pollstar
Noelle Scaggs & Aloe Blacc Talk Diversify The Stage’s Inclusion Initiative (Pollstar Live! Recap)
3:30PM | 02/11/2022 | By: Deborah Speer
Source: https://www.pollstar.com/article/noelle-scaggs-aloe-blacc-talk-diversify-the-stages-inclusion-initiative-pollstar-live-recap-149662
Rainmaker II: Noelle Scaggs on the DTS Inclusion Initiative
Aloe Blacc, Singer/Songwriter
Noelle Scags, Co-Lead Singer, Fitz & The Tantrums; Founder, Diversify The Stage
Noelle Scaggs, with the help of friends and colleagues in the live space including Nine Inch Nails tour manager Jerome Crooks, founded Diversify The Stage in 2020 as pandemic shutdowns and justice demonstrations gripped the landscape. She’d noticed the lack of people of color, women and LGBTQ+ workers behind the scenes for years, but when her work with Fitz & The Tantrums paused, she took advantage of the respite to build an organization that continues to grow.
She was interviewed for the Rainmaker II session of Pollstar Live! on Feb. 9 by fellow artist, singer, songwriter and friend Aloe Blacc about her experience and the DTS inclusion initiative.
“The inclusion initiative itself was created in collaboration with a lot of folks,” Scaggs said. “I really wanted to look at the foundation of folks that made our careers go from not only our production members but also our agencies, promoters; the people that are producing these events, the venue bookers.
“For the inclusion initiative itself, we're looking at the pledge and the things that we're asking are very simple. Consider hiring a person from an underrepresented group when you are hiring staff.” Assess your business. How are you marketing? Where are you looking for new recruits? Are you going to the same sources that are only giving you X, Y and Z? That’s a habit that’s formed in your hiring methods. The idea is to assess, then to educate, and then provide these stepping stones, plant little seeds.”
It’s important to be able to identify areas in which employers could potentially find candidates, and planting kernels into the minds of people who otherwise don’t know such jobs exist.
“The next steps honestly are for all those companies that signed on early to assess how they are going to create accountability standards for themselves, within your company, and the venues that we’re playing at, how are you going to support an artist like myself who has made it an intention to ensure that I’m not the only one on my stage who looks like me or that can identify as being a minority in the group? How are you going to support your act?
“Providing resources or artists to help you in this path. Writing down something in your rider that completely is communicating you are not taking any kind of racist memorabilia at a show, you’re not going to accept intolerance in any way. Writing that down and putting that into a form as to where it can be a contract because once it’s on paper, you have to run with it. One thing that stayed true to me with how artists can be impactful is something that Jerome said to me was ‘If my artist asks for it, I'm going to do everything to make it possible because I want to keep them as a client.’”
Blacc pointed out that vetting potential employees is a part of the program, too.
There are already in place several databases among organizations for populating hiring pools and are in the process of being shared, Scaggs explained.
“NeverFamous.com was actually created by Jerome Crooks with the idea of finding tour personnel and his intentions has always been to have diverse populations in the infrastructure. You have to have a certain amount of experience, and referrals are definitely recommended. You want to make sure you have those referrals; they have their vetting process as well. Pretty much all the databases that we've collected have been shared with us through agencies that have kept their own databases, and we’re really trying to bring them into one place where people can have a resource… There are resources that are existing, what we wanted to do was put them all in a space that you could find them because everybody in our industry is moving constantly…. What we have is definitely vetted, they’re all experienced personnel and you would interview them just like you would anyone else.”
Another goal is educating agents and managers about the artist and tour ecosystem about the importance of having diverse crews and why it matters. As Scaggs explained of her first tour, “It was like 10 guys and me…. The little sister and the socks and all the things that can happen when you’re in a van full of guys, you become one of them. For me I needed that energy. The moment we changed that, the moment that, that shifted, even the guys could feel it. Even the men in the room could feel the change and the difference and they said they could never tour again without that gender balance.”
She acknowledges there are challenges to finding and nurturing potential talent to bring into the live entertainment world, not just in the immediate landscape but for the future.
“It comes down to education,” Scaggs stresses. “We’re trying to capture high school students.…What do they know about the production space? I didn’t know what my agent did until I became friends with mine. Education is important and extending that education to a young person who wouldn’t otherwise know that the gig exists is important. That’s a part of the walk, If the pool is shallow you, we, have to start filling it up with the infrastructure that’s available….If you're a STEM student, into technology or robotics or like to build things, or an engineer there’s a million jobs here in music…. It’s just emphasizing that to our school systems that these are not throwaway jobs. People can create careers, can travel the world and get someone out their neighborhood.”
It’s also important to remember that the Diversify The Stage inclusion initiative is not limited to people of color. Inclusion, diversity, equity and access reach across the spectrum of the human existence. There’s a lot of territory to cover and it helps to know the terms and language used when discussing diversity.
“I have to give some love to Dr. Sharoni Little (head of D and I at CAA). She really helped put together those huge key terms that started with just a small cluster of the things that we could look up while we're going through this process. This initiative/pledge started as a 12-page document that was withered down to what you see today. It took a lot of folks to get it where it is. But what we felt was important is when you're having a conversation with someone who doesn't identify with your ethnic background or your race, they don't know how to ask the question.
“They don't want to offend, so they often don't ask. I’ve had conversations with tour managers that wanted to hire a Black woman but didn’t know how to word it, or didn’t think it was OK to say it. But they really want to diversify and specifically want to support Black women in this side of the industry.”
Blacc wondered how far off Scaggs thought society is from the point where achieving diversity no longer has to take a conscious effort but becomes second nature.
“Well, we can’t be colorblind right?” she responded. “I think when people say they are colorblind is, they blind themselves from my experience because you don't know how to respond. It’s important to see each other for who we are and to be accepting of that and that’s practice. You’re already coming in with preconceived notion based on whatever you’ve grown up with or whatever you’ve seen. My idea of change is that it happens in the blink of an eye…. Are we close? I don’t know.
"I have a lot of faith in the next generation – they’re really powerful spirits – and just the conversations that I have with my 8-year-old godson is crazy. The knowledge that they have and access, dedication and technology they have nowadays is moving rapidly. I hope we get there.”
“The fact that I got Live Nation, AEG, UTA, WME, CAA and all of them to ban together to help me create this document, I didn’t expect that…. I didn’t know what was going to happen – I thought I might get two or three to sign on – but these companies looked, listened, felt, and also had a process starting in which they took the initiative put their name on the page which was amazing. The word of mouth is going globally. I'm getting emails from folks in the UK that want to create a version for the UK that works and functions in that space. EDM communities want to do it. So the word is getting out and there’s activity starting to happen.
“Just imagine having a tour with folks who have lots of different experiences; that's what music is about. Music is the universal language and the diversity that stands on the stages each and every day should be reflected in all of our business.”