Abuse and Accountability in the Arts Scene a Reckoning
The music scene that Lydia Liza entered as a 16-year-quondam, "vulnerable in every sense of the give-and-take," was full of men and full of threats. Men who groomed her with bad intentions, men who kissed her without her permission.
Before long, she and her guitar will return to venues over again. Only thanks to a #MeToo reckoning that'due south been playing out backstage, that scene will exist dissimilar, she hopes. She will be different, at least.
"I never really was worried nearly losing a reputation or ruining my music career, because who wants to be in an industry that is congenital on cruelty?" she said. "I want to exist there for other women in the scene ... because nobody lifted me upwardly the way I actually needed."
Last summer, Liza and other female and nonbinary musicians made it their mission to compile the countless allegations swirling through the Minnesota music scene, sharing stories and naming names. For weeks Liza received and reposted allegations new and old, of verbal abuse and sexual assault, rape and boldness. At one betoken, she got hundreds a day. Screenshot afterward screenshot, story after story.
While these musicians shared stories on social media, a rapper was leading a boycott of the Rhymesayers tape characterization and journalists were publicly calling on their employers to investigate the claims.
It was both pitiful and powerful, survivors said. Messy, besides. Only out of it grew a movement.
Amplified by social media, the kind of stories whispered for decades at present reverberate through a music customs grappling with harmful behavior past men. The sexual misconduct allegations concluding month that batty Sean "Har Mar Superstar" Tillmann's career are simply the well-nigh recent fallout. At least a half-dozen prominent musicians and one radio DJ take been sidelined, as well.
One musician was accused of repeatedly raping a young woman who said she was too drunk to consent. Some other allegedly clean-cut two younger female musicians into relationships they say turned into assault. Another tried to force a young adult female to perform oral sexual activity after a show.
Male musicians drunk on local fame — and oftentimes booze, too — are finally facing demands that they take responsibleness for toxic beliefs born of the tired old "sex, drugs and stone 'due north' roll" ethos, a tidal change that women in the manufacture say is long overdue.
"It's e'er been this bad," said Minneapolis-raised music writer Jessica Hopper, a babyhood friend of Tillmann's who spoke out last calendar month in back up of local survivors. "The departure is, we're holding people to a higher standard."
Survivors of corruption are being heard and bringing nigh modify. Mistrustful of constabulary and news media, they're confronting abusers and telling their stories on their ain terms via individual Facebook groups, anonymous Instagram stories and very public tweets.
They're inspiring more women (and girls, too, sadly) to share their stories. They're pressuring music venues and radio stations to not promote the violators.
They're organizing a task force and proposing their ain safe-haven music venue — Auntie's, which promises to be "a venue owned by womxn of colour rooted in radical freedom of expression without judgment [and] leading with loving accountability."
However in evolution after a $70,000 GoFundMe entrada, the project was announced last summer by musicians Sophia Eris (Lizzo's chief sidekick), DJ Keezy and Lady Midnight after a flood of #MeToo-style stories. Auntie'due south leaders declined to comment for this report.
Some other sign of the growing momentum was the "#MeTooMpls" charity album. Issued final summer, but in the works since 2019, it featured songs most corruption and harassment past 17 Minnesota women and nonbinary songwriters, from rocker Tina Schlieske to folkie Chastity Dark-brown to electro-pop singer Ro Lorenzen of Static Panic.
All this piece of work "is a slap-up, large step toward progression," said Lorenzen, who has regularly faced harassment. "In that location'due south still a long ways to go."
Many of the accused abusers were never named in police reports or the news media. Nonetheless, they still face consequences, as institutions undertake a deep exam of their policies and people reflect on their own potential complicity.
At to the lowest degree a dozen local musicians from varying genres (including punk and alt-state) were removed from the playlist at Minnesota Public Radio station 89.3 the Current, which issued a statement to the Star Tribune terminal month proverb its staffers "believe survivors" and "are continuously evaluating which voices we amplify."
The Twin Cities' preeminent hip-hop label and promotions company, Rhymesayers Amusement — which has long faced criticism for not supporting women artists — dropped two acts, Prof and Dem Atlas, amid final summertime'south glut of survivor stories.
"We, like many others, separated the music from potential beliefs," the label said in June. "Thus, we were complicit in promoting and marketing music that perpetuates misogyny."
Prof and P.O.Due south., two of the Twin Cities' nigh prominent rappers, issued personal apologies for harmful behavior cited on social media.
Psalm One, the rapper who led the #BoycottRhymesayers effort last summer and had long sounded the alarm nearly misogyny and homophobia at her former label, published an essay this wintertime titled "Ain't No Human being Resource in Hip Hop." People in the label'due south role chosen her a "dyke," she wrote, while a fellow creative person aggressively French-kissed her without her OK and the label's leaders ignored her calls and e-mails.
"This was my dream job and wasn't this merely par for the class?" she recalled thinking. "I figured it was."
Thousanduch of this wave of survivor stories tin can be traced to the New York Times' outing of rocker Ryan Adams' predatory beliefs in February 2019.
The story prompted women in the Twin Cities music scene to begin comparing notes on their own abusers. Information technology led to the firing that bound of a talent buyer at Icehouse supper club in Minneapolis who was accused of sexual harassment past at to the lowest degree five women.
