Nahla leads conversations on gender stereotypes in music

With names of Don Jazzy, TG Omori, Philkeyz, Blaisebeatz, Reward Beatz, Yung Willis, DeeYasso, Young John and other male music producers and directors constantly being mentioned in the Nigerian music industry, female music producers and directors such as Director Pink, Loc The Plug, Saszy Afroshii are often not loud or not celebrated despite their work behind the scene.

Identifying the challenges, Ibukun Abidoye, known popularly as IB Abidoye, started Nahla Initiative to give female music producers a voice.

Nahla is a community that trains, financially empowers and builds platforms for young females between 18 and 25 years in the art of production, writing and engineering.

To drive economic empowerment, the females are made to produce albums after their training, and some percentage will be given to them to support their initiatives. They also get trained in the business side of music.

The heart of the programme is to get young women more involved in other parts of music. It starts first with the training, then a select group have an opportunity to work on an Album with Artistes thereby getting an opportunity to earn while doing what they love.

This year, it held Nahla Sessions: In Conversation With Saszy and Loc The Plug, which deliberated on female in the music industry, Abidoye, who is the founder and CEO, Nahla, said the initiative discovered that there is a small percentage of women represented in music productions, songwriting and engineering and it feels they are the aspects that need impact when talking about gender equity and equality.

“This is a global issue but it’s particular in Africa because of the social-economic and cultural context in which gender roles apply.

“After a particular age, ladies are pressured about marriage, and, a lot of time, with the type of work involved in music, the prime year is the young years. Women are expected to get married at 25, whereas the challenges do not exist for men.

“Luckily, artistes are now starting early; artistes such as Arya Starr, Fave, and Tyla started earlier, unlike Tiwa Savage, who started late. Quin Madi is 19, but the opportunity is not only to be a performance, there are opportunities behind the scenes that can be explored even when married. A lady can still be married as a producer or an engineer and can balance like any other job.

“Nahla started in 2022 with a round table where professionals in the industry talked about some of the challenges and some of the things they talked about are part of what I highlighted”.

Safety for women is important because the music industry is mostly male-dominated. We have done training in production, songwriting and engineering; we partnered with Ableton to train participants on how to make sound and master music.

“A big milestone was when Loc, one of the people who graduated from the programme, was nominated as the female producer of the year, and she was also accepted into an international residency for music.

“The thrust of Nahla Sessions is to bring awareness that we need more female producers and also to let people know that Nahla has dreams and we are looking for partners because most of the things we do are ground-based, the programmes are free but we have to pay the trainers.

Also speaking, Loveth Omasirichi Chizinum, known as Loc The Plug, said: “It’s exciting, challenging being a female music producer. I like to showcase what I can do in a male-dominated place.

“Female producers are not given the needed support in the industry. We wouldn’t be where we are right now if we were given the needed support. We have a lot of female producers and engineers in the loop that people do not know anything about because of the existing bias in the industry. We don’t have the platforms to showcase better.”