Did you know, that less than 9% of all electronic music producers are female? We neither! But this statistic has not gone unnoticed by some. The Founder of ‘Drop Bass Not Bombs’ joined forces with various friends and artists from the hard dance scene, to create a special format to bring female producers together and enable them to build an active network for female artists. We from HardstyleMag think that this project really deserves all our support because female producers enrich the world of Hard Dance music substantially but could of course contribute even more to the scene.
Zwiesel
It’s a man’s world – James Brown published this song in 1966 and up to this day this title seems to be still valid in many sectors. Despite the fact that the women’s rights movement has reached a global level, and already changed many views and even laws, a lot of sectors still seem to be out of scope. And obviously so seems to be the Hardstyle Scene. The ratio of female DJs compared to male DJs seems to be obviously pretty unbalanced – for female MCs even more. The lineups of Hardstyle events comprise easily up to 98% male DJs and MCs. But is this a structural problem or just a matter of a lack of female DJs available on the market?
The Founder of the charity event organization “Drop Bass Not Bombs” thought that the time had come to put this situation into the spotlight through the project “Women in Hard Dance “ and with this, a new documentary series and a very promising network came to be. But let’s start to kick this article off, with a short introduction of the “Drop Bass Not Bombs” project.
Drop Bass Not Bombs
In 2017 a group of volunteers got together, to host charity hard dance events in the Netherlands. The official mission is, to bring together electronic music and human rights by organizing raves for charity. During the first years, they started with joint venture events and in 2019 they finally hosted their very first own event in the city center of Amsterdam. The International Hard Dance Meeting took place on June 27th. 2019 – so just one day before Defqon.1. And with 17 performing artists from different countries and even different continents, they directly set a serious statement. Since then, the whole project has experienced a tremendous growth and we are really looking forward to what’s coming next. Of course, the COVID pandemic has made any new live events impossible, but a steady list of online events is currently replacing their event activities. After COVID – of course – new events in Europe and maybe the US are coming soon.
Follow their upcoming projects here Drop Bass Not Bombs
Birth of ‘Women in Hard Dance ‘
The Founder and Executive Director of Drop Bass Not Bombs – Amy Farina – felt that there was something missing in the hard dance scene, a place where female artists, organizers, industry professionals, and fans could come together. A place where female artists could interact, exchange and support each other and to create some more attention about their contribution to the Hard Dance scene. From this the idea for “Women in Hard Dance” was born. Amy gathered together her friends like Anne Rainville (Frenchcore Producer AnneX), Alennah van Wijk (YouTube Content Creator from the Netherlands), Aiki Niinemets (Freelance Model from Estonia) and Lydia Trenda (Co-Founder of Hard Facts). They then created a group on Facebook, to have a first platform where women in the scene can come together and support each other.
Documentaries on YouTube
In order to give the whole project more attention, the team decided to start a professional documentary series on YouTube. In their most recent episode, they interview female artists. In 60 minutes, the participating artists report of how they came to the hard dance music, their scene experiences and their achievements. They also share good tips for upcoming female artists and encourage them to continue their ways.
There are currently two episodes available with artists like Juliëx, Hysta, Lady Dammage and Day-Mar.
Watch the first episode here and the second episode here. The project itself can be followed either on Instagram and Facebook.
Conclusion
Beside the surprisingly low rate of female artists in the scene, the number of tracks from female artists or tracks where they are featured in only amounts to 17,5%. Indeed, this is also not really convincing. Of course, the more producers we have the more music can be produced – which definitely helps hard dance music to flourish. Therefore, the complete HardstyleMag Team pays its respect to this project and will definitely follow this cool initiative. Welcome to Women in Hard Dance scene.