The best of ESNS 2019: Keychange, Hip Hop and Music Moves Europe
Reykjavíkurdaetur
If you have any stake in the European music industry, you know about Eurosonic Noorderslag (ESNS). Every year for four days in January, festival organisers, record labels, the media, music managers and plenty of others gather at the “New Year’s of the music industry” in freezing Groningen, Netherlands to do nothing but experience the best new music in Europe.
Well, ok, Groningen is also famous for its “eierbal” (a fried egg ball that is completely disgusting except at 3 a.m. when you’ve spent the entire night listening to music).
The other thing Groningen is known for is its music venues. Actually, over 40 in a city of about 200,000. This is why ESNS has made Groningen its home. ESNS stages around 300 European music acts in four days and they need a city that can accommodate that kind of traffic. These are acts that hope to have their big breakthroughs in the upcoming festival season by catching the eyes of booking agents and managers. Why else, besides fried eggs balls, would they brave the cold north of Holland?
But this year ESNS was more than an opportunity to listen to the best new acts on the European music scene. As stakeholders and cultural observers with a keen interest in how the music industry will be developing in the next few years, we saw some exciting things happening at ESNS 2019 that will definitely redefine the performing arts scene in Europe for decades to come.
Here’s what we learned.
Gender matters
First of all, gender matters. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know that the pop music industry, like the film industry (and just about every other creative industry), is notoriously male-dominated. Just last year, at about the same time that ESNS was happening in the Netherlands, a University of Southern California study spanning 600 recorded pop songs showed that women made up only 22.4 % of the 1,239 artists. It gets worse for female songwriters (12.3%) and downright appalling for producers who happen to be women (just 2% out of 300 songs!)
Of course, this was the US. But the situation in the UK wasn’t much better in 2018 with London’s Wireless Festival featuring just three non-male acts.
Fortunately, even a year later, things are already looking better in Europe. Women (and men) are working to make substantive changes happen in the arts, and important initiatives are already in motion. Creative Europe-backed Keychange, for instance, is pushing for equal gender representation in the performing arts by asking music festivals to take a pledge and commit to having a 50:50 gender balance in their acts by 2022. Check out the list of partners who have already signed up here.
Keychange is just one of many initiatives shaking things up in the European music industry, which is taking the fight to close the gender gap more seriously now. After all, pop culture isn’t just about what’s trending on YouTube. It can be a powerful driver for cultural change too. Remember the ‘60s?
Having personally seen Dutch rapper JeBroer perform a set featuring four female dancers riding a banana, we have to admit that there’s a long way to go. But with the all-female Icelandic hip-hop group Reykjaviksdeatur performing on the same stage, and voices like Jamz Supernova in the UK and Mogli in Germany, there’s definitely hope.
Popprijs 2018
Hip-hop is king
Speaking of hip-hop, this year we saw this once-sidelined genre claim its rightful throne as the king of contemporary counterculture. It’s taken a while but artists like Ronnie Flex (NL), PNL (FR), and of course the US-delegation led by Post Malone, Travis Scott and many more, have finally been embraced, if reluctantly, by the rock-fuelled music establishment in Europe.
At ESNS, more hip hop acts then ever performed this year, and Ronnie Flex was (again!) awarded the prestigious Popprijs (Buma Cultuur Pop Award) for his contribution to the Dutch pop music scene. The future of hip hop is looking so good in Europe, the question is no longer if the industry will get hip to hip-hop, but when hip-hop will become so hip it will go mainstream—and then be replaced by some other vital movement lurking at the fringes.
Only time will tell. But we can be pretty sure of one thing. When the next big thing does come along, as long as Creative Europe initiatives like Keychange are around, more women will be involved.
Music funding prospects are looking good
Our final takeaway is something we at TrueMotion are particularly excited about: EU funding opportunities for creative projects. After four days of talking with the key players in the industry, we can say that the forecast is definitely sunny for the European music sector.
Some of you may know that the European Commission is already hard at work at establishing a dedicated funding programme for music. It actually looks like that might become a reality as early as 2021. Even better, this year the European Parliament is investing another 3 million in the Music Moves Europe initiative. Their support isn’t entirely artist-centric, but it will help with serious issues that affect artists working in Europe—issues like training, mobility, research and structured dialogue with stakeholders.
First calls for proposals are expected this spring, so if you made it to the end of this article and this is exciting news for you too, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at TrueMotion. Our speciality is helping creative projects, both mainstream and from the fringes, secure the financial backing they need to become reality.
Arne van Vliet is the Creative Director of TrueMotion. He’s passionate about the creative arts and specialises in finding funding for innovative creative projects that are reshaping the arts landscape in Europe.
