was a day-to-day artist manager, studio manager, along with completing internships across marketing, streaming, and sustainability at places such as Universal Music Group, Coca-Cola FEMSA, and more. Dani is also currently an A&R consultant for Atlanitc Records.

Questions

What’s a song that best represents you?

Follow Your Arrow - Kacey Musgraves

What’s one of your favorite family traditions?

Every single Sunday, my whole family gets together at my grandparents’ house in the countryside in Colombia. It’s one of my favorite things about being home.

What’s one secret or piece of advice you have for anyone who’s Latinx wanting to enter the industry?

Don’t put a ceiling on yourself. I genuinely think you can do anything you set your mind to by working hard, caring about what you do, and being a good person. Don’t limit yourself because of your background - I’ve never thought less of myself because I’m a woman or because I'm Colombian. And if anyone has done it for me, I have blinders on; I’m living my life and working for what I want. Help people win and surround yourself by people who want to see you win.

Favorite dish?

Sushi (don’t tell me I’ll get sick of it, I lived in Japan for eight years 😜)
What’s your dream?

The life I’m living. I work in music for a living, I’m surrounded by the best people who want to see me win, and I get to help artists grow and make fans’ dreams come true… it’s all I’ve ever wanted.

Who’s your favorite Latinx artist right now?

I would’ve been more original, but I just went to his show, so I need to say Bad Bunny.. Such an inspiring story of a Latino breaking every single barrier and becoming the biggest artist in the world. It gives me chills. I hope everyone gets to see him live - truly a life-changing experience.

What is something unique about your nationality you want people to know?

 We’re very sarcastic and always try to add humor to everything :)

Stephanie Leyva

Focused on empowering connections between content creators and music artists as the Director of Partnerships at Thematic, Stephanie Leyva leads the charge in innovative music discovery through social. She works extensively with creatives on the site to ensure success digitally, on the platform, and support their initiatives.

Stephanie has led numerous trending music-driven influencer marketing campaigns for “Sunroof” by Nicky Youre, “Glitter” and “Supalonely (feat. Gus Dapperton” by BENEE, “Checklist (feat. Chromeo)” by MAX and so many more. She’s worked alongside various labels such as Universal, Republic Records and Sony Music.

Questions

What song best represents you?

The song that I feel best represents me, especially during this Hispanic Heritage Month would be "El Sinaloense." This song represents my family's roots in Sinaloa, Mexico and makes me feel proud to be Mexican. 

What's one of your family traditions?

One of my favorite family traditions is drinking cafecito with my family on Saturday mornings! This is something we've been doing ever since I can remember and something I look forward to on Saturday mornings when I'm in town. Our family that lives in the area, tia's and tio's come over early morning and we drink coffee together in our pajamas while sharing in a conversation. 

What's one secret or piece of advice you have for anyone who's latinx wanting to enter the industry?

One piece of advice for anyone looking to get into the music and creator tech industry would be to use your differences as LatinX as a differentiator to stand out! Share your differences with your employer or potential employer and share how those differences will help you achieve success in the position or field. Use your understanding of those cultural nuances to identify opportunities for the company to help them communicate better with their users. 

Favorite Dish? 

Pozole for sure! I can't get enough of this Mexican dish. I can have this anytime of year and would never get tired of it. 

Who's your favorite LatinX artist right now? 

Karol G! She's so luchona and inspiring and just breaking records left and right. She's someone who is so talented and empowering to our community. 

 What is something unique about your nationality that you want people to know?

Something unique about where I'm from in Mexico (Sinaloa) I would say is our love for Seafood and specifically a dish called Aguachiles. It's a spicy seafood dish that is most enjoyed on a hot day!

Erika Montes

Erika Montes is a music executive who has worked with today's biggest artists at companies like SoundCloud, Fuse, and Island Def Jam.

Questions

What’s a song that best represents you?

At this very moment in my life Marc Anthony’s “Voy A Vivir” fits me perfectly. It’s about enjoying your life moment to moment. One foot in front of the other. What good is this life if you’re not living it? 

What’s one of your favorite family traditions?

My mom and i do a trip every year, even during COVID, we managed to somehow make them happen. The most special one was when we traveled to Mendoza, Argentina where my father’s family is from so I can have a deeper connection to that side of my family tree. 

What’s one secret or piece of advice you have for anyone who’s Latinx wanting to enter the industry? 

The first thing I always say is be kind to everyone you meet and no position is too small (a foot in the door is a step to get into the rooms you want). I got into this industry because a friend of a friend was looking for an A&R Assistant. A&R wasn’t what I was looking to do, but it allowed me to get in, get some experience, and meet some of the players.

Favorite dish?

Hands down… I love peruvian food and Lomo Saltado is my favorite!

5. What’s your dream?

I want to break barriers.. I want to be the first Latina to head a label or head up a business in the music world. 

Who’s your favorite Latinx artist right now? 

Bad Bunny!

What is something unique about your nationality you want people to know?

I grew up in Ecuador until I was 7 and I picked up an early love of music (along with poetry) because my grandmother and my mom would play Julio Jaramillo, who is the most famous singer-songwriter from Ecuador for a genre called Pasillo. The lyrics are poetry set to music and you sing them from deep down in your soul.

Alessandra Alegre

Originally from Lima, Peru, Alessandra moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 2012 to attend Belmont University and graduated Summa Cum Laude in May 2016 with a B.B.A in Music Business. During her last semester, she landed a job as Royalty Coordinator at Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group, an entertainment business management firm based in Nashville and Los Angeles. During her six years with the company, Alessandra was quickly promoted, eventually leading the Royalty Department as Senior Manager.

Currently, Alessandra is the Director of North America Tracking and Analytics at Universal Music Publishing Group. The North America Tracking and Analytics department ensures revenue collection and maximization within both the United States and Canada for deals signed worldwide. In this role, Alessandra is responsible for managing a team that analyzes income from US and Canadian sources, assists in income forecasting projects, works with the Global Tracking and Analytics department to ensure collections are in line with expectations, and reports trends from top music and video streaming platforms.

In addition to her responsibilities at UMPG, Alessandra has been heavily involved in the Nashville community and was until recently, the President for Conexion Next, a young professionals organization that provides members with personal development opportunities and volunteer initiatives that are focused on inclusivity, diversity, advocacy, and the work of Conexion Americas (a non-profit based in Nashville, Tennessee dedicated to supporting the immigrant community in Tennessee). She is also an alumni of Society of Leaders in Development (SOLID), a MusiCares Ambassador, and previously served on the Junior Board of the YWCA of Nashville & Middle Tennessee. In addition, throughout the year, she participates in various student mentorship programs and speaking opportunities through Belmont University, MusicBiz, SOLID, and Grammy U.   

