Female producers on the fears around self-identification: “I’d always recorded my own music but never really credited myself as a producer”
“It took years of actually doing [producing] work, being part of communities like 2% and getting an MA in the subject for me to feel confident to credit myself appropriately,” says producer Annie Rew Shaw
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Fix The Mix has revealed that only 5% of producing credits from Grammy award-winning albums are attributed to women and non-binary individuals. However, as seen through a discussion led by MusicTech, a lot of female producers struggle with just calling themselves producers.
Producer and musician Annie Rew Shaw explains that “I’d always recorded my own music but never really credited myself as a producer. According to her, it wasn’t until she started receiving support through music networks, such as 2% Rising, a community for women, trans and non-binary producers, that she realised that she was actually a producer.
“2% Rising was a really supportive and encouraging space and, for the first time, I started to realise that this wasn’t just something I could do, it was something I had been doing for years.”
“Moving forward, I’ll always credit myself as producer, and if appropriate, mix engineer,” she continued. “But it took years of actually doing that work, being part of communities like 2% and getting an MA in the subject for me to feel confident to credit myself appropriately.”
Fix The Mix has stated that it is working on allyship programmes for people of all genders to offer themselves as “fairy godfathers and godmothers to usher this change”, and to allow gender minorities to feel more confident in self-identifying as producers and engineers.
“There are so many important facts revealed through the report,” says Emily Lazar, Grammy award winning producer and lead commissioner of Fix the Mix. “When the money is being made and the awards are being given out, women and non-binary people are almost invisible.”
“I cannot be responsible for this alone, right?” she continues. “The industry at large should be addressing this, and the people who are not the odd man out, the one and only lonely.”
Learn more at We Are Moving The Needle.
