SONA Warrior Awards

Songwriters of North America (SONA) presented awards to songwriter activists RAYE, Ross Golan, Willie “Prophet” Stiggers, Thomas Scherer, and the late Andrea Martin at its SONA Warrior Awards ceremony on Sunday (Oct. 6) at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles.
Now in its fourth year, the SONA Warrior Awards has upgraded to a much larger room. This year, the event sat over 450 supporters from the worlds of songwriting, publishing, streaming and more — all of whom gathered together to honor the “often unsung, unsexy work of advocacy,” says SONA executive director and songwriter Michelle Lewis, who kicked off the program.

In her opening remarks, Lewis, touched on a number of key issues facing the writing community today. Pointing to recent cultural events like the Paris Olympics and the Democratic National Convention, she said: “Did you notice that each one of those shared experiences had an identifiable and memorable soundtracks?… the connection between those huge cultural moments were those huge fucking songs, right? Songs have never been more important and yet less valued.”

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“If you don’t pay the songwriters, who will write the song? And please don’t say AI. The nature of how people consume music through streaming and short form video clips puts songwriters last,” Lewis says.

The first award was presented to British artist/songwriter, RAYE, who has been a fierce advocate for songwriters since her song “Escapism.” broke her into the pop mainstream last year. Her award was presented by her co-writer and executive producer, Mike Sabath, and a tribute to her work was performed by Abby “Absolutely.” Kean, her younger sister and fellow artist. She accepted her Warrior award remotely from the U.K.

Throughout the night, honorees highlighted various issues that are top of mind for working songwriters today. When Golan accepted his award, presented by fellow songwriter Benny Blanco, he noted: “if an artist who doesn’t write sells their catalog for a couple hundred million dollars, why doesn’t the headline read, artists sells $200 million of extorted publishing from working songwriters? That is called coercion. That is not songwriting. If an artist has been showered with awards, even though they’ve stolen songwriting credit and publishing for decades, that is called vanity. That is not songwriting.”

Golan continued, “if you’re going to take credit for something you didn’t do, give some of your fee or [master] points [to songwriters], because we don’t owe you our publishing… It’s never too late to make it right.”

Advocating for non-performing, non-producing songwriters to receive master points was a common refrain throughout the night. It’s a growing movement in the music industry, which previously would not consider offering this to songwriters, unless the writer was an A-list hitmaker. In the last year, a number of independent labels, including Facet Records, The Other Songs, Nvak Collective and Good Boy Records, have made it a standard to offer this. With records released by major labels, however, this concession is still rare.

The award for Thomas Scherer, president of global catalog recorded and music publishing at BMG and lifelong drummer, was presented by Eurythmics member Dave Stewart. “As a drummer and a genuine lover of music, Thomas gives me hope,” said Stewart in his stirring introduction, “and I’m proud to present him with this son of Warrior award, because he is a genuine warrior, a soldier for good, and a friend I can trust and rely on forever.”

An award was also posthumously presented to writer Andrea Martin for her contributions to the genre of R&B through her songs recorded by Toni Braxton, Monica and Leona Lewis, among others. The award was accepted by her family, including her two surviving children.

Introduced by his teenage son, Willie “Prophet” Stiggers closed out the night for the SONA Warrior Awards. As the Black Music Artists Coalition (BMAC) co-founder, president and CEO, Stiggers gave a rousing acceptance speech, describing his journey from experiencing police brutality first hand to becoming a top advocate for Black songwriters, artists and executives in the music business. “Four years [after BMAC was created,] our commitment is steadfast,” Stiggers said.

During his speech, Stiggers also announced the new BMAC Executive Training Program, which in his words “will invite 10 executives annually to participate in executive training and coaching program for one of the industry job firms. This will be a one year program for black executives to move to the next phase of their careers.”