FAC Insights: Counterculture on the Black Music Means Business Report
FAC Insights is a forum for us to showcase and share long form pieces looking at various parts of the music industry and the society that shapes it. Pieces take the form of videos, interviews, discussions, articles and more.
Following the launch of UK Music’s Black Music Means Business report, we’re excited to feature Wendy Cave, Project Manager of the report and Partner at Counterculture, as she shares how the consultancy shaped the report and highlighted the economic and cultural impact of Black music in the UK.
What is Counterculture & what do you do?
Counterculture provides strategic consultancy to music, cultural and educational organisations, helping them plan, manage and thrive. Its partners provide clients with a diverse range of specialist professional services – they are researchers, consultants, accountants, curators, project managers and fundraisers. Counterculture deliver their services throughout the UK and internationally.
The FAC is part of the UK Music Diversity Taskforce. Why do you believe groups like this are so important for shaping the industry?
The UK Music Diversity Taskforce is unique – the first cross-industry group focussed on building equity and inclusivity for all across the music workforce and allowing often lesser heard voices of the music business to be heard. We’re working from an ethos of ‘don’t do anything about us without us’, so as researchers, elevating these voices is really important to us.
Why does this report matter for the UK music industry right now?
We are excited to offer hard evidence of the enormous contribution of Black music and culture to the music industry as a whole – we hope this report will help shift conversations, bringing the true value of Black musical artistry front and centre. We also hope this report will reignite the industry’s commitments to supporting Black lives within and around music and help catalyse meaningful change.
What do you hope this report will change in how the industry talks about Black music?
Our most powerful focus for this report is the celebration of the phenomenal talent of the creators and professionals that drive Black music. With this new economic data we can now highlight the discrepancy between this contribution and the recognition and renumeration that has been lacking. Black music has been perceived as various subgenres, but our research and methodology show clearly that pop music is powerfully rooted in Black music on a scale not previously acknowledged. Taking inspiration from bell hooks, we want to see Black musical talent shift from margin to centre.
Are there any specific findings you would like to highlight in the report?
That 80% of the music in our dataset is rooted in Black music. This is an astonishing figure - equating to a £24.5 billion contribution over 30 years - and yet the participation we see of Black artists, and particularly of Black women, is not reflected. We would love to see more opportunity and support offered to Black women in the industry, both artists and professionals.
We offer a definition of ‘Black music’ in the report which we hope is useful and will be adopted by the wider industry.
We are also passionate about the decolonisation of the music education curriculum, (our Senior Researcher Natasha’s PhD focusses on this) and our findings really substantiated the importance of this.
What do you hope readers take away from the report beyond the numbers?
This report would not have been possible without the openness and generosity of the 80 music industry stakeholders who offered us their time, insights and lived experience to help us build this picture. We sincerely thank them.
We hope the powerful celebratory energy of the report will inspire confidence in Black music creators and professionals, and ignite conversations in other creative industry sectors. We would also be delighted to see more research supporting Black creators.
Wendy Cave - Black Music Means Business Project Manager, is a Counterculture Partner, and a psychotherapist and coach supporting clients in music and the creative industries
Vick Bain – Black Music Means Business Research Lead, is a Counterculture Associate, former CEO of The Ivors, now a diversity in music campaigner (founder of The F-List) and PhD researcher
Natasha Hendry – Black Music Means Business Senior Researcher, is a Counterculture Associate, music creative, music psychologist and PhD researcher
Tara Tank, Black Music Means Business Researcher - formerly Senior Policy and Research Manager at Counterculture, now Policy Advisor for AI at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Neil Darwin and Sophie Satchell at Deyton Bell – Economists for Black Music Means Business