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Some food for thought on a Tuesday (a thread):
Why is nobody in electronic music talking about wealth and how it affects our scene?
Why is nobody in electronic music talking about wealth and how it affects our scene?
On the whole, the electronic music scene is - or at least touts itself as - progressive. Recent years have seen all kinds of discussion about gender, sexuality, race, representation, privilege, etc.
Despite all of that talk - and what I’d argue has been some genuine progress (albeit incremental) on these issues - there’s still no discussion about wealth and the gross overrepresentation of the upper class in our scene.
Maybe this is all rooted in some British/American notion that it’s impolite to talk about money, but perhaps it’s time to throw decorum out the window when it comes to this topic.
After all, it seems like people in electronic music are the same people who’d advocate for things like wage transparency, higher taxes on the rich, increased government spending/support for the arts, mandatory pay for interns, etc.
We’re also the same kind of people that scoff when a Kardashian is described as self-made or when the NY Times writes glowing articles about millennials buying Brooklyn apartments with their parents’ money.
Given all that, why can we not ask how someone manages to fund their niche record label where every release has custom colored vinyl, elaborate artwork and no discernible sales?
Why can we not ask how a DJ or producer manages to support themselves with no day job in an expensive city while only playing the occasional gig and releasing just a record or two each year? (NYC is particularly guilty on this front.)
Why can we not ask how “struggling” artists still manage to afford PR campaigns and elaborate studios, or travel to festivals/events where they’re not actually booked or even flex on Instagram with all the latest absurdly expensive streetwear?
Some of you might answer “because it’s none of your business,” which is fair enough, but I’d argue that that sort of thinking only reinforces our wildly imbalanced status quo.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a class warrior and I’m not advocating for some sort of “eat the rich” revolution. I just think we should all be able to stop tip-toeing around the giant elephant in the room.
We live in a time when visibility and spectacle are arguably just as key to an artist’s success as the music they make or the records they play.
And if we set aside folks who grab attention by simply being outrageous or controversial, we’re left with artists who are visible. The ones who can afford to make music, play gigs and be part of the scene without having to worry about making ends meet.
Amongst friends, we’ve all had conversations about “so and so is just some rich kid.” Those conversations are usually tinged with disdain… up until that person finds success, and then their wealth is filed away, never to be spoken about again.
To be clear, I’m not saying that people who come from money can’t or shouldn’t be artists. The economically privileged have been dominating the arts for centuries, and plenty of wealthy people have made or facilitated incredible work.
But in a time where there’s so much conversation about fairness and privilege, how can we not start taking wealth into account? Is it not a problem that the upper classes are overrepresented? Are their viewpoints more valuable?
Is it not okay to ask the question of whether someone’s fame or notoriety is truly based on the quality of their work, or if they just had the money to keep their name in circulation until people started paying attention?
This issue goes beyond DJs and producers. Promoters, label owners, journalists, artist managers, PR reps, festival organizers, etc… the list of offenders is long.
I don’t want to paint with too wide of a brush, but this industry is full of “professionals” whose primary qualifications are (or at least were) that they had enough money to underwrite their creative endeavors.
The world isn’t and has never been fair, but this wealth issue is quite literally a structural inequality in our community, and we’re not even allowed to talk about it, even on an academic level. That’s ridiculous.
Anyways, if you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading. I don’t have the answer to all of this, but hopefully I can help start the conversation.
