Alicia Keys says music industry remains a boys’ club: ‘Women are not given an open door’
Alicia Keys has stated that the music industry remains a “good old boy network” that secludes women.
In addition to being a Grammy-winning performer, Keys is also doing vital work behind the scenes to level up the playing field through her non-profit initiative She Is The Music.
She Is The Music helps to provide opportunities to females in the music industry, especially in male-dominated fields, such as engineering and production.
In a new interview with The Times, Keys explained why She Is The Music is necessary, “The music world becomes a good old boy network and all the incredible women working as engineers and producers are not given an open door.”
Keys continued, “Women make up 2 per cent of the entire business. I’m a producer and here we are, doing a bunch of work, killing it, so it’s shocking that the number is so small.”
The singer-songwriter then shared why she felt action was required, adding, “Rather than just being pissed off about that, it was time to create opportunities.”
In 2024, the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee’s Misogyny in Music report found that just 187 women and non-binary people were credited as either producer or engineer on the top 50 streamed tracks in 14 genres, compared to 3,781 men, in 2022.
Similarly, it discovered that the gender disparity also extended to the songwriting sub-sector of the industry.
It highlighted, “Of all songwriters and composers who received a royalty in 2020 from their music being streamed, downloaded, broadcast, or performed, only one in six (16.7 per cent) were women.”
Furthermore, in 2025, a harrowing study from the Musicians’ Union found that 51 per cent of women in music have been discriminated against due to their gender, and 33 per cent of women in music have been sexually harassed while in the industry.
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