Need for greater female representation in music

The Indian Performing Rights Society- IPRS- held a music roundtable on 'Women Transforming Music' during the just concluded "Kala Ghoda Art Festival 2023" to commemorate the women game-changers in the Indian music business, as part of the #UnleashHERMUSIC campaign.

Leading female musicians gathered to discuss the underrepresentation of women artists in the Indian music industry, and what it will take to empower women in the music industry.

In an exclusive interview, we spoke with Mercy Tetseo of the Tetseo Sisters band, who was one of the round table panellists, on women in the music industry.

Read the excerpt:

Tell me about the 'Women Changing Music' roundtable which was held at Kala Ghoda Art Festival 2023?

It was a wonderful opportunity for me to share my experiences as part of my band as TetseoSisters, and to be able to share our story and experiences in the light of how the music world has changed for us, and what it is at this time. To hear about all the experiences others women. The wonderful women who were on the pane all came with varied experiences.

Why do you believe women artists in the Indian music industry are underrepresented?

As a woman, to prove yourself, even if you're really good at what you do is an uphill task. It is unfortunate how society categorizes us women or girls or females, and then tries to make you believe that, maybe you're not good enough or you don't belong there. People don't come out to your face, they make you feel like that. Logistics, is another limitation that a lot of women face safety issues, right?

And of course, I think some of the drawbacks are also from us. Women are tough because a lot of times, even if you're very talented, you may not just have enough confidence to go out there and fight it out. That's also one of the reasons, a lot of times you have to really fight it out.

I mean, personally, from my own experience and beliefs, you need a support system. You know, as women, whether you want to become an artist, a composer, a writer, or somebody who just wants to work in the music industry or even if it's just in a corporate setup, it's the encouragement and the support system that you have around you that's really important. Like for example, we started our music because we had a great support system. Our parents encouraged us and then, you know, coming from a society like Nagaland, where it's kind of considered safer, in certain instances, for us to be able to go out there and perform are less for us.

And what steps do you think we can take to increase the representation of women in music, across roles, in front of and behind the microphone?

This we discussed yesterday too at the panel discussion, we're always looking for support just from our family or our loved ones, but I think it's really important for us to realise that we won't always get support in our family circles and it's okay to look beyond our family circles and, look up to people out there; there are so many people who are willing to help. If you actually ask them for help.

As women, you have to take it upon yourself to actually go out there and make yourself available to all these opportunities and look for opportunities. We also have this so ingrained in us that, we have to be like perfect to be able to make it out there. But I mean it's good enough to just try even if you don't think you're perfect yet because. It's a learning process anyway, whether you become an artist or anything that you want to be in. I think it's it's quite inherent in us to recognize ourselves. But we are always looking for validation, which is a problem.

As we speak about the campaign, how are you personally contributing to the campaign #UnleashHERMUSIC?

You know, for us personally, even in our journey, we found the most support in people we least expected would support us, a lot of times. And we also got the maximum discouragement and the maximum encouragement from other women, which is quite the way the world works. For things to get better, I think we should look for support. Gender doesn't really matter when it comes to finding support for yourself and then helping other people. So I mean, it doesn't really matter to me. Whether a young boy comes to me for help or a young girl comes to me for help. In the same way, I think we should also look at how we are in a place where we can actually encourage other people to dream bigger. Do not hold back from helping people who reach out to you.

A lot of friends you know, you want to help people, but you know they don't reach out to you. So, then you feel like, OK, I don't know, maybe she or he doesn't need my help. And you don't want to give out unwanted and unsolicited advice or help, so there's also more feedback from my end I mean. We just want to encourage all girls, boys, and whoever wants to go out and follow their dreams to go and do it at the most. What we can do is, share what our experiences are, and what we're going through, and if somebody can learn something from there and take it forward, then nothing like it. And that's always been what we have been doing.

What do you think about the initiatives, IPRS has taken to ensure musicians get their music rights?

Well, IPRS is doing great work and even we ourselves haven't done enough to share and spread awareness about what artists can benefit from signing up with IPRS. We have been really slow to, benefit from something which is just so well organized and put together, by the group. And we really want to encourage everybody else too, including ourselves, to go out there and learn more about what kind of facilities and support systems are available to you as an artist. And IPRS is something that is really, helpful and we should have been in this much earlier. So that's something we're realizing now, and we feel that, yes, we should, we'll definitely tell more people to sign up with IPRS, and also learn about all the tools that are available for us as an artist. You were a female artist or a male artist, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, you are creating art that changes life. Something like this is really helpful.

What advice could you give one to succeed in a male-dominated environment?

When we look at how the music industry is operating and there are more male technicians, male artists, male musicians compared to females. And I mean, it's not just that you don't see enough of them there and it's discouraging. And I'm sure everybody has their own personal reasons why they're not able to do continue to be out there like marriage, children etc, whereas, you know, men don't have that issue.

If we encourage each other as women to continue following our dreams and not just give up our careers once we move into a different phase of life, things may change. We sacrifice so much of ourselves without realising that you know you could have done one alongside the other. All the other things that you could have been doing and one is like neglecting your art, which is like really sad because one day you might be like, I stopped singing because I had to do this for my family, but your family never actually asked you to stop singing.

What's next for the Tetseo's sister?

Oh, we have a lot of new music coming out, post-COVID a lot of events are starting up again. So we have been touring a lot. We're on the road a lot. We make our own music. We record our own music at home. We do our own production. So, it takes time, more time than we want it to actually.