Women in Music
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Live Nation, BMI, ASCAP, Nettwerk Music Group, Soundstripe and the Recording Academy rank among the best places in the music business for women to work, according to a first-of-its-kind survey.
The 40-year-old nonprofit organization Women in Music, in partnership with company reviews platform InHerSight, has unveiled its first edition of WIM Best Places To Work, recognizing top companies in several areas, based on industrywide initial survey data. Women in Music, established in 1985, describes its mission as serving “to advance the awareness, equality, diversity, heritage, opportunities and cultural aspects of women in the musical arts through education, support, empowerment and recognition.”
“The music industry has long been a cultural force for change, and now more than ever, we have to take the lead in prioritizing diversity in leadership as much as the diversity of the music we represent,” Women in Music president Nicole Barsalona says.
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“Research shows that gender-diverse leadership drives revenue, innovation and talent retention — it’s not just good practice, it’s critical to our success as an industry,” Barsalona says. “Future surveys will include increased diversity metrics to add even more depth to the data, but this is an exciting start.”
The WIM Best Places To Work initiative honors music companies that demonstrate excellence in fostering inclusive workplace culture and ensuring satisfaction across metrics that matter to women, such as salary, leadership opportunities, remote work options and parental leave.
Women in Music notes that the survey is ongoing and accessible through its website to ensure that it’s continually updated to reflect the latest industry standards in workplace excellence.
“Our philosophy has always been that data is central to building better workplaces,” InHerSight co-founder and CEO Ursula Mead says. “So when organizations like Women in Music come to us recognizing the power of data, we’re thrilled to realize their initiative.”
The survey cites research from consulting firm McKinsey that states that companies with strong female representation at the top outperform competitors by nearly 50% in profitability and share performance.
In addition to those previously named, smaller companies and organizations (of two to 51 employees) that ranked high on the survey include the Music Business Association, The Syndicate, Blackstar Agency, the American Association of Independent Music and the Mechanical Licensing Collective.
“I’m thrilled to know that the Music Business Association scored so well in the WIM Best Places To Work survey,” MBA president Portia Sabin says. “Diversity is very important for us in all aspects of what we do, and we’ve worked to diversify our board, our events and our staff. One thing we strive for is to have diversity at all levels of the company, providing a mentorship aspect for younger people who may join us. It’s very true that our diversity makes us stronger as a team and makes this a great place to work.”
The survey collected data on 17 research-backed metrics. The results singled out the top companies in categories including equal opportunities for women and men, women in leadership, salary satisfaction, flexibility, remote work opportunities, maternity and adoptive leave, employee responsiveness and a sense of belonging.
Live Nation, for example, stood out for its maternity and adoptive leave policies, ability to telecommute, remote work opportunities, flexible work hours and equal opportunities for men and women.
The WIM Best Places To Work initiative has been launched at a challenging time for corporate America, says Monika Tashman, a partner at prominent music industry law firm Loeb & Loeb and an advisory board member at Women in Music.
“With diversity, equity and inclusion programs terminated at the federal level and a vow to police the private sector’s DEI initiatives,” she says, “it is vital that we publicize, promote and encourage private sector companies that are committed to constructing a workplace culture and benefits package that is unbiased and crafted to allow all employees to thrive.”
Women in Music is a 501(c)3 charitable organization, unaffiliated with Billboard, founded in 1985 to educate, empower and advance women in the music industry. WIM hosts year-round educational and career development programming in chapter markets around the world, with equity-focused initiatives that include WIM Safe(r) Spaces, the WIM Workplace Initiative, the WIM Mentorship Program and the WIM Executive Internship Program. To become a charitable partner or to make a donation, go to womeninmusic.org.
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
As the concert business soars to new heights, five of its most powerful women have been on a tear. As leading agents across five top booking agencies, Jenna Adler, Lucy Dickins, Samantha Kirby Yoh, Cara Lewis and Marsha Vlasic serve as tour architects and chief dealmakers to the stars, shaping the live-music landscape while helping their artist clients build their brands and broaden their businesses beyond music to sustain their careers.