Most recently, Alessandra was honored as one of the 2020 Nashville Emerging Leader Awards finalists by the Nashville Chamber of Commerce as well as a 2021 Woman of Influence by the Nashville Business Journal. 


Questions

What’s a song that best represents you?

It changes of course but right now I am in my “Invisible String” by Taylor Swift season. Just really grateful for all the magical connections that have gotten me exactly to where I am right now. 

What’s one of your favorite family traditions?

Every summer, my family spends the weekends at a beach an hour south of Lima. Most of my favorite memories happened at that beach.

What’s one secret or piece of advice you have for anyone who’s Latinx wanting to enter the industry?

Don’t try to blend in and be like everybody else. I made that mistake earlier in my career - I thought it would be easier to not draw attention to myself as a Latina woman, especially being in Nashville where at the time I started there weren’t many Latinx in the industry, let alone female Latinas. However, I missed out on the competitive advantage of being culturally different and unique. As I’ve gotten older, I have tried to shine more light on that side of myself.

Favorite dish?

Peruvian sushi. There is nothing like it.

What’s your dream?

I would love to rise through the ranks at a music company and be COO. At the same time, I would love to be part of restructuring the music industry in Peru so artists and songwriters can make a living.

Who’s your favorite Latinx artist right now?

Would it be too cliché to say Bad Bunny and Rosalía?

What is something unique about your nationality you want people to know?

How welcoming we are. We love hosting people and sharing our culture with you.

Sofia Kubicek

Sofia Kubicek is a data-driven entertainment professional passionate about artist development and international marketing. Originally from the suburbs of Chicago, Sofia’s passion for music and data eventually led her to Belmont University in Nashville, TN, where she studied entertainment and interned at over a dozen companies. She created her own intern abroad program in Madrid, where she worked for Sony Music Spain and finished her undergrad in Los Angeles with Black Box and Roc Nation in 2019. 

After graduating, Sofia began freelancing for Black Box LA and decided to make the move to New York City where she landed a job at Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings as a marketing coordinator. She led Sony’s catalog playlist streaming strategy before being promoted to focus on artist marketing.  She has led global catalog campaigns for Shakira, Avril Lavigne, Cyndi Lauper, and Train among other artists. Sofia made the move to distribution in June of 2022 and now works as an International Label Manager at ADA, overseeing a roster that includes labels Partisan Records, 88Rising, Transparent Arts, and artists such as Central Cee and Mia Gladstone.

Questions

What’s a song that best represents you? (music video link included)

I’m going to stick with the classics and go with Marc Anthony’s “Vivir Mi Vida.”

What’s one of your favorite family traditions?

I spend every New Year with my family in Mexico and, when the count down to midnight begins, it’s a tradition to eat 12 grapes for 12 months of good luck. It always turns into a big competition on who can eat them the fastest before wishing one another happy new year.

What’s one secret or piece of advice you have for anyone who’s Latinx wanting to enter the industry?

Maybe not so secret but I think it’s worth a reminder: just because you’re Latinx doesn’t mean you have to become the “Latin music/Spanish-language music” person. You’re allowed to work across different genres, and if Latin music is one genre you want to work in, great. But if it’s not you’re calling, that’s great too. We need more representation across other genres in the industry.

Favorite dish?

It would have to be sopes. They’re kind of like a tostada but they’re soft on the bottom and absolutely delicious. Next time you get Mexican food, I highly recommend you get it.

What’s your dream?

Professionally, my dream is to make a positive impact on this industry and leave it a better place than I found it. I think there’s a lot of work to be done but hopeful in the direction we’re headed.

Who’s your favorite Latinx artist right now?

Like everyone else in the world, I’ve had Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” bumping all summer long. But in terms of developing artists I’d say I’m excited about Young Miko.

What is something unique about your nationality you want people to know?

I’d want people to know that Mexican-American means different things to different people and that there’s no right or wrong way to represent your ethnicity.








shesaid.so x ADE 2022

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We are excited to announce our return to Amsterdam in 2022 as part of an official partnership with ADE that includes two Pro talks, a mentoring program and the official shesaid.so space at ADE powered by ZORA and hosted at Lynk & Co’s flagship Amsterdam club.


shesaid.so has been working with ADE since 2017 with a focus on programming around diversity and inclusion in the music industry. 

In 2022 we are working even more closely together to bring back the we.grow mentoring program, curate talks as part of ADE Pro, and introduce a shesaid.so space as part of the ADE Lab track powered by ZORA and hosted at Lynk & Co’s flagship Amsterdam Club.

The shesaid.so space at ADE 2022 powered by ZORA will feature a full day of programming on Friday October 21st; the first half of the day will include activities related to the mentoring program as well as public-facing talks, networking and electronic music. The second half of the day will exclusively focus on web3 discussions, performances and networking - plus a music NFT gallery and other interactive exercises designed to educate and showcase what’s possible within the web3 ecosystem.

Our goal with the shesaid.so space was to create an inclusive environment where our global community attending ADE can connect with one another and other industry professionals, in addition to learning. The program will reflect some of the most ardent topics from the shesaid.so world - including diversity & inclusion and more industry-facing discussions. Last but not least, the space will highlight initiatives and creatives curated from the community and provide promotional opportunities for showcasing talent.

For more info about the we.grow at ADE mentoring program please visit the ADE website.

CLICK HERE TO RSVP and get the latest updates

shesaid.so x ADE 2022

Wednesday

Wednesday Wednesday 19th October | 10:30am-12pm

we.grow at ADE kickoff Brunch @ YouTube space

[private event for mentors and mentees only]

Wednesday 19th October | 14:00pm-14:45pm

shesaid.so presents: Decolonizing The Loop @ YouTube Space

A conversation on the decolonization of electronic music studies and music production education inspired by Josephine Zwaan’s master thesis based on African philosophy. Josephine is the co-founder of Rosetta Beats, an Amsterdam-based collective focused on women and gender non-conforming individuals. Hosted by Andreea Magdalina (shesaid.so). Open to ADE Lab pass holders

Address: The Mayer Manor Nes 118, 1012 KE Amsterdam"

Thursday

Thursday 20th October | 11:00am-11:45am

ADE Pro Talk powered by ZORA

shesaid.so presents: Democratizing the future of the music business

An interview hosted by Andreea Magdalina (shesaid.so) with Melanie McClain (P00LS), Michail Stangl (ZORA) and Nico Adomako (Einhundert & Oroko Radio) exploring the impact of web3 technologies on the music business as reflected by an excerpt from ZORA's manifesto: "We need new infrastructure, something transparent, ownable, accessible, financially sustainable, where we can share the value we create, something for the community, something that’s ours."



Thursday 20th October | 12:00 - 12:45pm

ADE Pro Talk

shesaid.so presents: Why communities are the future of the music industry.

A roundtable hosted by Kat Young (ZORA) with Christine Osazuwa (shesaid.so), SUCHI (Daytimers), and Sam Schoonover (Coachella).

