Supporting Independents and Championing Diversity in Music
Manage episode 380405491 series 3348770
" I think socioeconomic status and background is one of the key areas where the music industry isn’t diverse enough."
Today's guest is Lara Baker, General Manager at FUGA for the UK & Ireland. On top of being named in Billboard's International Power Players 2022, she was also honoured with Music Week’s Women in Music Roll of Honour and SheSaidSo's Alternative Power List. She is passionate about improving diversity, gender balance and inclusivity in the music business. She has sat on UK Music’s Diversity Taskforce, supported the Love Music Hate Racism campaign and organised regular women in music and diversity-focused events. Lara joined FUGA in early 2023. She came from Songtrust/Downtown Music Publishing, where Lara worked for 4 years as Director of Business Development for the UK, IE and Australia. Lara's background and passion have always been supporting independent labels and artists. Her music career began in 2004 at AIM (the UK trade association for independent labels), where Lara spent 14 years serving the independent community, ultimately as Marketing and Events Director. During this time she created the AIM Awards, the leading celebration of independent music, as well as AIM's year-round programme events including AIM Connected, AIM Sync conference and Indie-Con (now known as Future Independents). There is a lot to talk about and Marc and Lara definitely get into it.
FUGA is the world's leading B2B music distributor. FUGA is the number one choice for some of the world’s top labels, management companies and distributors, including Epitaph Records, Ultra, Curb, Mom + Pop, mTheory and Domino. As GM UK/IE, Lara's role leads new business and client relations for the territory.
Show Notes:
#HowWeListen Live: In Conversation
00:10 - Byta.com
03:52 - Getting started, school & first job
04:50 - Music business school
07:57 - Socioeconomics and background
09:00 - AIM getting its start
12:16 - Why indies needed help
15:52 - The Big wins at AIM when I was there, Spotify/MTV…
18:00 - Merlin and WIN explained
21:15 - Diversity in music not reflected in the organization
25:00 - Women in Music Awards, genesis
26:38 - Mentoring
28:50 - The gender pay gap, really bugs me!
36:45 - The Socioeconomic barriers
41:00 - Byta.com
43:00 - Things have changed, what artists need to do and how FUGA helps
46:00 - The Hives.
52:00 - More initiatives
54:10 - Byta.com
Music by Fin Productions and Oliver Lyu
Episode Credits:
Artwork by Jen Pmphrey
Hosted by Marc Brown
Series coordinated by Jamie Ford
Produced and edited by Colin MacKenzie
Music by Fin Productions and Oliver Lyu
32 episod