With her client Adele, Dickins helped create a 75,000-capacity Munich venue purpose-built for the superstar’s 10 August 2024 shows (and aptly named Adele Arena). “I don’t think anyone else has ever done that,” Dickins jokes over Zoom. Lewis famously got a shoutout in 1987’s “Paid in Full,” on which Eric B. and Rakim explain, “Cara Lewis is our agent … and together we get paid in full.” The hip-hop touring powerhouse’s wins go back decades — and include moments like Eminem’s first-ever show outside Detroit in 1999.
When we speak, Adler has just returned home from a trip to Dubai with her client Jennifer Lopez and expounds on the new heights that Deftones — “the first band I ever signed” — are currently achieving. Vlasic casually mentions that “Neil” — as in longtime client Neil Young — recently called to discuss his upcoming coastal tour. And Kirby Yoh is keen to chat about LCD Soundsystem’s recent Los Angeles and New York residencies, which encompassed 20 shows and which she booked for the band that she has helped guide through arenas, festival headlining slots and beyond over the years.
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Their rosters are deep, their wins are many, and their reputations as leaders not just in the “female agent space” but the world of agents, period, are renowned. While each works for a different company — Kirby Yoh is a UTA partner and its co-head of global music, Dickins is WME’s global head of contemporary music and touring, Adler is a music touring agent at CAA, Lewis is founder and CEO of Cara Lewis Group, and Vlasic is the co-chair of Independent Artist Group’s music division — there’s a clear kinship among them, with the five women throwing out adjectives like “legendary,” “chic,” “magnificent” and “respected” when referring to one another.
“I hate losing,” Adler says. “But at the same time, I’d rather lose to one of them than to any of my male counterparts.”
Here, the five discuss their long careers, juggling their professions with motherhood and how agencies are changing for artists and female executives alike.
Jenna Adler, whose clients include Jennifer Lopez, Doja Cat, Charli xcx, Shaboozey and Deftones.
Myles Hendrik
In terms of working with well-established touring acts, how do you guide an artist through a long career? How do you manage demand as an artist evolves?
Samantha Kirby Yoh: The No. 1 thing is partnering with an artist. You’ve really got to listen to what their vision is, what their priorities and concerns are. Those change over the years. Cyndi Lauper had a lifelong dream of playing an arena tour. She’d never done arenas and also wanted to do a spectacular presentation in regard to her life’s work. It’s not guiding so much as listening and then putting it together and being in true partnership with the manager and artist.
Jenna Adler: You can’t just be a transactional agent. It’s never going to last that way. You have to be really passionate because at the end of the day, we’re selling.
Cara Lewis: Once an artist’s fan base has solidified, doors open. It is about coming up with different opportunities that align with that artist to further enhance the brand and continue adding to their longevity. That can be as simple as playing larger venues, adding a sponsor or doing a brand partnership that increases awareness and grows the fan base … The ultimate goal is longevity and the ability to reinvent and hold fans’ attention throughout the evolution of a career.
Marsha Vlasic: To be honest with you, it’s not mathematics and it’s not chemistry. It’s pretty much instinct. I’m very confident in telling [artists] what I think they should do. I’m not afraid of them. A lot of people tiptoe around artists. Even certain managers are afraid to talk to their own artists. But once you go through a certain number of years and earn a certain amount of respect, then artists reach out to you and trust you.
Lucy Dickins: It’s about building a strong, authentic relationship. I need to understand an artist’s vision and figure out how to tell that story. From when we’re starting to work together to when they become huge clients, authenticity is, for me, the most important thing because I think people can see through [anything inauthentic].
Lucy Dickins, whose clients include Adele, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, James Blake and Lola Young.
Courtesy of WME
What’s your philosophy on artist development?
Dickins: You’ve got to build a solid foundation that allows them to grow, experiment and evolve, while they’re also grounded and true to what they are. It’s not one size fits all. My thing is always just focusing on empowering them with the tools, knowledge and support they need to make informed decisions and trust their instincts. I’m a gut person, so for me, it’s like, “Go with what you want and just be authentic.”