The music industry is constantly being reshaped by new technologies. Since the advent of the World Wide Web, power has slowly shifted away from gatekeepers and into the hands of creators, curators and the community overall. In spite of that, the internet as we know it has also led to a bottleneck of influence & commerce in the hands of a few tech companies and the people who lead them. At the same time, more and more communities started leveraging these digital tools to connect with one another, collectively organize and reclaim the music ecosystem. Today, web3 is promising to disrupt, decentralize and provide transparency once again. This discussion aims to disseminate these trends and look at case studies that hypothesize why communities are the future of the music industry.

Friday

Friday 21st October | 11am - 7:30pm

shesaid.so space at ADE 2022 powered by ZORA

Stay tuned for the full program reveal! Make sure you RSVP to get the latest updates.

With huge thanks to our host Lynk & Co.

RSVP is required for entry: https://partiful.com/e/ExrFwQOgdJjkbayRXgus

Full Program Outline HERE

Address:

Lynk & Co

Rokin 75, 1012 KL Amsterdam

Saturday

Saturday 22nd October | 11am - 1pm

we.grow at ADE Brunch with Meta

[private event for mentors and mentees only]

Saturday 22nd October | 2pm - 6pm

shesaid.so x Meta Boat Party

RSVP required - stay tuned for updates

shesaid.so Mix 041: Marie Nyx

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The shesaid.so mix series aims to spotlight the diverse artists within our community. We’re committed to championing underrepresented voices from around the world, focusing on female, non-binary, trans and queer individuals. Our monthly mix series allows our contributing selectors to showcase their unique backgrounds and inspirations by creating exclusive, 30-minute live recorded soundscapes.

The shesaid.so Mix series continues this month with Marie Nyx, the Los Angeles-based producer/DJ who infuses her hypnotic, synth-heavy techno soundscapes with influences ranging from post punk, new wave, and indie. 

Lauded by DJ Mag as one of their “Six Acts Popping Off,” Marie Nyx has an unmatched ability to adapt to the wants and needs of any dance floor without sacrificing her infectious, apparitional style. Her revered abilities have led her to playing shows with names such as Camea, Pleasurekraft, Dubfire, and Nastia, and at events such as Mixlab Lab LA, where she’s showcased her distinct and grooving sound. 

 Marie Nyx also co-founded the Delusional Records imprint with Maude Vôs. Together they foster a label environment that seeks to revive dance music culture by releasing timeless, hard-ware driven pieces of work created by an inclusive roster of artists, who are primarily LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and female. The label has been featured in SPIN Magazine, Insomniac Radio, EDM Maniac, and more. 

Marie Nyx releases her own music as well through the label, and will be dropping a remix for LA DJ/producer Etari this October. We caught up with the producer ahead of that release and the Delusional Records label takeover at Arrival on October 7. 

Tell us the story of how you fell in love with music.

I have been in love with music since I can remember. I grew up in a musical family and it has always been a huge part of my life. When I was young I played piano, sang in school choir for a few years, and took guitar lessons as a teenager. I then took a hiatus from playing instruments and singing because I got really into going to live shows after I was taken to my first big festival. Live shows lead me into the rave scene and eventually introduced me to festival communities where I found my niche in DJing and production.

How has your community, background or upbringing influenced your sound?

My sound is a raw, eclectic blend of electronic music ranging from techno, Detroit electro, experimental electronica, and a sprinkle of EBM/darkwave. Growing up, my musical palette was influenced by my older sister who introduced me to indie/alternative rock, shoegaze, synthwave, and post-punk. I then found artists such as The Faint, Crystal Castles, and Digitalism, which piqued my interested in a more electronic sound. I did not have much of a community until I found electronic music. The rave and festival communities accepted me with open arms, and it was the first time I felt free to express myself without feeling judged. It felt like home, and I knew that one day I wanted to cultivate my own community in electronic music in hopes that future generations would feel seen like I did. 

Who or where do you draw inspiration from?

I draw inspiration most from my friends and collaborators. The energy of collaboration lights my creative fire whether it be a b2b DJ set or working in the studio. I also feel very inspired after going to a warehouse party, event, or festival and catching sets by artists on the lineup that I look up to. 

Is there a theme to your mix? What can listeners expect to hear?

Since shesaid.so aims to spotlight underrepresented artists in the community with a focus on female, non-binary, trans, and queer individuals, I decided to create a mix of tracks written or produced by some of my favorite female and non-binary artists. The mix opens with an experimental electronica track then builds into breaks, electro, EBM, and techno. There is also a strong presence of femme vocals throughout the mix. 

What are you currently working on, and what are you looking forward to in 2022? 

I have just finished a remix for LA DJ/producer Etari that I’ve included in the mix. It will be out on all platforms at the end of October via Delusional Records. I am also working on my next forthcoming EP. I look forward to my next performance at a desert festival called Arrival alongside Midnight Vices, Cassie Raptor, TDJ, and more on October 7th. My partner, Maude Vôs, and I will host a Delusional Records showcase at the festival featuring Lindsey Herbert, Etari, and Materielle.

Tracklist:

Smoke and Honey- M-0ther

Nyctinasty- Abby Echiverri

Teeth- LCY

iele- Maude Vôs

Ascending- Etari (Marie Nyx Remix)

Take the Wheel Miss Sweetie- Maara

Vertigo- MYKI (Roza Terenzi Remix)

Transmutation- Rein, Djedrotronic (Unklevon Remix)

Asteria- Marie Nyx

Extinction- Zanias

Artist Spotlight: Sisters of Sound

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The shesaid.so Artist Spotlight is a monthly series where we highlight new artists from our global community that you should keep an eye on. If you’re interested in submtting yourself or your artist please contact us at hello@shesaid.so

LA-based duo Maddy and Tottie, aka ‘Sisters of Sound’ are both artists and champions of other artists. Having met in 2018, following independent moves to LA from London and Barcelona, the pair connected over a love of music and saw opportunities to highlight the international influences within the underground electronic scene. What began as a radio show on DUBLAB and Worldwide FM quickly expanded into a record label and through the curation of that sound, also inspired their own productions. Here they share their journey with shesaid.so and how they’re prepping for their upcoming show at Primavera Sound LA. 

Sisters of Sound

shesaid.so: Tell us more about your artist journey and how your sound has developed to where it is today? 

We both met in 2018 having  moved to Los Angeles from London and Barcelona respectively, and instantly bonded over a shared love of esoteric music having originally come from similar circles – raving in parallel for many years but never meeting. We started to play together for pleasure as we were both still exploring the LA underground music scene and getting to know the city. Regular DJ sets evolved into our DUBLAB & Worldwide FM shows, where the emphasis originally was highlighting the international influence of the Los Angeles underground scene. In 2020 we started the label - SOS Music - focused on championing female and gender minority electronic talent. 

