Over the weekend, the fourth episode of NATIVE Sound Radio hosted by Tami Makinde aired on No Signal Radio, and to celebrate this Women’s History Month, the show will be hosting conversations driven by women. In the first episode of this series, Tami chops it up about all things women and popular culture alongside me, the HBIC around here, and the founder of Femme Africa, Ayomide Dokunmu.

The role of women in the music industry has become an increasingly present topic, given that women from all walks of life and from different creative and business sectors have created spaces for themselves in this male-saturated business. While the needle has shifted a bit, there’s still a long way to go with regards to how all of these women, no matter what their station is, are treated.

In this episode, we had a great time listening to music from African women we admire while we created a vulnerable space where we all shared our experiences in different aspects of the music industry, dissected the recently released Coming 2 America, KAI Collective’s ongoing case against Boohoo and much more. Here are 5 takeaways from the episode

• There’s a super-secret NATIVE Sound Album on the way.

I’m going to pretend like I don’t know everything about the NATIVE Sound Album on the way, and be as excited as everyone else about it when it gets released. Last night on the show, we shared the first teaser of what’s to come on the album, with an unreleased record with Chi Virgo number. I guess that’s all I can say for now, but keep your eyes and ears peeled for any information about that, and keep in mind that if you blink, you could miss it!

• The Kemist is a fantastic DJ.

I love women, I love listening to women and I love it when women play other women. In this special International Women’s Day mix, The Kemist gave us a cocktail of all our favourite songs by women from Destiny’s Child to Lauryn Hill, Amaarae to Oby Onyioha and Flo Milli to Lil Kim. It was truly a treat, and we enjoyed every second of the mix. Follow The Kemist for more from her here.

 

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• Women in music media are suffering

Women all over the world suffer, but in our own little corner of the world, ratata! Mide, Tami and I had a deep and honest conversation about what it’s like manoeuvring this world as women, from men who try and use work to offer sexual advances, to people who count you out of a culture you’re building and men automatically assuming that I’m a man because it’s apparently impossible for a woman to be in charge. (Listen for the funniest and most ridiculous thing someone said to me). Beyond this discussion, we also spoke about how hard it is for female artists in the industry to get half as much, even though they do twice as much work, and have a shelf life imposed on their career due to unfounded opinions. It’s actually really hard out here for a real bitch, send a black woman money today.

• KAI Collective vs Boohoo

A month ago, founder of KAI Collective, Fisayo Longe announced that her atelier was suing the fashion behemoth, Boohoo Plc for copying the design of her trend piece, the Gaia. On the show, we spoke in depth about Tami’s investigation of the case (which you can read all about here) and what it means for such a big conglomerate to take from a smaller, black-owned business.

• Coming 2 America was a bit sexist

The whole of the Internet seems to be talking about the sequel to the 90’s classic, Coming To America, which aired on Amazon Prime and in cinemas. On the show, we spoke about the film, and why it’s problematic in today’s age, for example, it was laden with sexist jokes, which in the ’90s might have not been a big deal, but today, just does not bang. It’s not funny when women are the butt of the joke, and it was a bit hard to overlook that in the grand scheme of things especially knowing how the world treats us. Listen for how we generally felt about all things surrounding the newly released blockbuster.

If you didn’t catch the episode live or missed some of these hot topics while it was on, you can listen to the whole thing here:

Featured image credits/NATIVE