Vlasic: I worry about taking that leap of faith too quick, too big, and then you’re f–ked. Artist development to me is turning people away, selling out, having a great show … Again, a lot of it is instinct.
Lewis: Throughout my career, I have always been at the forefront of artist development, championing female artists. In the early stages of an artist’s career, you have to know how to capture the urgency, which is all about strategically planning based on artist analytics, packaging and, of course, ticket pricing.
Kirby Yoh: My philosophy is to listen and tell the story of who they are. If there is a deep love in regard to beats, it’s about where we can get them DJ’ing in the warehouse and doing a remix. Every step and play have to be intentional and authentically build on the lore of who they are. And don’t miss steps. You have to do the steps to build your community with you so they feel they’re on the journey with you all the way.
Are festivals still effective in breaking new artists?
Adler: For me, it’s about the long game and not taking festival money so fast, not even looking at festivals until we have a bit of control over where we want to play. I always say we should never play a festival before four o’clock because before four, you’re playing for the vanity of it. Instead, let’s go out and do the hard work and create our own fan base so we can point to a scoreboard and say, “I sold this and that out. This isn’t a favor.” I don’t care about doing all these festivals. There are always exceptions, but my go-to is not worrying about being on a poster in a [small font size] just to say we’re there. Let’s go and sell out a 300-seat club.
Vlasic: I don’t know what else we have to break a new artist. Having an artist’s name on a festival poster is very important. All promoters look at who’s on there, and at least the emerging artists can play to a bigger audience than they would if they went on the club scene and did 300 a night.
Kirby Yoh: I love festivals. It depends on what festival it is. The smaller festivals, like the 20,000-capacity, are doing great. If you look at [San Francisco dance festival] Portola and [festival creator] Danny [Bell’s] exceptional skill set as a curator, it doesn’t even break artists but brings people who only heard of X, Y or Z DJ and then they suddenly hear the artists that inspired that DJ. It takes them on a kind of learning [journey]. [Portola] has done that exceptionally.
Dickins: I think it’s arguable to say if a festival breaks an artist, whereas before it used to be really important. Now a lot of artists on the way up ask if it’s more important to do their own show and build their own brand. If you’re in the opening slot on a stage or up against a load of clashes, what are you really getting out of that? I don’t know. As opposed to doing your own show with your core fan base or attracting people coming to see you build your brand.
But if you’re a bigger artist, they’re still huge milestones because they bring massive exposure and the chance to reach global audiences. And there are smaller festivals, or genre-specific festivals, that are becoming more prominent. Doechii played Camp Flog Gnaw last year; that was a huge moment. The big ones are good for the bigger ones, and the more bespoke, genre-specific ones are becoming more prominent for the smaller artists.
Samantha Kirby Yoh, whose clients include LCD Soundsystem, Björk, Rosalía, FKA twigs and St. Vincent.
Courtesy of UTA
How are you seeing artists handle ticket pricing? In regard to the all-in approach where customers only see the final cost, is it important for fans to know the face value that artists are charging before ticketing fees?
Vlasic: None of my artists want fans to be pissed off because they think they’re charging too much. The thing is, somebody’s going to be miserable about something all the time. That’s my feeling on ticket pricing. With older artists, where it may be their last tours, they don’t want to go out just for the fun of being on the road. The road is no longer something [those artists] are dying to do, but this is their means of income. They don’t want to piss people off, but they want to maximize it.
Lewis: It all depends on artist, market, viability and urgency. Keep prices low, within reason and without compromising [an artist’s] ability to tour and offer an innovative production. Be cognizant of ticketing fees. Know what the competitive acts are charging and make an analysis of the sales and how the scaling is related to the result. Understand that each market has different needs due to the economy and different urgency.
Dickins: International markets tend to be much more cautious [than in the United States]. But ticket fees are a huge thing. At the International Live Music Conference in London, everyone was telling me that there are major concerns around ticket fees and the lack of transparency because fans feel misled when those additional fees are tacked on at checkout.
Kirby Yoh: I think most artists want the experience to be as easy as possible. When you go to buy a ticket for your favorite artist’s show and you’ve got $100 in your pocket, you want the total checkout cost to be $100.