He also happened to be a well-connected musician, which is "one of the reasons the state of affairs at Icehouse didn't cease sooner, considering people nosotros're intimidated of who he was," said the club's current booker, Diane Miller, aka singer/rapper D Mills. "It tin can exist hard for anyone to talk virtually it to anyone. It'southward a lot more complicated than saying, 'Do this. Don't do that.' "
Icehouse at least did that, posting a "code of carry" online that was soon copied by other venues. Among its dictums to employees, musicians and patrons were clear definitions of sexual harassment and consent, and a call to "speak up, seek support when witnessing, experiencing or suspecting any class of harassment."
A similar effort to define abuse and provide resources for victims is underway from the Minnesota Music Coalition. The nonprofit created an "action group" of musicians and other industry professionals that began coming together March 29.
"There'south usually no human resources department y'all can go to if you work in the music manufacture and are victimized," said executive director Joanna Schnedler. "We need to create resource to assistance fill that void."
Having nowhere to turn is exactly what kept Minneapolis stone veteran Cindy Lawson quiet for three decades. The singer for '80s band the Clams recently opened up on Facebook most existence assaulted by men in the New York music manufacture in 1990.
"Sadly, sexual abuse was completely tolerated, and in some circles, encouraged and celebrated," said Lawson. "Information technology felt skillful to name the men who assaulted me out loud and not behave those secrets around."
Janey Winterbauer, who came up in '90s bands and now sings with the Suburbs, said she had witnessed bad behavior by one of these newly outed male musicians for many years. But, she said, "it was easier to simply avert him than mutter, considering those complaints fell on deaf ears."
Musician and Palmer's Bar talent buyer Christy Costello, a longtime friend of Tillmann's, said, "If [men] being held answerable finally helps bring an cease to this toxic behavior that has gone on far too long in this scene, and so I'k all for information technology."
Allegations of misconduct in the music scene accept been investigated by the Star Tribune over the past 2 years, but without court records or corroborating evidence, those cases oft did not come across the news organization'due south standards for publication.
It was a similar story at Minnesota Public Radio, whose reporter Marianne Combs resigned terminal September out of frustration over its reluctance to air a story on ane of MPR's ain: Electric current DJ Eric Malmberg, who was subsequently fired.
"News outlets are reluctant to publish accusations from anonymous sources, but the last thing a survivor of attack wants is to be forever linked to their abuser on the internet," Combs wrote in an article for Minnesota Women's Press. "To do justice to survivors, we demand to modify how nosotros approach their stories so that they are non victimized over again."
Sometime Pitchfork music editor Hopper — who reported on accusations against R&B megastar R. Kelly — said many cases are not written most only because a lot of the music press isn't able or willing to practice then. "With local musicians, reporters worry about tarnishing the reputations of the large local heroes, or of losing access to artists who are a big news engine," Hopper said, noting that many music bloggers aren't trained journalists.
Minneapolis announcer Andrea Swensson, who recently ended her 10-year tenure at the Current to pursue other ventures, has been an advocate in individual for victims in the music scene. She said the news media — and anyone else in a position of power — needs to be more open and respectful to victims.
"Who are you supposed to study these things to?" Swensson said. "Come forrad to a booker or other gatekeeper, and you run the risk of being blacklisted, written off as a nuisance, or forever having your reputation tied to the name of someone who harmed you."
Swensson is suddenly hopeful, though: "At that place is a new surge of momentum and business concern, and it is weirdly heartening to feel that — after all this time watching painful stories bubble up merely stay but under the surface."
The allegations arose during the pandemic, in the rare space created when venues were shuttered and calendars bare. The test is to come: Will Minnesota'south newly reopened music scene be safer? More equitable?
When Liza entered the music scene as a teenager, other women "merely saw me as competition."
Now 26, she believes that the power structures in the music scene — the gatekeeping, the misogyny — kept women apart. She's not immune to it: Last summer she, besides, apologized publicly when someone anonymously declared that she'd hurt them.
But this procedure has connected her with older generations of women who have been pushing for years. Together, they're dreaming up a music scene that values people's safety and well-existence.
"I am encouraged by the conversations happening at present," said ex-Clams vocaliser Lawson. "I am so impressed with the fact that immature people now only won't take any [crap] from anyone."
The music scene is both a workplace and a community, and then policies and processes must address both, said Becky Smith, communications managing director for Violence Free Minnesota.
"Harm is going to happen," she said. So groups must decide: How do nosotros arroyo the person who is being harmful? How do nosotros arroyo the person who has been harmed?"
Property the person who'southward acquired impairment answerable "takes a lot of work," Smith said. "It takes a lot of conversation. It takes a lot of boundaries. It takes structure. It takes time." Ostracizing someone isn't the answer, she added, because "there'southward every run a risk that person will go to a different community and harm in the same style."
Some musicians have issued apologies. Only few have gone beyond that, some survivors said.
"Calls for accountability can outcome in consequences for actions, only are not the aforementioned as calls for punishment," said Christin Crabtree, a survivor, organizer and board member of the Domestic Corruption Project. "Accountability is rooted in presence and love."
To move forward, the people who have caused damage must first be honest with themselves and others, said Crabtree, who has been working with survivors.
Survivors accept been doing just that, she added, examining their own participation in the culture that allows for harm.
"In the music scene, I have been assaulted, groped, threatened and fifty-fifty raped," said Crabtree. "Information technology has also been in this community that I take found conspirators in healing, accomplices in reimagining what is possible."
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Source: https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-music-scene-faces-a-metoo-reckoning-led-by-sexual-assault-survivors/600043648/
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