Ebony Smith explains why she believes only 2.8% of music producers are female, and even fewer are women of color.

Founder and President Ebony Smith New York City’s Gender Amplified Inc believes that only 2.8% of music producers are female, and an even smaller percentage are women of color. To combat this, she founded an organization to develop a pipeline for women and gender nonbinary people to join professional recording studios.

Gender Amplified hosts community events and uses multimedia to provide a platform for the advancement of women in music production, identifying and motivating the next generation of female music producers. In doing so, we host festivals, seminars and events throughout the year. This nonprofit aims to celebrate women in music production, raise the profile of women, and develop a pipeline for girls and young women to participate behind the scenes as producers.

Smith is an award-winning music producer, audio engineer, and singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. She currently works as an audio engineer and producer for Atlantic Records and received her first Grammy Award and her RIAA-certified platinum her plate for her work as her assistant engineer. rice field. Hamilton (original Broadway cast recording).

In addition, he won a second Grammy for his work as an assistant engineer on Sturgill Simpson’s award-winning album. Sailor’s Guide to EarthSmith has also worked as an engineer on the Grammy-nominated album. dirty computer by Janelle Monae and Grammy Winning Album invasion of privacy She currently works as an in-house engineer and producer for Atlantic Records. In addition, Smith was elected governor of the New York chapter of The Recording Academy and now she is a member of the Producers & Engineers Wing.

where Smith forbes Find out what inspired Gender Amplified, her experience as a black female producer, and how the industry can become more inclusive.

Lisa Kocay: What inspired you to start Gender Amplified?

Ebony Smith: “Gender Amplified started as a senior thesis project while I was at Barnard College, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University. My co-workers were all men, I was making beats that could have been making music for the radio, and I was like, ‘Are they there? I started asking around and started finding these little communities online bit by bit. , there were a lot of cool pockets of women playing deejays.

“There was an event dedicated to these women connecting and meeting each other. He told me that maybe he should use his own resources to organize a festival, I thought this was a great idea, so I went to my senior thesis advisor and he said, “I have a really great idea for my senior thesis. “I thought.can you support me [in doing] An accompanying paper conference? This was in 2007. I wrote my thesis, but my supervisor also helped me put together the first conference of its kind on women in music production, especially hip-hop production.

“The conference was called Gender Amplified Women in Tech Innovation in Hip-Hop. Aside from contributing to a budding academic discourse about women in the I was meeting women and doing research for a dissertation project, and I was struck by the fact that very few women knew each other, some of them did, most didn’t. The conference was actually a double: it was the amalgamation of my research and all my adventures in New York City as fellow music producers, and the culmination of all that effort, but all these women It was also a response to the desire to create a kind of space for people to meet each other and to come together.Gender Amplified started in exactly that vein.”

Kocay: Can you talk about some of the events you’re hosting for Gender Amplified today?

Smith: “The current main event is called the Control Room series and is not open to the public. It is an invite-only private music production camp. Funded: NASDAQ is also a funder, and Spotify is a big contributor in the past.The camp will be held on the 3rd or 4th at studio partner Hyper Valid in Brooklyn. [which] Comes with music production and post house. We collect these women. They have to fill out the application process. We ask them about their hopes, desires, artistic achievements, how they see themselves as creators, what types of technology they use, what the community means to them. It asks a lot of questions about what.. It’s a very comprehensive application. From there, identify which producers will make the appropriate pairings and build cohorts.

“Our current cohort is 17 producers. They are from all over New York, and some are actually out of state. The program started in 2019 with another youth cohort at the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, but in fact one of the producers in the current cohort was part of the original cohort. Enrolled in the current iteration of Producer expanded from college days, now we include [people who are] 18 to 41 years old. We have a wide age range and this is our main focus at the moment. Keep cohorts small. Because I want to be able to track it over time and track my progress. That’s the size of our organization. Manage them and help with career readiness and opportunities. we know everyone personally. We also nurture this community based on what it takes to grow collectively, not just to build individual careers, but to build collective careers. Having successfully placed some songs from the camp, we continue to look for professional opportunities for these artists, as well as a catalog of their output. ”

Kocay: You’ve been a producer for ten years. What is your experience as a black female producer?

Smith: “The experience for me has been great. I had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of records over a long period of time. I worked in-house at Atlantic Records. There’s musical theater, and my actual first credit was on the “Hamilton” cast album. From there came the opportunity [work] More musical theater, hip hop, R&B, [and I] I had the opportunity to work in country music and folk music. In fact, one of his projects in Musical Theater Space has been nominated for next year’s Grammy Awards. This is great. I got the chance to produce on it. The song “Ready Set Go” by Divinity Rocks is nominated for Music for Children. This year he’s been in Nashville working on folk music and has recently produced his country album. I think my work at Gender Amplified has paved the way for me to work on some very interesting projects, especially those that feature a very strong mission on women’s empowerment. It means so much to me that I have been able to build a career that supports women through my creative work at . ”

Kocay: Why do you believe that only 2.8% of music producers are women, and even smaller presenters are women of color?

Smith: “I think there are many answers to that question. I think part of it has to do with how women are socialized. I think there are things that are technically heavy toys that are sometimes shown to the boys before they are shown to the girls, and I think the sociability of young girls has a little something to do with it. I think it also has a bit to do with the way the network was built in. Making music on a commercial level tends to require standardized systems and standardized processes, so you can ask the same producer over and over again. You may end up contacting multiple times and making records for different artists, resulting in a loss of diversity.

“There is also a field awareness. I don’t think many women know about the career-building space of producing and producing. By the time they reach production age and are old enough to enter the workforce as producers, they can begin to develop the skill sets necessary to remain competitive. self-awareness, knowing the craft is out there, and from the standpoint of commercial production and producers of the product, who they are going to complete the record with, the producer’s specific I don’t want to necessarily deviate from the norm. That they work together.”

Kocay: Can you talk more about what the industry can do better besides moving away from the same producers that the industry uses?

Smith: “I think it’s important for the major commercial music industry to create a system where different types of producers coming from different environments can be safely surveyed, so it really counts as an equal. There must be a thirst for finding producers who come from and a willingness to be open to the different interpretations they bring. approach and investment in finding these individuals.”

Kocay: If you could give yourself some advice going back to when you started making music with Gender Amplified, what would it be?

Smith: “I tell myself to stay true to the Gender Amplified mission and ministry of bringing female music producers together in a way that builds self-esteem and self-confidence. Tell yourself it’s an asset It builds character but only if you stick to it Learn to fail until you succeed It’s probably the most Satisfying: from failure to success.”

Kocay: I think there are times when it is necessary. It helps you grow big.

Smith: “It’s especially important as a music producer because there’s no school for it. It’s all trial and error. So the more you fail, the closer you get to improving your skill set and technique.”

Kocay: Anything else you think I should know?

Smith: “Gender Amplified continues its Control Room series of camps and is looking to partner with distribution partners to help bring the music to people. The camps are producing great songs.”

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