DUBLAB really gave us space to share our love of music, online radio was and still is a very important beginning for SOS Music. We will forever be grateful to the station for having us grace the airwaves and bringing us into the community. An important reason for us starting SOS Music was that we wanted to see and hear more from artists like us – just starting out, navigating what was and still is a heavily unbalanced industry. 

shesaid.so: How do your individual tastes compliment and play off each other when you’re collaborating?

Both of us love to dig, so we often introduce each other to new and undiscovered gems, from all corners of the globe. Our day jobs also heavily influence us musically, both being embedded in dance music - (Tottie is at Resident Advisor and Maddy is A&R for Ninja Tune), so A&R inevitably plays a large part as we are constantly looking for new talent to sign to the label and to feature on our radio shows. Our tastes are constantly evolving, but generally what led to our friendship was a shared love of diverse, electronic music - mostly from new and underground talent. As the label has a strong focus on championing emerging female and gender minority electronic talent, so a lot of our sets lean towards that naturally as we’re surrounded by so many great artists. 

We like to straddle genres, something our Worldwide FM residency has really encouraged, but generally always bring it back to more of a dance floor focus.

shesaid.so: Sisters of Sound begun as a radio show and event series. What was the inspiration behind releasing your first bandcamp compilation?

SOS was originally started as a means to give back to the community during the pandemic - we wanted to support the community we’ve grown up in and showcase in a time when so many artists’ livelihoods were impacted by the lack of live. But it’s also about curation - SOS is, in some ways, a rebellion to an artform increasingly dictated by algorithms and playlists – a return to curation in its purest form. We give our artists absolute creative freedom when they deliver music to us. Both our careers have been narrated by an acute awareness of so many external factors in music, and it felt good to strip it back. We really want this platform to be a go-to place for discovery, highlighting the unknown and ultimately surprising listeners.

shesaid.so: You’re British born, but L.A. based. How have you found your location has influenced you creatively (if at all!)?

The LA underground electronic scene is very different to that which we grew up in musically, so we think in some way it inspired both of us to be more proactive creatively as we felt there was room for musicians and curators like us here, doing something different. We wanted to bring something new to a relatively small scene and became inspired by the DIY nature of clubbing in this city. LA’s scene Is very unique and has made us very aware of the difficulties promoters face here. We love being part of the nightlife ecosystem and supporting it. 

shesaid.so: Was it an easy decision for you to focus on female and gender minority art, in your curation?

It felt necessary - something we were always destined to play a part in. Our whole careers have been narrated by an acute awareness of male dominance, honestly. The label and community we are building is being developed as a long standing counter to that – we aren’t trying to do anything zeitgeisty here – it’s important to us that what we’re building isn’t a flash in the pan moment surrounding inequality. SOS Music is here to release music from the artists we love, but we also try to offer our artists support, connections, resources, whatever we can within our means.

We were both members of shesaid.so before we met, and saw how Andreea Magdalina had founded this incredible platform for women and gender minorities working in all different facets of the music industry and it was just so inspiring to see people wanting to help and support one another. Contagious in fact – and both of us wanted to put that into our own practise. Both of us through our work, were seeing so many amazing female producers both here in the US and internationally go totally unnoticed and we wanted to change that.

shesaid.so: Do you feel constantly inspired, or do you have certain practices you use to inspire yourselves? 

One of the beautiful things about SOS, is that it I (Maddy) have been inspired to make music again. I’ve been focused on other artists’ careers for so long through my work in A&R, mainly making edits and producing in my bedroom on days off; this project flipped that, making me want to contribute to the incredible projects we’re curating.’

For me (Lottie) it’s definitely about making time to go out, and absorbing different dance floor experiences, seeing others play and how they take dancers on journeys that's a really important part of my practise as an artist and helps me continue to be inspired. I also listen to A LOT of music, mixes, promos and of course getting out there in the records stores and digging.

Sisters of Sound

shesaid.so: You’re playing Primavera sound LA! How are you approaching your set? 

We generally both have points or tracks we want to get to in the set, and we have been sharing music and ideas for the past 5 weeks. We are opening the last day of the festival - which is not only an honor but also a particular mood - its day 3, people might be tired - we want to make sure its not too hard but also flows well into the next artists we are setting up the stage for.  We have been playing together for a good few years, and generally we’re aware of each other’s flows and can improvise quite easily as we know each other’s record collections so well, but we also love surprising each other.  It’s generally always fun and high energy during our sets - having fun on the dance floor is something that we both feel strongly about and try to bring to any gig regardless of where it is. 

shesaid.so: What else are you working on which you’re excited about at the moment? 

We’re signing more longer-term projects from some phenomenal new artists, so excited to (slowly) expand the SOS catalogue. 

shesaid.so: shesaid.so is a community guided by intersectionality. In your opinion, how could the music industry do better in terms of inclusivity? 

I (Maddy) do just want to take a moment to celebrate the change in narrative that’s taken place since 2020, and how intersectionality and inclusivity has permeated through so many institutions; media, the work place, releases. I’ve been working in dance music since 2008 and I never thought I would see such a disparity in culture and shift in conversation in my career. It’s obviously incredibly important to focus on the work that needs to be done (everything from more diverse festival line ups to closing the gender wage gap in DJ fees and music execs, and everything in between ), but so often it’s easy to forget that this is a process that is going to be imperfect and take a long time. Obviously this is coming through a lens of indie music who are at the forefront of chance and exclusivity, but I do get a sense that a dialogue is present now in so many areas that it just wasn’t before.

It has been incredibly important for us in developing the narrative of SOS Music, as this project was about elevation and celebration - we are not looking to criticize or call anyone out with the label for doing things imperfectly, or alienate anyone. More just providing a platform for discovery of amazing new art, whilst hopefully doing something to amplify voices of women and gender minority artists in the process.

shesaid.so: And finally, could you share three bullet-point top tips for artists just starting out? What would you have loved to hear?

  • Learning to say no. 

  • Not comparing yourself to anyone, stay in your lane. 

  • Organizing your time to develop yourself. 

  • Reaching out for help, and offer your help in return 

Member Spotlight #39: shesaid.so Parenthood Committee

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Cristina Malaspina

This month for our Member Spotlight, we are thrilled to shine a light on the shesaid.so Parenthood Committee and the brilliant people who run this integral and supportive community.

The committee was formed to provide an open platform to empower parents in the music industry, through sharing experiences and ideas, thus working towards a more accessible and sustainable music industry for parents. It’s a forum for sharing best practices, resources, dedicated events and panels that aim to help parents in the music industry to thrive in their professional and family life.

And for anyone hoping to speak to like-minded people or be part of the community, we have a new parenthood WhatsApp group launching, which we’d love you to join! Keep an eye out for the official announcement of the group coming up on the 5th of September via our shesaid.so channels.

