Women began dominating British dance music

Women began dominating British dance music

As seen on the guardian website Last year, Kenya Grace began documenting her music production on TikTok. Her pairing of pop songwriting with dance instrumentals, performed from her bedroom with a simple mic and Midi-controller setup, soon attracted thousands of followers, and the comment sections were inundated with requests for covers, collaborations and official releases.

But some – generally male – viewers were unconvinced, littering her posts with variously sexist, patronising and mansplaining comments. “I’ve had people ask if someone else made the tracks for me,” she says, sighing. “I’m like: you can seeme doing it.” It’s just one in a collection of microaggressions Grace can recall from her relatively new career, from paternalistic peers in early studio sessions to passive aggressive comments at live shows. “There’s a lot of stigma that women can’t produce.”

But a new vanguard of female producers is beginning to redefine what dance music looks and sounds like.

With their snappy, pop-informed takes on drum’n’bass, garage and EDM, Grace, PinkPantheress and Becky Hill are all chart mainstays; Ireland’s Jazzyreached No 3 and spent 31 weeks in the chart with Giving Me, a euphoric but steely house track she co-wrote; Scotland’s Hannah Laingis getting tens of millions of streams for her self-produced, old-school-leaning rave tracks. Pursuing dance music – and crucially, on their own terms – is now a viable career path.

Venbee

“Us girlies are taking over!” says Venbee, who claims to have written a song a day since she was 10 – one of them, Messy in Heaven, became a Top 10 hit last year, prompting collaborations with chart regulars Rudimental and Chase & Status. “Women are putting their foot down,” she says. “They’re able to film themselves and [show] what they can do.”

As representation grows on stage and on the airwaves, Piri is also pushing for more diversity behind the scenes, hiring a crew made up exclusively of women, non-binary and LGBTQ+ people, and urging other artists to do the same. “It’s a boys club. The reason more men get these jobs is because a man has the opportunity to hire people and then will just automatically pick their friends. So we’ve gotta push outwards. You are the artist, you [have] the power to choose who’s on your team – make the most of that.”

Still on that

Aside from visibility, the changing demographics in dance music are down to the wider availability of resources democratising production, from YouTube and TikTok tutorials to cheaper software, and grants such as the PRS Foundation Women Make Music fund. Collectives such as Loud LDN use group chats and events to build support networks for early-career women and gender-nonconforming artists. Among its members are Piri, Venbee and fellow pop-dance rising stars Issey Cross and Charlotte Plank. “It can be intimidating having to go and ask men for help,” says Piri. “It’s nice to know that you as a community of marginalised people can just figure it out together and accomplish your goals.”

From left) Venbee; Issey Cross; Anz. Composite: Reuben Bastienne-Lewis / Connor Baker / Darcey Axon Aura

Grace believes social media platforms such as TikTok have been instrumental in breaking down the barriers around dance music, including its complex hardware. “So many people have messaged me to say they’ve bought a beat pad because of me, which makes me happy,” she says. Bedroom producers can now lay the foundations of a career by using relatively cheap gear, such as that in Grace’s videos, and a nifty online presence, thereby reducing the decision-making power of industry gatekeepers. “The music industry has completely changed,” she says, citing her career as an example. The public “are choosing who they like” via streaming and social media, “and that’s making loads of underdogs come up. It’s such an exciting time.”

Stay tuned for more updates.