“Soli Tunes” Artists On Gender Representation In The Music Industry

Oftentimes, when we see the music industry making an effort to support gender diversity, it is about shedding light on cis women, with some exceptions for trans women. Apart from a few inclusive bubbles, nonbinary, trans – especially non-passing, genderfluid, or agender folks, however, are mostly forgotten or excluded.

6zm, Venusloc, Strip Down, and Mad Kate are artists with different gender expressions that the industry often overlooks. 6zm and Mad Kate are based in Berlin, Strip Down made a move from Berlin to Brighton, and Venusloc lives and works in Detroit. Each has different hats in the arts industry, such as educator, technician, promoter, dancer, visual artist, etc. Still, they are all united by a lengthy and diversified practice of music composition and performance.

Alongside close to 40 other creatives, the artists contributed to the multi-genre audio-visual compilation Soli Tunes. The album was recently released on Bandcamp, with all the proceeds benefiting The Palestine Music Space, a community composition and recording studio in Ramallah. Editor Nadia Says asked 6zm, Mad Kate, Strip Down, and Venusloc about their opinions and wishes on the matter of gender inclusivity in the music industry. 

On Gender Quotas

How do you feel about festivals and other musical events that mostly book cis men?

Mad Kate: In 2024, a festival that only books cis men simply has not done its curatorial work to find the best DJs and artists out there. Some festivals have probably run for years only working from nepotism and a lack of creativity in their research, failing to find fresh new talent of any and all genders.
Venusloc: I feel these are grossly out of touch and missing out on the fact that inclusivity would only contribute to the vibrancy and abundance of their ethos.
6zm: I would prefer not to attend such events. In my opinion, a fair gender ratio in line-ups should be 20% cis men, 80% other gender representations.

I believe that festivals that book mostly cis men are either actively or unknowingly misogynistic. – Strip Down

Do you think gender quotas are a good way to ensure more representation?

MK: Although they can feel “forced”, I look at quotas and affirmative action as a necessary, perhaps temporary, strategic response to a deeply structural problem. It ensures that bookers, who otherwise might not be looking hard enough, do their necessary work. Yes, the potential downside is that quotas could make an artist feel as though they were “only” selected because of their gender, but personally I figure that if someone books me, it’s because they genuinely like my art.
Strip Down: Although I do understand the logic behind the quota, I think that it just perpetuates the system in which people can be marginalised.
V: I feel it is reductive to book events with an industry ratio of 50% fem/nonbinary/trans/etc. to 50% cis-male as is often recommended. It disregards the existence of fluidity in gender identity and upholds the dominance of the cis-male presence by lumping many identities into one category. I think there should be more emphasis on including the broader spectrum of identities, without a cis-male ratio.

Female Isn’t A Gender Identity

If you were invited as an artist to a music event and realised you were rounded up in the female ratio, would you speak up?

V: I can’t say that I have ever experienced performing a show where the gender ratio was openly spoken about or practised. If I realised I was rounded up in the female ratio, I would embrace it as this experience is a part of my identity. I would also question the assumptions of the person booking the show and how they gather data on artists’ identities.

SD: Female isn’t a gender identity, it is a biological description. I would communicate that to the festival. Bioessentialism can be dangerous, and only has a function within a transphobic, homophobic, femphobic, and sexist system. In that case, they would have to use the word female for me to be able to make that judgement, otherwise, I would just see other musicians. People should use their brains when choosing their line-up, and describe the music or the political interest of the festival without labelling its artists. By calling it things like female or female-identifying, they are massively contributing to mainstream transphobia and gender segregation under the binary system. People like J. K. Rowling and Posey Parker sit waiting for things like this, rubbing their hands together to say that men are invading female spaces.

What would you do if it were a supposedly fully female-identifying lineup?

V: If I were invited as an artist to a fully female-identifying line-up, I would clarify my boundaries around representation. I am nonbinary assigned female at birth.
6zm: As someone who identifies as masculine nonbinary, it’s important to me that these nuances are acknowledged so that I feel safe in a space. So I would definitely ask why there is no nonbinary/trans ratio in the line-up. I’d hope this would encourage reflection.

MK: This is a very personal question for every artist, and that I think relates to my personal “gender journey” – which is also a kind of trans or migratory journey, and also how that connects to my age or generation, and the words, concepts, communities, and safer spaces available to me over time. I am not binary, meaning I’ve never felt any one particular gender. That said, I am well aware that I was socialized female and that society has read me as female for a very long time, and this has influenced how I learned about doing music and being a performer. I recognized early on that I often did not feel good when trying to work with cis men, or when cis men were in my work spaces, because of how they treated me or understood my potential. That said, I don’t enjoy being around anyone who treats me with disdain or arrogance, which can be born in any person of any gender.

As a young person I first encountered the feeling of “being safe” in so-called “female spaces”, so hints of this safety still remain for me, even though I wouldn’t describe myself as female-identifying. In fact, in some spaces that are geared towards “females”, I find myself feeling alienated when, for example, members of the group address the rest of us with “Hey girls” or “Hey ladies”. I feel like this kind of language betrays the fact that most of the people in that group are still looking from a very heteronormative perspective and don’t think in queer terms. That feels bad to me – although not as bad as a guy thinking that I can’t do anything because I was born with a cunt. I would describe myself as AFAB (assigned female at birth), and I would be happy to be counted as part of an AFAB + trans + nonbinary + female-identifying space. 