In the meantime, read on to get to know three of our parenthood committee: Robyn Stewart, Kayleigh Ramchand-Bentley and Cristina Malaspina. We hear how their careers across different sectors of the industry have presented their own challenges for parents, which I’m sure many readers will relate to. And for allies working in a business with parents, we ask what others can do today to better support their colleagues and work towards a more sustainable industry for all.

shesaid.so: Please can you tell us a bit about yourself and your career/life to date?

Kayleigh Ramchand

Robyn: I have been working in the music industry for 20 years, in talent buying, event management, fund development and organization direction. I am currently moving from my role as the Executive Director if the Western Canadian Music Alliance to Executive Director of Women in Music Canada. I am passionate about supporting young talent and seeing their dreams come true, about making connections between folks to see business grow and connecting with like minded partners to build relationships. In a personal level, I am a heart disease survivor, a mother of 2 boys, Jasper (11) and Ty (3) and an avid traveller and knitter. 

Kayleigh: My journey in music started 10 years ago as an artist. Whilst trying to navigate the industry as a creator, I took on an entry level role in music rights management - I never thought it would be forever but learning the ins and outs of business became my passion. Since then, I’ve worked with some of the world's biggest artists & songwriters and their teams in a variety of roles, all whilst doing my best to empower underrepresented talent within the industry, through committee work & collaboration with great as organizations like shesaid.so. With a two year old daughter, and another one on the way, life is certainly a different type of hectic than it was 10 years ago, but making time to support accessibility and inclusivity within the industry has become more important to me than ever. 

Cristina: I currently lead two parallel careers, in tech and music. At Google I work for the Brand & Reputation marketing team in Milan, driving brand equity and reputation to position Google as a loved brand among Italian users and institutions. As a side job, I am a DJ and producer; I have released music with Crosstown Rebels' Rebellion, Bondage Music and host regular mixes on radios like Ibiza Global, Data Transmission and Sonica. This summer you can find me at Hï Ibiza one Saturday per month, opening for Damian Lazarus and guests in the club room, and a bit all over the world.

shesaid.so: What made you want to join the shesaid.so parenthood committee?

Cristina: I started DJing during my maternity, and since then I have been leading two careers while being a mother. I think that initiatives like the parenthood committee are strongly needed in an industry where there is very little support for parents, women tend to wait to have kids because of lack of job security and support and, especially for DJs, there is a general misconception that being an artist and having kids are two incompatible things. Back in early 2020 I had a chat with Andreea Magdalina about this topic and we convened that setting up a Committee to safeguard the interests of parents would be strongly needed to pave the way for a more inclusive and family-friendly industry.

Robyn: When I joined, I was just off maternity leave with my second child, now 3, and also have an 11 year old. As a mom in the industry almost every decision, be it with traveling, taking leave, staying out late or generally when to have children to begin with. I have learned that family balance needs to be a priority at all times and I want to be a support to other parents or prospective parents who also have careers in music. 

Kayleigh: I became a mum two months into lockdown 1.0. It was a time that felt very isolated, especially as not many of my peers (least so those in the industry) had even thought about having children yet. I think the pandemic forced the industry somewhat to recognise family needs as everyone was stuck at home homeschooling and managing life as best they could, but in May 2020 (when we all still thought things would be back to normal by the end of the summer) I really struggled to find a community to lean on, which is when I came across the shesaid.so Parenthood Committee. 

shesaid.so: What have you seen as some of the major or common issues for parents in the music industry?

Whether you are a creator or working behind the scenes, lack of flexibility is a huge factor, and barrier for entry into music. In an industry where the line between work and personal life is often blurred, work life balance is something that’s been spoken about a lot in recent years, especially in regards to mental health, but we’re still struggling to see the industry respond in a way that takes into consideration the specific needs of parents and caregivers. As Kayleigh mentioned earlier, the pandemic forced the industry’s hand in a lot of ways to adapt to a more flexible way of working, but coming out the other side there’s still a lot to be done in all sectors of the music business to ensure that parents can maintain a healthy and successful work and home life.

shesaid.so: How do you think the music industry could do better for parents?

Whilst there is now an open discussion about Diversity and Inclusion themes, parenthood is a topic that is currently being left out of the discussion; we need more awareness and acknowledgement that parents do exist. So often we are made to feel like we need to hide that part of our lives for fear that it will be detrimental to our career development, which often means our basic needs are not being met. If we take the live sector as an example, so many parents have to choose between sacrificing their family life or their career once they have children because the sector is very inherently un-child friendly. But this doesn’t have to be the case. Better managed tour schedules, riders that include suitable family accommodation and budgets that cater for childcare are all things that could be the difference between someone giving up a lifelong career and thriving as a parent and working musician.

Robyn Stewart

shesaid.so: Is there something that others who aren't parents can do tomorrow in their job to be a better ally to colleagues or clients who are parents?

There are some really easy things you can do to be an ally: 

  1. Just asking about someone’s children is a really easy way of showing a parent that they don’t need to hide such an integral part of their life. 

  2. Understanding a parent’s need for flexibility and being mindful of their time - a scheduled meeting over school pick up time is not ideal, and neither is an end-of-the-day call that’s running overschedule when you know you have a grumpy toddler ready for bed!

  3. Tell parents they are doing a good job! Often we feel like we are balancing two lives and struggling to keep hold of both - some words of encouragement could go a long way!

shesaid.so: What are your aims with the parenthood committee and what have been your most recent developments/initiatives?

We want to make the music industry more family friendly. There’s a lot to be done, but the very first step is to establish a platform where music industry parents can be heard and supported. With this in mind, on 5th September we will be launching our shesaid.so Parenthood Whatsapp group: a safe space for parents of all genders in music to connect & share their experiences.

shesaid.so: What can parents get out of the shesaid.so parenthood community?

We are here to provide a supportive and open platform to empower parents in the music industry. We hope with the launch of the Whatsapp group, we can really listen and lean into the needs of the community and have that guide our goals as we develop as a committee.


shesaid.so: What can members look forward to from the committee in the coming months/year?

We’ve been busy this year working with the wider shesaid.so team to finalise our long-term goals for the committee. What stood out most to us was the lack of targeted research and data around parents in music. We want to be a key player in driving this research so we can help more effectively guide the industry in supporting parents and measure the impact of this work. 

Mental health & well-being is also a big focus for us. We’ve been working with a number of organisations and potential partners to discuss the ways we can support our community, including funded hotlines, workshops and 1-1 support.

Finally, the live and events sector is another key area for us. We want to work with venues and promoters to create a framework for more family-friendly events & inclusive working terms for parents in the sector, including dedicated family spaces & childcare options.

shesaid.so: Do you have any advice or support links/materials etc. for any parents reading this?