Adler: I am so sensitive to ticket pricing because I look around like, “How can all these people afford all these shows?” Yet every show is selling out, even though the average ticket price is north of $100. I always try to go on the lower side, almost to a fault. I get a lot of pushback because they say I’m leaving money for scalpers to come in. I don’t want that. It’s such a delicate balance.
Cara Lewis, whose clients include Eminem, Travis Scott, Erykah Badu, Khalid and Don Toliver.
Laura Rose
You’re all so well established. How has your job changed over the years?
Adler: The biggest difference I see is that now the artist wants a relationship with their whole team. When I started, none of the agents had direct relationships with their artists. Agents always had to go through a manager. Now artists want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to their agent.
Dickins: When I was first booking tours, there was a load of in-market stuff you never paid much attention to that now you do because the look goes everywhere. Your first look is really important because that can play into stuff later on in a career. It’s way more involved, much more detail-oriented and much more strategic.
Lewis: Social media has changed our lives. It is the key to it all and has changed the way we market and sell everything. Professional networking platforms have given us resources to connect with anyone at any time about anything.
Vlasic: I think the pandemic changed things more than how long I’ve been in the business. Since the pandemic, the whole structure of the business is different in terms of the back-office stuff. I have a beautiful office. I rarely go there. I don’t have a schedule. Maybe I’ve always beat my own drum in terms of being at a company, but the company structure and routine have changed drastically.
Most of you have children. What is it like doing your job as a mother?
Vlasic: I don’t know how I did it. I seriously don’t. I didn’t have family that I could call at any given moment. My husband had his own thing going. I went home almost every night, made sure they had dinner and the homework was done, and then I went out. I don’t know how the girls do it now, but the difference is, if you’re an agent at most companies, you don’t have to be in the office for a certain amount of hours like I did. I remember one time one of my sons was really sick, and I was staying home to get the test results from the doctor … My boss at the time called me and said, “I hope you realize you should be working regular hours,” knowing my son was sick. That wouldn’t happen now.
Adler: I have 23- and 25-year-old sons, and CAA allowed me to [raise them] with such seamless patience. They were incredibly supportive even before it was a thing. I nursed every day, my kids came in, but that was because [CAA managing director] Rob Light had five kids, and he was a great dad. He understood. All the guys here had kids and understood it was family first. I was really lucky in that way.
Dickins: As a female agent, the sacrifices I have to make with a young family are huge. It’s something I battle on a daily basis. I got back from London two days ago. I go to Australia on Sunday, I come back for one day, then I go to London for two days. When I look at men in my positions, they don’t have the guilt that I have … My husband deserves a f–king award because he has to hold the fort all the time. When my 9-year-old is crying because she doesn’t want me to go away and I have to go because I have to spend time with a client, it’s tough. I think that’s why, in the touring aspect, it’s especially hard for women.
Marsha Vlasic, whose clients include Neil Young, The Strokes, Cage the Elephant, Norah Jones and Elvis Costello.
Kat Stanas
In recent years, it feels like the glass ceiling has been broken in agenting, and your careers are a testament to that. Does that feel true? How could this world be more supportive of women?
Vlasic: When I was starting out, I didn’t know I was any different. I didn’t know people viewed me as “You’re one of the only women.” I just worked hard and was determined. There are times I’ll come off a panel and a young girl will come up and say, “It’s so hard for us as women.” I’m thinking, “What the f–k are you talking about?” There are more women agents, more women managers, more women musicians. Don’t use that as an excuse.
Kirby Yoh: I think it has become more supportive to women, but there’s still a lot more to do. There need to be more opportunities, full stop. But we’re getting there. More people are hiring women. More people are empowering them with tools and skills, and more of us are pulling our sisters with us in a good way, like, “Come to the studio with me. Come to the show.”
Lewis: [Billboard’s] Women in Music [has] been an amazing platform not only honoring the talent but also bringing awareness to the behind-the-scenes executives pushing the industry forward. We need more of this. When you put your heart and soul into all that you do and succeed at it, it should raise you up, not keep you stagnant at a company.
