I am honoured to be speaking at the Black American Music Summit, hosted by the Folk Alliance International on Friday, February 21, 2025 with Dusky Waters, founder and executive director of the Black Americana Fest.
What forces are shaping subsistence amongst working-class musicians? Where do Black Americana, Country and Folk artists fit into the commercial arm of the industry? Gain a data-driven view of the music industry as it stands, examine the structural challenges artists face, and gain advocacy tools for meaningful change.
In this conversation, we’ll dive into some of the studies that SongData has released over the last seven years, and share the most recent stats on representation on US Country format radio. With a focus on where Black artists stand in the current radio programming landscape, we will discuss pathways forward.
How do things look today on US COUNTRY format radio?
Most of my work focuses on the country music industry; I update these statistics several times a year to keep on top of mainstream activity. Here is a peak at the latest results and stay tuned for Redlining in Country Music 3.0 (to be released in March 2025).
Want to learn more about US Country radio? Check out previous SongData reports:
- “Redlining in Country Music 2.0: Representation in the Country Music Industry in 2021 and 2022.” SongData Reports; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 17 March 2023.
- “Redlining in Country Music: Representation in the Country Music Industry (2000-2020).” SongData Reports; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 12 March 2021.
NonCommercial AAA radio has long been a format to introduce new artists to audiences.
In May 2023 I had the great honour to present at the NonCommvention in Philadelphia, PA. The focus of the presentation was on gender representation, but presented through a lens that allowed for meaningful discussion of race and ethnicity, too. I reconfigured several of the graphics from that presentation to focus on representation of Black artists on the AAA format.
How do things look on this format?
Check out these results from a 2023 study — and stay-tuned for an update this May!
- Still Persisting. The Numbers. Slides from presentation at NonComm 2023. 4 May 2023.
The AMERICANA SINGLES Charts
The Americana Singles chart is relatively new when compared to other established charting systems. Launched in 2018, the singles chart Launched in 2018, the Americana Radio Singles Chart focuses on ranking the popularity of singles based on radio airplay. In 2022, I worked with lead researcher Michelle Conceison from Middle Tennessee State University to study representation on the chart. Our findings revealed significant under representation of artists of color within the AMA charts.
Read the full report:
- “Representation in the Americana Radio Chart, 2018-2021.” Released with Michelle Conceison at AmericanaFest, 12 September 2022.
How do things sound on CANADIAN RADIO?
In June 2024 I released a report in partnership with Women in Music Canada and the National Arts Centre to study gender representation on Canadian commercial radio. As with the Country and AAA research, the datasets were developed so that we could have a nuanced and meaningful discussion around representation that included discussion of race and ethnicity. This is critical in all research, but certainly in a country that has does not have a national network of Black-owned, Black-led and Black-oriented radio stations in Canada. And that had for more than sixty-years banned Indigenous ceremony known as Potlach, which the federal government of Canada banned from 1885 to 1991. This ban is an act of cultural genocide, and factors into the historical absence of Indigenous story telling in public spaces (generally) and within the music industry (specifically). The absence of platforms for storytelling and a legislative system that actively denied it has had a catastrophic impact on Black and Indigenous creatives in this country.
Presented here, as a reconfiguring of the most important findings of the report, centred around race and ethnicity.
Want to learn more about representation on Canadian radio? Dive into the results of my most recent study “Share the Air” to learn more about the six mainstream radio formats. (Also available in French!)
QUESTIONS? Contact me at info@SongData.ca
DOWNLOAD the graphics here and tag @data_jada if you share on Instagram or BlueSky or LinkedIn.