It’s easy to feel isolated and feel like there is nowhere to turn. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people in the same position as you - quite often they’ll be feeling the same and up for a virtual coffee! As parents within the committee we’ve really found a lot of comradery and support in just having these discussions with each other and other organisations working towards similar goals such as PIPA & Pregnant Then Screwed in the UK; Mama Psychologists in Canada; and Parenthood in Music in Germany. 

shesaid.so: Your proudest moment/achievement to date?

Robyn: This is very hard to narrow down. I am most proud of the team I have build at BreakOut West. As I leave there I am excited for the family I am leaving behind and the accomplishments in supporting young innovators and creators. Also, I am proud every time someone asks me how I make this all work with two little boys at home. It means I’ve fooled them. Haha. We all “make it work” because its so worth it to raise good humans.


Kayleigh: Professionally, being able to see the impact first-hand of outreach and mentorship initiatives I have been involved with has definitely been the biggest highlight. It’s a privilege to see someone’s career go from strength to strength, knowing that you have played a part in supporting them. On a personal level, my daughter is now two and really into music. I feel proud that my husband (who is also in the industry) and I have been able to pass on our passion to her at such an early age. I’m really excited to see her love of music grow and see where it takes us as a family. 


Cristina: Probably receiving a call from Damian Lazarus and getting his invitation to hold a monthly residency at Hi Ibiza, now named the best club in the world. This is something that happened very unexpectedly, as it also was when Damian followed me on my Instagram after two months from submitting my demos to the generic Crosstown email address. More in general, being able to lead this career on top of my full-time job and doing my best to be a good mother and wife makes me proud. 

Keep an eye out for the official announcement of the shesaid.so parenthood whatsapp group coming up on the 5th September, via our shesaid.so channels.

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For more information about how to become a shesaid.so member, check out our website.

shesaid.so Mix 040: Juliet Mendoza

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The shesaid.so mix series aims to spotlight the diverse artists within our community. We’re committed to championing underrepresented voices from around the world, focusing on female, non-binary, trans and queer individuals. Our monthly mix series allows our contributing selectors to showcase their unique backgrounds and inspirations by creating exclusive, 30-minute live recorded soundscapes.

The shesaid.so Mix series continues this month with Juliet Mendoza, the Los Angeles-based underground house purveyor who has been making waves in the LA dance music scene since the 90s with her melodic, soulful sounds. 

 Juliet Mendoza has firm roots in house music culture, both locally and internationally. She’s the founder and resident DJ of Jill’s House, a recurring LA party that acts as a platform for womxn identified DJs to share their sound with the house community in LA; has shared the decks with the likes of Peggy Gou, Doc Martin, Marques Wyatt, and Riva Star; won the Unsung Hero award at Defector Records; and has toured the world, from LA, to Paris, to Amsterdam, to Mexico City. 

This August, Mendoza made her debut at Defected Croatia, the annual house music festival on the shores of the Adriatic. Stay tuned for more music from the producer later this year. 

shesaid.so: Tell us the story of how you fell in love with music.

I have been around music my whole life.  Different styles of music and dance.  Watching people dance made me love music. It must have been that conversation at the age of five.  

shesaid.so: How has your community, background or upbringing influenced your sound?

I think all three, my background, upbringing and community have all given me the ear that picks up drum beats that call the heart, vocals for the soul and basslines that take you away. You name it. An Afro Latin girl that grew up in the melting pot that LA is. 

shesaid.so: Who or where do you draw inspiration from?

My mentors, friends and life experiences give me the inspiration to write, dig and play music.

shesaid.so: Is there a theme to your mix? What can listeners expect to hear?

Dance like no one is watching. A mix to move your mind, body and soul.  

shesaid.so: What are you currently working on, and what are you looking forward to in 2022?

This year has opened so many doors, and I am excited to announce my debut for Defected Croatia August 2022. I also have some tracks coming out this year and next year that I am super excited about. 

 

Juliet Mendoza Tracklist

 Patrice Scott - Come Inside

John Beltran - Resol

Specter, Byron the Aquarius Remix - Cold Sweat

Stefan Ringer - Body Language 

Andrum- Underwater

Mike Agent X Clark - Deep in da Heat

The Wamdue Project - In the back of your Mind

Follow Juliet on Instagram: @juliet__mendoza

Artist Spotlight: Zanillya

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The shesaid.so Artist Spotlight is a monthly series where we highlight new artists from our global community that you should keep an eye on. If you’re interested in submtting yourself or your artist please contact us at hello@shesaid.so

Amsterdam-based rapper, singer-songwriter and producer Zanillya has been creating since she was walking: “When I create, I let go of any expectations, goals, boundaries and really connect with an inner truth”, she says.

From her recent release: ‘We Are Free’ to writing for other artists, Zanillya talks to shesaid.so about how she finds therapy in creativity and the inner strength of women.

shesaid.so: Tell us more about your artist journey and how your sound has developed to where it is today. 

I’ve been creating for as far as I can remember as I was raised in a musical, creative household. I have always been in love with mixing up genres as I was raised on so many various styles of music. It came naturally to me to switch from one genre to the next. I started really taking my career seriously when my dad passed. At that time, I met Humphrey Dennis, my now long-time partner in music and in life. 

In 2015 I signed my first publishing deal and started to do more collaborations with international producers like Branko (Buraka Som Sistema), Riva Starr, and Leo Justi, among others. The one with Leo landed us a dope sync with the UEFA for their first women's football campaign. This was the start of a lot of dope syncs as well as some ghostwriting/production for other artists and DJs. This is really where I got to develop my voice and craft the sound that you hear today.

Over the years, Humphrey Dennis and I have always created with no set rules. This is how we feel we have come closer to the sound that we envision, which is our own blend of Hip-hop, Dancehall, and RnB but all with a Caribbean touch. We don’t shy away from any genre except metal! And this year, we got more releases coming that will reveal a side of me the world hasn’t heard yet.

shesaid.so: Your debut EP ‘Choose Life’ came out nearly a year ago today. Has your perspective or ambitions changed at all since that moment?

‘Choose life' was a very personal project that I had to make for myself. After my dad passed, a lot of old traumas came bubbling to the surface, and I had to let it out. I was in therapy while making the record, and my only way of understanding myself is through creating. In hindsight, I think it was good to make this record then before moving into the music space I always dreamt of being in. The goal is to still make great music with sensitive subjects and a message but with a more genre-bending pop sound.   

shesaid.so: Are there any particular songs you’ve released that you feel a special attachment to? 

 “Alive” is the last single off my EP “Choose Life ‘and has a very special place in my heart. It speaks on my journey through depression and the suicidal thoughts I suffered from my whole life. We shot the video in Aruba and it was such a healing experience to make the video on the island where my dad was born, which has become my safe space.