Adler: It used to be that the males would pit us against each other because the women weren’t close to each other and there were very few slots. It’s taken a long time to change the narrative of “She can’t be in leadership because she doesn’t get along with so-and-so.”
I don’t know if I should say this, but I’m going to. Women in Music is such a powerful issue. There are few places to celebrate what we do. On the other hand, I say to myself, “But I should be part of the overall list.” I play with the boys every single day. I appreciate all of it and it means so much to me, but that’s where I am today: I love my female sisterhood, but I can also play with everybody.
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Sitting in a sun-drenched room at Los Angeles’ Beverly Hilton, Gracie Abrams is shaking her head “no.” She’s reflecting on a breakout 2024 — during which she scored her highest-charting Billboard Hot 100 hit to date and received her second Grammy Award nomination, for “Us,” a collaboration with none other than Taylor Swift. But Abrams still struggles to see herself as the superstar she’s become.
“It’s such a dream and a pretty wild ride to look back on the year and be able to reflect on all of these moments that I never could have imagined ever happening,” the 25-year-old says in quiet awe. When it comes to the matter of her smash hit “That’s So True,” it is true — she never saw it coming. After humming the song’s in-the-works hook and melody for months, she and her songwriting partner and roommate Audrey Hobert finished it in about 15 minutes one day after “laughing our asses off on the roof” of New York’s Electric Lady Studios.
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The catchy, stream-of-consciousness song was one of four additions to the deluxe version of Abrams’ second album, The Secret of Us (which arrived in October), but quickly surpassed the album’s previous hits, including “I Love You, I’m Sorry” and “Close to You” (which peaked at Nos. 19 and 49, respectively, while “True” reached No. 6). Such wins have helped Abrams, who co-wrote and co-produced every track on The Secret of Us and its deluxe edition, earn the Billboard‘s 2025 Women in Music Songwriter of the Year honor — but, with characteristic humility, she won’t say she’s mastered the craft just yet.
“F–k no! Sorry,” she says with a laugh. “I feel very far away from having mastered anything in my life. But I will continue to attempt to get closer to that point.”
Sami Drasin
Since you released your debut album in 2023, how have you grown as a songwriter?
What I can point to specifically that has broadened my horizons is the partnership I’ve had with Audrey. She’s my oldest friend and we very much grew up together, and then to fold in this collaborative [relationship] was not something either of us ever would have anticipated. But as a songwriter, to find someone who you feel so open with, who you trust so much, who knows everything about you, who knows what your conversational language sounds like, who knows if you’re lying about a feeling… it infused so much life into our album that we made together.
What’s an example of a time she called “bulls–t” on you?
Less like “bulls–t” and more [like] in the morning if I would come downstairs and she’s like, “How are you doing?” I’m like, “I’m fine.” And she’s like, “You f–king liar.” Or like, “I’m really over that person,” [and she’s like,] “No, you’re not, you liar.” We checked each other as much in our songwriting process as we did in our day-to-day friendship.
Sami Drasin
Sami Drasin
As we speak, you’re about to head out on your European/U.K. tour [which Abrams wrapped March 12]. How did you spend your time before returning to the road?
I have just come back from being at Aaron [Dessner’s studio, Long Pond, in New York] so I feel like… I’m in the middle of something. I don’t know what it is yet… We’ve been collecting a whole lot of music over the past few months, and he and I are both very curious about all of it because I think [the songs] belong in different worlds a little bit, which excites me. I think that means there are many possibilities for what either the singular project looks like or multiple [projects].
You said you haven’t mastered songwriting yet. Do you feel close?
No. Oh, my God, no. I want to broaden my vocabulary times a thousand. I want to spend the majority of my year reading so that I can do that. I feel nowhere near that level. I have a million people I want to continue to learn from. Taylor is a great example of someone I’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time around and every single time I’m like, “Tell me everything you know, please. Teach me how to be.” I want to live fully and do my best to capture what that feels like.
Gracie Abrams photographed February 1, 2025 at The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles.
