“The thing about dance music is, it is about inclusivity and bringing people together. All shades of the rainbow under one roof.”
Sister Bliss - Faithless.
Last week I met a woman I am a huge fan of, which in truth, is rare in Ibiza.
When I worked at BBC 6 Music as a music journalist in the early 2000´s Faithless were massive and I must have seen them play live at festivals and gigs at least 20 times over those 10 years.
When our music news team broke the story, that Maxi Jazz was leaving the band, a collective sigh of disbelief went around the office. Was this the end for one of our stations best loved bands?
I went to find out a bit more about ALL BLESSED, the album that landed in 2020 when I was invited into the Pikes hotel room of Sister Bliss for a chat about the bands latest record - their first complete body of work since Maxi departed 12 years ago.
But even more importantly, we spoke about our mutual Love of another lady in broadcasting, Emma Barnett, presenter of BBC Radio 4´s Woman´s Hour and why having a platform like that is still important for women in the music industry, “ There is a lot of challenges. You know, we're stuck in a patriarchal system. We're all trying to smash it in our various little ways. It has slightly blown my mind when Emma told me how much she loved Faithless and that she writes every show, every evening listening to Faithless. I was like, Wow, okay. I mean, she's properly bright, intellectually able, questioning, and is a really articulate woman. So that was very nice to have that kind of love and respect from from someone in the public eye. Not that that detracts from anyone who's just a completely ordinary person that loves our music, we wouldn't be here without the people actually listening and being a fan of our music wherever they come from. But I mean, for me, a lot of challenges are invisible. It's not something most people see with me. Things To do with equal pay or the fact I'm a single mum, you know, the juggling of childcare, all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, that makes my life very different from your average male DJ or musician. How that works in the structure of my life and the kind of shows and work that I can accept and the things that block me from progressing, maybe being taken seriously because my band is also well. The core of it is myself, Maxie and Rollo for the last 30 odd years, and they're both men. And obviously sometimes men have a louder voice in the industry.”
She says, she has often wondered what would have happened if she had not been in the band, “Maybe if it was me or my own, I wouldn't be taken too seriously, you know? I mean, they're all very small gripes and my life is a very gilded one compared to most. But there is absolutely a gender pay gap and a lot of invisible prejudice that you don't see. The music business is very male and most echelons of it. There's a lot more visibility now. There's a lot more debate, which is really important about women in the music industry, whether they're behind the scenes and the managerial roles higher up, the record company tree, you know, booking the festivals and, you know, equality of line up and inclusivity.”
“It's really good that these things are being brought to the table because there is there is a scene that was basically black and gay, and it's been co-opted by the white world. And a lot of people have been shut out. And it's not right, it's not appropriate. I first heard house music properly in a gay club in London and when I was travelling in New York and like going to these seminal clubs that I'd read about and being pretty much the only women in there, you know, such a marginalised scene, people just don't realise and the way it exploded in Europe was very different to what happened in America, for example. But there were seeds of division in that. And the thing about dance music is it is about inclusivity and bringing people together. All shades of the rainbow under one roof, dancing under one roof in a place where people do come to leave the problems of everyday life behind. It sounds like a cliche, but it's real. It's tangible. We've written about it in our music. We this is my church. This is where I heal my hurts. People carry a lot of pain in their lives. And there's something about the electronic music scene, certainly in the early days that was a safe space for people.”
She says the kind of chat we engage in now, about equality and inclusivity, is extremely and ever more important,
“I'm glad that those conversations are being had now because if you don't have a conversation, you don't acknowledge things exist, you just can't change them, you know? I love that there are more and more female DJs around. Just that sense of there being a discourse around it that it isn't just what went before, that we can change things and that's better for everybody. The people that inspired me were the female DJs. It gave me an idea that I could do it. I was so nuts about house music and collected records. When I saw a female DJ putting two things together, I went, “Oh, that could be me.” Sometimes people need to see themselves to acknowledge that it's even possible.
Ayalah went on to tell me how maxi Jazz, had struggled before he joined the band, coming up against some horrible situations when he was in london,
“So we wrote a song many years ago called Muhammad Ali on our third album, and it came from a conversation that Maxi and I had about him growing up in South London in the 1950s, which was a very racist time, and he was actually very shy and kind of down on himself, and he wouldn't look people in the eye when he walked along the street because he'd get racist abuse. But, after he saw Muhammad Ali on the TV the first time he was on the television in the UK. He had this moment of recognition that this handsome, beautiful, bright, charismatic man was a black guy, absolutely owning it. And he had this deep moment of connection. And suddenly he said it was the first time I walked down the street after seeing Muhammad Ali on the telly. And I stuck my shoulders back and I puffed my chest up and I became proud of myself. And he just hadn't been, there had been no positive reinforcement, no role models, you know, or they were in a very limited sphere. So it was such a profound conversation. I said to him, you put that in a lyric. So I understand it's like that for all sorts of people in all walks of life, unless you see yourself represented. That's why being a woman? I'd like it not even to be a conversation, but it is still, because it's still slightly unusual to be a female producer and an artist and a DJ and be in a band and sort of headline Glastonbury or whatever else. You know, that's still a place that it'd be nice for more, more women to get to, without barriers. “
Hera the full episode HERE.
