Dr. Jada Watson and Founder of SongData joins me to discuss the state of radio airplay in country music. In 2024, she found that songs by women made up only 8.39% of songs played on country radio (a decline from 2023). Most of these songs were songs by White women 8.23% and songs by Black women were programmed only 0.09% of the time. The lack of female representation and songs by women of color has long been an issue, and is seemingly only getting worse. When the media makes it seem like marginalized groups are finally finding success, Jada points out, we're only ever talking about a few artists. And a few artists does not make equity across an entire genre.

I share my own experiences in trying to find deals in Nashville, and while it does feel intimidating to discuss, I think it's important to be honest about our experiences if we ever want to see change. I found out she was in Nashville the day before we filmed this (back in May). She was already on my list of people I wanted to talk to on the podcast, and fortunately, she had one more day in town. Thank you for watching and thanks to my friend Jada for joining me.

I also wanted to share an update on my publisher meetings as it relates to a lot of what I talked about in this podcast. A few weeks after filming this, I actually had a meeting where the publisher made no mention of my gender and I got actual feedback on my writing. A critique on my lyric writing and this person spent quite a bit of time with me which I was extremely grateful for. While it was one of the first times I had a different/more positive experience in the 14 years I've been in Nashville, I thought it was worth mentioning and gave me a little hope.

DR. JADA WATSON | SONGDATA | LINKS:
► Follow Jada on Instagram: https://instagram.com/data_jada
► Jada's Research & Website: https://songdata.ca/
► Songs by Women 2024 https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/datajada.bsky.social/post/3liuxsqs2hk23

EMMA LINKS:
►Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/emmawhitemusic
►Website: http://www.EmmaWhite.com
►Download/Stream Emma's NEW ALBUM "Thirties" OUT NOW: https://stem.ffm.to/thirties-emmawhite

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