Sami Drasin
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
In the summer of 2023, Tyla made a massive splash with her Billboard Hot 100 top 10 popiano smash, “Water.” But that turned out to be just a hint of what the South African star was capable of — and in March 2024, she released her acclaimed self-titled debut album, a showcase for her expert fusion of amapiano, Afrobeats, pop and R&B.
That same month, she was forced to cancel her debut Coachella set and first headlining international tour in the wake of a back injury. But no setback could stop Tyla, 23, from shining in the global spotlight. She ditched her aquatic motif for a sand-sculpted Balmain gown for her debut at the Met Gala in New York last May, and this year, she’ll join A-listers like André 3000 and Usher as a member of the Costume Institute Benefit Host Committee as the event honors Black style. In October, she performed her song “Push 2 Start” for the first time at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show; the sweltering reggae-infused track from the deluxe version of Tyla, released just days before, became her second Hot 100 entry.
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Following her historic 2024 Grammy Award win — when “Water” took home the inaugural best African music performance trophy, making her the youngest-ever African artist to win a Grammy — Tyla picked up more hardware at the BET Awards, Billboard Music Awards and MTV Video Music Awards. And this year’s Women in Music Impact honoree remains determined to spotlight African music and bring her native South African amapiano to the world’s biggest stages while dispelling the notion that she, and all African artists, only make “Afrobeats” music. Case in point: Come April, Tyla will finally play Coachella.
“The fact that what I’ve been doing has impacted people all over the world, especially African artists, is special,” she says.
You’ve been very vocal while winning “Afrobeats” awards. Is it hard to relish those victories when your music is being mislabeled?
It’s still an honor because I do use Afrobeats’ influence in my music. I represent Africa as a whole. Genre is so fluid, so it’s become difficult to categorize it. If people see it as the influence that the artist is using in their music getting its recognition, it’ll help more [with perceptions], rather than being like, “This person is not that.”
Who are the women who’ve been the most influential in your life as an artist?
Tems is a big one. What she’s been able to do has been very inspiring. Britney [Spears], Whitney Houston, Aaliyah.
What performance that you’ve done in the past year have you found most impactful?
The shows I did back home [in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Pretoria]. I haven’t really done much there since everything has happened [with “Water” blowing up]. Those were the biggest headlining shows I’ve ever had. It was fun being able to have that much control over the stage, the dancing, the lighting, the song arrangements. It was really cool to create something from scratch and give home a whole show that I’ve never been able to give them.
What else do you have in store for 2025?
New album. I’ve changed a lot in a short amount of time because I was kind of forced to with how fast I had to adapt to everything. I don’t think it’s going to be the same energy [as Tyla] at all, especially with what I’ve started making. It’s different, but also still Tyla.
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Hours into their Billboard Women in Music photo shoot, the members of aespa are goofing off. High-pitched giggles reverberate through the studio as Winter, Karina, Ningning and Giselle tickle one another’s sides, talk in silly voices and play with the straps on their leathery stage outfits.
It’s mesmerizing to watch the four early-20-somethings be so, well, real, not just because they’re one of K-pop’s most polished acts — which they demonstrate by immediately snapping back into place once the photographer is ready again — but also because aespa has a particular penchant for the surreal. The SM Entertainment group debuted in 2020 with K-pop’s first lineup to feature both human and virtual members, pairing each girl with an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar as part of a cyberpunk musical metaverse marked by dark, 808-laced hyperpop and edgy-chic outfits.
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Ever since, the act has leveraged its niche into unprecedented crossover success — in November, mini-album Whiplash made it the first K-pop girl group to have six projects reach the Billboard 200 top 50, and it just wrapped its second global arena tour — and a reputation for being one of the genre’s “most adventurous and contemporary” groups, as its “Over You” collaborator Jacob Collier put it to Billboard in January.
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But going forward, 2025’s Billboard Women in Music Group of the Year also wants to focus on something potentially even more subversive: showing that beneath the personas, its members are just those real-life girls blowing off steam between camera flashes. “We’re not actual AI; we do have days where we don’t feel the best,” Giselle says once the foursome has squeezed together on a couch. “Our storyline can be fun to keep up with, but I want fans to look up to aespa for our human traits, too.”
