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Frustration around class inequality in music


As part of my music degree, there is a compulsory module that centres around the business side of the music industry and how it operates. Content ranges from learning about how royalties work, understanding contracts, and the structures of major/independent labels and the jobs and roles within them. At one of the most recent lessons that was delivered to us about project management, we touched on the logistics of hiring people into job roles and the complexities that come attached to that, which eventually led onto the discussion of nepotism and cronyism that often manifests itself in the music industry. Expecting to hear a unanimous disapproval for this behaviour, or a mere acknowledgment of its unequivocal existence in music– or any creative industry– I was taken aback to hear it described as being a good thing in some circumstances. This is a stance I struggle with for reasons I will set out in this blog.

Nepotism is a word with varying definitions, so it is crucial to seek to understand these different viewpoints and how people use them, along with my definition. I find it difficult to distinguish behaviours of nepotism in an industry where a lot of work is trust-based, and informal networks and word-of-mouth recommendations are fairly unavoidable and arguably necessary. The existence of these networks, personal relationships between those in the industry, or the recommendation of a qualified individual for work through these relationships is not an act of nepotism. Rather, nepotism occurs when personal connections are used to secure positions or power in place of relevant qualification or competence, with a particular emphasis on gatekeeping roles. In such cases, opportunity is not only unevenly distributed, but actively withheld from others who may be equally or more qualified, perpetuating class inequality within the industry.

It is this limit of access for those from differing class backgrounds that makes nepotistic behaviours wrong. There is no doubt class and socioeconomic background shapes access to any creative industry; the proportion of working-class creatives in the UK has gone down by half since the 1970s. Many factors contribute to this, one notable barrier being the prevalence of unpaid work within the industry, which impacts those from low-income backgrounds as they have no safety net to fall on. Particularly in our current economic and political climate where the cost of living continues to rise, this is a barrier that will only get worse. It is important to distinguish free work from activity where remuneration is not the goal, such as YouTube vlogs or unsuccessful profit-share arrangements, free work is the act of someone working without pay in a setting where others are being paid. Unpaid internships are an extremely prevalent example of this, often undertaken in the hope of future employment. They function as a ‘try before you buy’ system for employers, often justified by claiming interns are gaining industry experience, however this arrangement relies on a labour supply willing– or economically able– to work for free. This labour supply is not evenly distributed: those with financial support can afford unpaid work; others cannot. In short, unpaid internships (which often convert directly into paid roles or valuable industry contacts) operate as a system that rewards the privileged and penalises the poor.

Class bias manifests itself in other ways, albeit perhaps in less visible ways. The industry has long operated on an informal ‘who you know’ system, one that disproportionately disadvantages those from lower-income backgrounds who lack access to established networks. When creative work is so heavily mediated by social capital, exclusion from these networks becomes a form of structural inequality in its own right. Cultural capital is an unavoidable concept when considering this topic, for the fact that knowing how to speak about music professionally, how to dress, how to network, and how to perform confidence in unfamiliar or exclusionary spaces is often taken for granted. These expectations overwhelmingly favour those from middle-class backgrounds, for whom such behaviours are familiar rather than learned under pressure. Many working-class entrants experience industry spaces as environments where everyone else appears fluent in an unspoken language.

This imbalance has emotional consequences. For many working-class creatives, class inequality is experienced not only as material exclusion but as self-doubt, which manifests itself as feeling out of place, second-guessing one’s abilities, or simply interpreting structural barriers as personal failure. The latter feeling is hardly difficult to understand because when access to opportunities is framed as a test of commitment or passion, those who cannot afford to take unpaid roles can internalise the belief that they are simply not trying hard enough. The outcome of this is that many talented individuals simply slip away from the industry in no part due to any lack of ability, but rather due to a sustained structural exclusion that erodes confidence and belonging.

Inequality is found even in the informal hierarchy of accents that persists in professional spaces, where Received Pronunciation is often treated as neutral or authoritative, while regional, working-class, and Global Majority accents are more likely to be stereotyped or dismissed. The fact that many people become aware of this, either consciously or subconsciously, and modifying their accent, language, or behaviour to fit these dominant norms shows this is not a novel notion being presented. The irony found within this is that code-switching can operate in reverse, particularly in genres with working-class origins, where performers from wealthier backgrounds are sometimes rewarded for adopting working-class aesthetics, accents, or personas to appear authentic or relatable. The result is a persistent imbalance. Working-class communities have historically been at the forefront of musical innovation, yet they are often excluded from the long-term benefits of that innovation.

I find desire within myself to want to change these structural barriers and reduce the inequality that people face. The problems are glaringly obvious and fairly easy to identify (depending on who you ask), but the solutions are seemingly less so. Identifying and acknowledging these issues is a harmless and important step, and that cannot be undermined. With risk of sounding too personal, the world is often deflating and the news consistently injects its apathetic needle with each article and story. Coupled with an almost decade-long period of brutal austerity policies, it’s hard to witness injustice and all that comes attached, yet it is the moments such as the one that introduced this blog that is a catalyst for all these thoughts: frustration, irritation, and motivation to make things right.