“We Are Free” as this song has such a strong message, and I am all about that. Women are the backbone and the heart of this society, and they need to get a lot more credit and respect in the world. I aim to be part of this change in any way that I can. I feel proud that I made a song that can start more conversations regarding women’s rights as we have a long way to go for women to receive equal pay, equal rights, and exclusive control of one’s own body. 

shesaid.so: ‘We Are Free’ is an important statement about women’s response to adversity and injustice. How did you process your emotions to write that song and create something powerful?

When I create, I let go of any expectations, goals, boundaries and really connect with an inner truth. Most of my songs I created first for myself but ‘We Are Free’ was different as I felt I needed to speak on the inequality I saw women facing on the daily. I wanted to create something to uplift girls and women everywhere. Remind them of their strength, grit and ability to persevere in any situation. Women have an incredible inner strength that I think men consciously or unconsciously fear. Not all men but a great deal of them do and therefore try to control us. By remembering this we can take back our power and stand in our beauty and truth. 

shesaid.so: Do you feel constantly inspired, or do you have certain practices you use to inspire yourself? 

To be honest, I’m blessed to have inspiration and creativity overflowing, maybe sometimes to my own detriment. I am a workaholic, and I love what I do so much that I sacrifice other parts of my life to get my ideas out. I try to even that out with my rituals, which have become my medicine. These include working out, journaling and meditating. It’s these practices and rituals that allow me to stay mentally healthy, inspired and loyal to my creativity.

shesaidso: As well as music, what else inspires and energises you? 

I think what energizes me on a deep level is my desire to make my life matter. I come from parents who are first generation immigrants. My dad left Aruba with nothing and came to Europe on a boat when he was just 15 years old. He managed to achieve his dreams and give us a better financial life. I feel deeply inspired by that and feel the obligation to do better. 

Growing up, I didn’t have an easy childhood and was naturally drawn to books and personal development. I have a deep love for learning as that has been my way to empower myself to overcome the challenges I was facing. The need to empower inspires me so much that it trickles down into everything I create. I believe that we can achieve anything when we put our mind to it, and that knowing gives me purpose to create something that can uplift others.

Lastly, a huge part of my energy comes from my workout regime. It's also a huge part of my inspiration as it helps me heal. The body keeps score, and all of us carry our past and traumas stored in us. By working out, I get in touch with myself and get to heal parts of myself as well as building the mental strength I need to grow into my potential. To me, working out is a huge metaphor for life. You can’t fake building muscle; no one can do it for you, it requires focus, hard work and patience, and I believe life is the same. When I can win in the gym, I know I can win in life!

Zanillya

shesaid.so: shesaid.so is a community guided by intersectionality. In your opinion, how could the music industry do better in terms of inclusivity? 

I believe we need more women in power. Also, the industry needs to stop focusing so much on numbers and more on artist development. I think execs need to trust that good music will always prevail and look for artists who have something to say and not only for artists who do well on TikTok.

shesaid.so: Has community played a role in your evolution as a creative?

Definitely. All I have managed to achieve has come from my community. Be it the first programmers that gave me a stage, to all the producers who I’ve worked with in Amsterdam when I started out, to my movement coach who has been with me for years, all the way up to the amazing team, choreographers and dancers that worked with me on my debut video. I am so grateful to have met people who believed in me enough to give me their time and energy, for free at times. Without them, I couldn’t have grown and developed myself. Also, my latest single ‘We Are free’ is released on ‘Curators’ a community-fueled label. 

I am always working so, to be honest I have less of a social community as I haven't invested in one that much. This makes me feel alone at times in my journey and struggles. I deal with mental health issues and do believe that having a social community where you can share and feel safe plays an important role in life. This is something I am working on and know that it takes time and investing.

shesaid.so: And finally, could you share three bullet-point top tips for artists just starting out? What would you have loved to hear?

Take care of your mental health: When we’re young, we tend to run behind every opportunity in fear of missing out, but this can make you burn out. You need to prioritize your self-care and your health and trust that what is for you will come to you at the right time. This mindset will help you be confident in the face of adversity and rejection. Which, in the long run, will benefit your trajectory as an artist as you will be able to differentiate what is for you and what isn’t.  

 Focus on developing your craft: If you don’t know how, ask, collaborate, research, take classes but never give up because you think you can’t be better. No matter your come up, background or age. Becoming great at something takes time, but when you invest and focus on your skills, it will help you have a long-lasting satisfying career.

Stay patient as life is a journey and not a race: This industry is complex, and we humans are complex. Get to know yourself in and out instead of only chasing a dream. When you truly know what you need and love, you will make better decisions. We tend to think we know exactly how our career is supposed to unfold, but sometimes there is another path for you that you’re not seeing because you have blinders on. So remain open and enjoy the ride.

More from Zanillya:

Latest Single

Zanillya on Instagram

https://www.zanillya.com/

 

shesaid.so Mix 039: Maddy O'Neal

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The shesaid.so mix series aims to spotlight the diverse artists within our community. We’re committed to championing underrepresented voices from around the world, focusing on female, non-binary, trans and queer individuals. Our monthly mix series allows our contributing selectors to showcase their unique backgrounds and inspirations by creating exclusive, 30-minute live recorded soundscapes.

The shesaid.so Mix series continues this month with Maddy O’Neal, the Denver-based bass maestro who's making waves with her genre-hopping blend of glistening, melodic electro-soul, funky grooves and shrewd synth design.

The self-taught DJ and producer is one of the hardest working artists in dance music, having performed 90+ shows a year for the past five years. Flexing her diverse musical background during live shows where she incorporates original compositions, intricate drum pad performances, and immersive narratives, O’Neal has taken center stage at festivals like Electric Forest, Summer Camp, North Coast, and Camp Bisco.

A true leader in the male-dominated bass community, O’Neal is gearing up to release a forthcoming album that will contain a balance of sounds, tones, themes, and images - a consistently shifting experience that reflects Maddy’s out-of-the-box, genre-blending creative process. We caught up with the creative polymath ahead of a stacked summer tour schedule that’ll see her debut at Lollapalooza and Lost Lands and return to Same Same But Different and Secret Dreams.

Tell us the story of how you fell in love with music.

O'Neal: From as long as I can remember, I have been surrounded by music and curious about how to dive deeper into the creation and communities I saw it connecting. I would tag along to shows with my older brother and pick his brain on what he was listening to constantly. My love for music has been an ever-evolving relationship, but I thank my upbringing for having it be constant in my childhood.

How has your community, background or upbringing influenced your sound?

O'Neal: My dad was a big dead head, and my brother was in indie rock bands in St. Louis, where I grew up. I wasn't really fully introduced to what was going on in the electronic music world until moving to Boulder, CO, for college in 2008. Outside of DJ Shadow, Jamie xx, Animal Collective and whatever feed I was getting from my brother, I didn’t know about this entire underground world of electronic music. I was introduced to the whole world I am in now in such a golden era when Skrillex was just getting his start, and people like Big G, Griz, Pretty Lights etc., were all rising out of Boulder itself. It was a major inspiration to be so close to it all.