Karina
Abi Polinsky
Why do you think aespa has made a name as trendsetters?
Giselle: There’s always going to be trends, but we don’t follow them because we can’t. We have our own story to tell that was set from the start.
Winter: We usually talk about ourselves more than love [in our lyrics]. We’re the main characters of our stories.
Karina: We’re honest. Of course, you have to be professional and present your best self, but we also try to show the not-perfect side. We’re not trying to filter everything or over-mask ourselves.
Giselle
Abi Polinsky
What’s next in aespa’s evolution?
Ningning: We did start out with our avatar concept, but now we’re also trying really hard to explore different concepts and themes. In the future, there may be moments where the fans don’t see the avatars.
Karina: We want aespa to be a really stylish group, not only in fashion and music, but also in terms of versatility and excelling in every genre. I also want all our members to shine individually when we’re together and even when we’re not together.
From left: Ningning, Karina, Giselle, and Winter of aespa photographed on February 10, 2025 in New York.
Abi Polinsky
Who are your favorite artists/dream collaborators at the moment?
Ningning: Doechii. I’d just really like to meet her.
Winter: Billie Eilish. She’s so good at expressing her honest feelings through her music.
Karina: Olivia Dean. Whenever I need to find composure, I listen to her.
Giselle: SZA. Her music is so hard to get sick of — and very relatable.
Winter
Abi Polinsky
As a girl group, how do you support one another?
Ningning: We’re all from different countries and environments, but we’ve been doing this for five years. They’re always there for me. Working with this mindset that we’re in this together makes it easier to handle challenging situations and emotions.
Winter: I don’t think we could’ve made it through this alone. We’ve had to overcome certain obstacles, but with each other’s support, we were able to move forward. (Karina giggles as Giselle starts poking her affectionately.) These girls are all very precious to me.
Ningning
Abi Polinsky
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Hours into their Billboard Women in Music photo shoot, the members of aespa are goofing off. High-pitched giggles reverberate through the studio as Winter, Karina, Ningning and Giselle tickle one another’s sides, talk in silly voices and play with the straps on their leathery stage outfits. It’s mesmerizing to watch the four early-20-somethings be so, […]
Less than an hour into February’s Grammy Awards telecast, one of the evening’s undeniable peak moments occurred. Doechii — the charismatic, lyrically dexterous Florida rapper who was up for three awards that night — won best rap album, making her just the second solo female rapper (and third overall) to win the honor. “Don’t allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you, to tell you that you can’t be here, that you’re too dark, or that you’re not smart enough, or that you’re too dramatic, or you’re too loud,” she declared in a tearful acceptance speech that instantly went viral.
For Billboard’s Woman of the Year, it was the culmination of a stunning rise, propelled by her acclaimed mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal. But it was also just a beginning: The 26-year-old Tampa MC hasn’t even dropped her debut album yet.
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Doechii uploaded her first song to SoundCloud when she was just 16 and, in the following years, put out a pair of mixtapes, the latter of which included her first viral hit, 2020’s “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake.” In 2021, she guested on Isaiah Rashad’s “What U Sed,” and in 2022, she became the rapper’s labelmate after signing a joint deal with Capitol Records and Top Dawg Entertainment.
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Her Kodak Black-featuring single, “What It Is (Block Boy)” — released in early 2023, around when she was named Billboard’s Women in Music Rising Star — became her highest-peaking entry on the Billboard Hot 100 at that date, but a fraught period followed; subsequent singles didn’t catch on, and Doechii was, as she later wrote on social media, “battling differences with [her] label and a creative numbness that broke [her].” To ease that tension, she turned to dance music. In March 2024, Doechii joined forces with Miami MC JT and DJ Miss Milan — the latter is now a fixture in her artist universe — to release “Alter Ego,” a vivacious house-rap track that served as a palate cleanser for the fans who hadn’t enjoyed her pop-rap swings from 2023, while also setting the stage for her “Swamp Sessions,” weekly drops of new music that led up to Alligator Bites Never Heal’s late-August release.