If you were booking a big music event, would you take gender into account?

MK: Yes, absolutely. Having some goals of gender diversity supports the important work of seeking outside certain groups of people and exposing me and anyone to others they might not know before. In my case, I might have trouble finding cis men that I want to book…

And would you announce the gender ratios?

MK: Probably not. I think it’s pretty hard to categorise genders in some kind of statistical way. However, I would put pronouns in people’s bios and photos, so there is another kind of visibility of the ratios.
SD: I wouldn’t see gender as an issue that I needed to address, but that is just because of my own personal taste and network. I wouldn’t announce gender ratios at all – no festival that has mostly cis men on the line-up does, as far as I know. Announcing the gender ratio makes that a genre in itself, and normalises the fact that festivals usually have only cis men on the line-up. The only time I can think of when I would be very specific would be for an event like trans pride, or other big queer events, where the emphasis is not on music, but music is a part of the event. This would be to ensure that the audience has a large enough variety of different genres of music and people whose experiences they can identify with.

Would you apply these principles to all music curation, whether for events, orchestras, AV show curation, rosters…?

MK: Yes, I would. We are still in a time that is not as diverse as it should be, so we have to work strategically. In addition to some of my queer projects, I have worked as a dancer in a mainstream, male-only band for fifteen years, and I have seen a vast over-representation of men in black t-shirts.
6zm: If I were to organise a large music event, I’d definitely consider gender diversity with a strict quota; not only in the line-up but also in all behind-the-scenes roles. I wouldn’t feel the need to announce the gender ratios, and I’d simply apply these principles across all types of creative outlets.

Visibility?

Do you feel there is enough genuine discussion and visibility around the question of gender in the music industry?

MK: I interact in a bubble where sexual orientation and gender are widely discussed, so my perspective is skewed. In some spaces, there is a desire to at least diversify the optics – like maybe the front-person of bands or the DJs. But at the same time in the music industry, the festival world, the vast majority of bands booked and people working behind the scenes (stagehands, sound techs, mixing or mastering engineers, etc.) are cis men. I feel that at this moment in time, the most underrepresented people are trans men and nonbinary people.
V: I definitely don’t feel like there is enough genuine discussion about gender in the music industry. And I feel there is also very limited visibility for trans and nonbinary people. I’ve seen a lot of queer/trans friends being pushed out of spaces in the Detroit scene alone. In my opinion, LGBTQIA folks are really what makes a music scene vibrant. In Detroit, the local DIY scene feels very queer, and then there are events sponsored by corporations where there’s barely any visibility. There are glimmers of hope in communities of young LGBTQIA people who are shaping the Detroit party scene today. 

I especially do not think that there is enough visibility for those who are trans and non-passing, as well as nonbinary folks who blur the lines of gender presentation. – Venusloc

Do you feel that having other intersections complicates the subject of gender?

MK: For sure! All of our bodies are intersectional, meaning that we find ourselves at different points on many axes of power – race, gender, sex, class, ability… The particular intersection that we find ourselves defines a lot about what we have access to, what we see, where we are invited, how we are categorised and read, and ultimately can influence where we can go and how we can move. This is all dependent on where we are placed in space, and it also shifts over the axis of time, so how this is for us today will not be how it is tomorrow – thanks to a lot of work from those who care about shifting the dynamics.
V: The intersections of race, class, and ability are absolutely factors that determine the ways that people with varying gender identities are treated in event spaces. Artists have had to take it upon themselves to relay through promotion whether or not a space is wheelchair accessible. Since the pandemic I’ve had to reconsider how music performance fits into my life; it has been near impossible to make a living from making music as a Black nonbinary person. I am a working artist because I have to be in order to sustain making music and visual art.

What changes do you want to see in terms of gender representation in the music industry?

V: I don’t want to only see seats at existing tables for LGBTQIA artists, I want the continuous expansion of queer presence and solidarity in the music industry to create new tables, all together. I want to see more queer/trans people curating large festivals and having monetary support to do so more often.
SD: I think every issue of marginalisation, discrimination, and lack of inclusivity, tends to filter from the top down. If everybody who is instrumental in curating something, meaning who has the most power, is a white, cis, non-disabled man – or another highly privileged person, it seems ludicrous that they would all sit around trying to work out how they can create a more inclusive line-up. There needs to be more trans people, more people of colour, more disabled people, just more people with varied life experiences, right at the top, making the decisions and the rest will follow. If there should be any quota, it should be for this.
6zm: In my opinion, the gender diversity topic is mere tokenism and falls short of real transformation, unless there’s sufficient representation within the decision-making groups of the music industry. I believe intersectionality needs to be genuinely considered in this discussion. Though it’s far from thoroughly implemented and definitely makes the diversity discussion more complex. True progress requires the inclusion of marginalised identities in roles like bookers, juries, project leads, technical management, and beyond so that we can talk about meaningful inclusivity.

My wish is that no one feels discriminated against because of their gender, feels free to express themselves, feels encouraged to learn, and feels as though they are always already assumed to be a body who has potential to learn and be a great musician or artist, regardless of how they look. – Mad Kate

Follow the artists on Instagram @6zmObot, @MadKate27, @Strip_Down_, @Venusloc, and discover more of their work via 6zm’s track feed, Mad Kate’s projects, Strip Down’s Spotify, and Venusloc’s Soundcloud.

Listen to Soli Tunes, available exclusively on Bandcamp, benefiting a community music space in Ramallah, Palestine.