Who or where do you draw inspiration from?

O'Neal: I draw inspiration from sooo many things— people, places, experiences— but mostly from other art. When I experience someone else’s art and passion for it, whether it be another song, a painting, writing etc. it really lights a fire in me. Pretty rad to experience humans just creating things and expressing themselves in all forms. It’s all I want to do and be a part of.

Is there a theme to your mix? What can listeners expect to hear?

O'Neal: I started releasing house mixes over quarantine in 2020 when I was doing a lot of live streams and diving deep into all types of music. When I was asked to do this mix for “She Said So” I just immediately felt like boss bitch vibes…. So I kinda put together of a playlist of songs that made me feel like a boss and let ‘er rip.

What are you currently working on, and what are you looking forward to in 2022?

O'Neal: I am finishing up my next full-length LP as we speak. It’s in the final mixing stages, and I’m SO incredibly proud of this body of work. I have put so much work into this album, learning new things, challenging myself, expanding my toolbox and really feeling the creative flow freely like never before. I’ll be releasing two more singles in July and August, leading up to the full release in September. We’ll be announcing a bunch of exciting fall dates as well. :-) I can’t wait to debut all this new music this fall!

Artist Spotlight #9: Lau.ra

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Alternative Power List winner, Lau.ra is one of the rising stars of house music. Based in the UK, her dominant basslines and infectious melodies saw her awarded ‘Self Producing Artist of The Year’ by the UK MPG last month (an accolade previously won by Four Tet and Jon Hopkins). Growing up in a small town in the midlands she talks to shesaid.so about finding a home in dance music, juggling parenting, support from the BBC and putting in the graft.

shesaid.so: Tell us more about your artist journey and how your sound has developed to where it is today?

Lau.ra: I’ve been a self-producing artist from day 1 but I entered the music industry making pop music as growing up in a small town in the midlands the only successful women I’d ever seen in the music industry were pop stars so I naturally gravitated towards that world. I was in my mid-twenties before I met other women producers and women in technical roles in the industry. I remember that Mandy Parnell, the mastering engineer in fact, was the first woman I worked with who was successfully dominating and taking up a lot of space in her field. I found that very inspiring. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve realised my home is in dance and electronic music. Feeling supported and celebrated as a self-producing artist in this scene has been a game changer for me. I’m no longer met with confusing looks when I tell people in the industry that it’s me producing all the tunes, instead people are impressed and excited by it. I feel believed, finally! Thank fuck.

shesaid.so: 2022 has been such an exciting year for you so far! What have been your personal highlights?

Lau.ra: Playing Radio 1’s Big Weekend recently was a real buzz and in fact all the BBC radio support that DJs have shown my music this year has been unreal. I started the year DJing at Circoloco at DC-10, Ibiza on New Years Day — the absolute best way to kick off the year. I think that lit a rocket up my ass for the rest of the year ahead. And then just recently I won a UK MPG award for ‘Self Producing Artist of The Year’ — an accolade previously won by Four Tet and Jon Hopkins. To win that award knowing it’s voted for by peers and alongside the absolute best in the UK music industry feels very validating.

shesaid.so: On your Reprezent takeover you spoke about the barriers you faced getting into music production. Could you share how you’ve overcome some of those?

Lau.ra: I’ve just quietly kept on going. Actually not even that quietly most of the time. The beats have gotten bigger and better and I’ve just grafted away. Mastered my craft but still learning all the time. I’ve just put the hours in and surrounded myself with people who absolutely know my truth and story and will speak up if they hear anyone twisting that or making assumptions that aren’t true.

shesaid.so: We have a brilliant, active, parenthood committee. As a parent, are there ways you’d like the music industry to evolve to support parents more?

Lau.ra: Visibility is important and goes a long way to making people feel supported. It’s been refreshing seeing some other women in the scene share their parenting journeys and open up a little more about the challenges that come with young children and a career in music. It’s only very recently (post pandemic?) that I feel people have been talking about this. Up until the past few years it’s still been very taboo or just not done. Or maybe I just wasn’t looking for it? Not sure.

Following Annie Mac, Anna Lunoe, Logic1000 and Jamz Supernova have been very inspiring to me and made me believe that I could do this. More support for self-employed parents in the industry would be great.

One thing that’s become apparent since becoming a mum is that blocks of creative time are going to be very hard to come by during these early years. I barely manage to record an hour’s live mix without being interrupted! Perhaps a fund where parents could use the money to cover childcare costs and book themselves into a residential studio for a week? That would be dreamy. When your babies are small you don’t want to be seperated from them but equally there is a pull to ‘get back to it’ and a need to be creative and keep those juices flowing so you don’t touch out and lose yourself completely. A fund or support that might enable parents to do both these things alongside each other in those early days would be brilliant.

shesaid.so: shesaid.so is a community guided by intersectionality. In your opinion, how could the music industry do better in terms of inclusivity?

Lau.ra: I’m seeing more women and gender minorities coming through and rising the ranks but still very few black people taking up the space they deserve. Both on the artist side but particularly on the technical side and executive roles in the industry. I don’t think I’ve ever had a label or publishing meeting with a black woman sitting on the other side of the table, which is absurd when dance music is black music. House/Techno/Garage/DnB, all of it comes from black culture and creators, we owe everything to the black and queer scenes that the sounds evolved from.

shesaid.so: Has community played a role in your evolution as a creative?

Lau.ra: To some extent. I produce and create most of my music alone or remotely from the artists that I work with and my studio is at my house so I don’t get to experience community in my work environment but it plays a big role in everything else. Artist communities like The FAC and PRSFoundation have been so important to me as I’ve been navigating my way through and carving a career for myself in music. Also Instagram! I have some fans that have followed me from day one, from project to project and grown up with me. Even though we aren’t close IRL there’s a sense of community that’s very supportive knowing some people have chosen to take an interest and stick with you as you’ve been developing and evolving as an artist over the years.

shesaid.so: And finally, could you share three bullet-point top tips for artists just starting out? What would you have loved to hear?

Lau.ra:

“Keep going. If you can afford to ride out the lows and it’s still bringing you joy. Keep going.”

Trust your gut, if it feels too good to be true it usually is. Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions. A lot of people in the music industry rely on artists not asking the obvious questions. Transparency is everything. A few awkward moments may save you a lot of money/sanity.

Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. It’s frustrating for everyone. Better to be the person that says they’ll have something done in a couple of weeks and deliver it in one rather than be the person everyone needs to chase. This is not always easy or possible, as I’ve discovered since becoming a parent. But it’s always something to aim for!

Keep up to date with Lau.ra via her website and Instagram.

Click here for more information about how to become a shesaid.so member or ally.