Music Industry Discrimination Quotes

We don't compete with the Grammys. The Grammys compete with us. They have taken the stance that anybody who performs on 'The American Music Awards' cannot appear on 'The Grammys.' I don't agree with that philosophy.

In the music industry, intelligence in women is undervalued.

The music industry is hard work, especially for women. A lot of people pit us against each other, comparing two body types or two women that are completely different. It's a lot of pressure.

I've never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn't feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you've got to work as hard as them.

I'm well past the age where I'm acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You're not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you're not going to get played on radio and you're not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

From the time I was 20 and people would say, 'Chicks with Picks,' I hated it. It's not a genre, it's a gender.

Everywhere I went, people would tell me that trap and reggaeton was for men, not women. I wasn't being taken seriously, and I was often being told to do something else.

I think Nina Simone has had an amazing journey. She was spicy and she had attitude and she didn't care, she wanted her money in a paper bag and don't mess with me and I've been doing some research on that so.

In music today, people are against females. We don't have that empowerment anymore. We don't have that voice.

They wouldn't play my records on American radio because I had spiky hair. They said, 'Punk rock doesn't sell advertising, it won't make any money.'

One of the reasons I didn't ever pursue a career - in the music world if you're black or mixed, you need to be able to belt a song or else you're not a singer, you know?

For Bobby and I to sing R&B and sound black was probably the stupidest thing we could do. White radio stations wouldn't play us because they thought we were black. Black stations wouldn't play us because they thought we were white. Any time you break ground, you go against the grain.

You get to a certain age, and you are forbidden access. You're not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines; you're not going to get played on radio, and you're not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

I'd been watching documentaries about early rock where white artists took 'race records' from blues and soul musicians to achieve mass appeal. I wanted to flip that and do an EP covering only white artists.

My YouTube videos have literally millions of views... Yet I'm still airbrushed out of the BBC Stalinist revision of history; the chart shows have been instructed not to play my music!

A lot of people of color in the music industry are still more interested in embracing things that are considered white canon, and looking radical. Like when people point to punk in the indie world: If you point to the history of punk as what you see as your legacy, that's more prized and praised.

They said I was a married mother of two but the record sounded like an indie album and they didn't know how to market it! This country is incredibly sexist, as is the music and media industry.

I've been looking forward to doing an album, but it's really sad to see how many doors have been closed because of the gay thing. I thought it was about the music.

The problem is the following, black music is increasing encumbered by white elements, often pleasant but always superfluous, easily and advantageously replaced with black elements.

There are not many girls doing reggaeton or urban music in the Latin music industry.

It was darn nigh impossible for women in rock in the '70s. There wasn't a mold if you were a woman and you were in the entertainment in the '70s. You were probably a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio would play only one woman per hour.

We see new male artists have their first single reach No. 1 on the charts, but it generally takes a female a lot longer to build momentum.

There are a lot of aspiring singers who are not paid attention to because they don't look like a fashion model.

When people say Jerry Lee Lewis invented rock n' roll, they forget Little Richard. People talk about Elvis Presley and forget he was singing black music. I don't blame Elvis. It was the music business figuring it could make more money from this music if it weren't presented from the original source.

I am one of the few composers who has been lucky enough to manage to do songs with female singers, despite the labels and producers wanting otherwise. They don't believe that songs with female voices can work and often push us to work with male singers.