The mixtape featured many “Swamp Sessions” tracks, though it wasn’t an instant smash, debuting at No. 117 on the Billboard 200. But for Doechii, that was just a jumping-off point to let her singular vision and meticulous world-building — magnetic live and televised performances anchored by smartly assembled medleys and athletic, Bob Fosse-referencing choreography; proudly Black glam; idiosyncratic music videos nodding equally to ballroom culture, Westerns and telenovelas — blossom.
In the process, Doechii spun gold from one of the most painful periods of her life, and by late 2024, she was inescapable. In September, she featured on Katy Perry’s dance-pop single “I’m His, He’s Mine,” and the following month, she delivered a scene-stealing verse on Tyler, The Creator’s Chromakopia standout “Balloon.” In December, she mounted a pair of eye-catching performances that kicked her rise into high gear: first, a medley of “Boiled Peanuts” and “Denial Is a River” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that featured her own choreography; and, just two days later, her thrilling NPR Tiny Desk set, which quickly dominated social media thanks to her fastidious storytelling and cohesive arrangements.
As her star has risen, Doechii’s commitment to exalting all parts of her dark-skinned, Black queer self has remained paramount. It’s why her first unaccompanied Hot 100 entry was “Denial Is a River,” in which she confides to her therapist that her boyfriend had been cheating on her with another man — just one example of how refreshingly honest (and unafraid to get messy on wax) an artist she is. The week following the Grammys, Alligator Bites Never Heal soared to No. 14 on the Billboard 200, and in late February, “Denial Is a River” peaked at No. 21 on the Hot 100, while the track “Nissan Altima,” which had been nominated for the best rap performance Grammy, hit No. 73.
“To be so fresh in her career, Doechii has incredible vision and focus,” Top Dawg Entertainment president Terrence “Punch” Henderson Jr. says. “She’s a true student of hip-hop and it shows based on how she’s being embraced in the culture. The future is wide open for her.”
Now, even as Alligator Bites Never Heal continues to find new fans, Doechii is already scoring hits outside of it. Her collaboration with Blackpink superstar Jennie, “ExtraL,” debuted on the Hot 100 in March, and her latest release, “Anxiety,” is also having a major impact. Originally a 2019 direct-to-YouTube track, “Anxiety” was sampled by New York drill rapper Sleepy Hallow last year, and after a February Fresh Prince of Bel-Air-inspired TikTok trend, audiences begged for a new solo version by the Swamp Princess, who quickly obliged in early March. (The track debuted at No. 13 on the Hot 100 — her highest-peaking hit on the chart yet — and Doechii recently added it to Alligator Bites Never Heal.)
She did so as she descended on Paris Fashion Week, where her spectacularly theatrical looks made her the event’s undisputed victor — just ask Anna Wintour or Thom Browne — and affirmed she’s more central to the pop culture conversation than ever. Case in point: An offhand quip she made on Hot Ones about straight men being one of her dating red flags set social media ablaze for a week straight.
Around the same time, Doechii made a surprise live appearance that proved why she’ll always rise above that noise: At a Miami festival, Lauryn Hill invited her onstage to duet on “Doo Wop (That Thing),” then yielded the stage for Doechii to perform her own “Catfish.” Rapping and singing alongside her “hero,” the raw talent that makes Doechii an especially bright light in an ever-precarious industry was on full display — a reminder that, as she said at the Grammys, she’s a true “testimony” to the merits of following a vision and trusting that the world will eventually catch up to you.
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Erykah Badu remembers her last moments of normalcy. The generational talent who changed the course of R&B and hip-hop with her home-cooked neo-soul has never truly been “normal,” of course. But before Badu was the futuristic stylist we know her to be, she was just a young woman from Dallas. One who traveled to New York during the paralyzing North American blizzard of 1996 to finish a debut album she hoped would be good enough to allow her to make another one. “That’s how I met New York. Like, ‘Oh, you cold!’ ” she says in the much more agreeable climate of her hometown. “I was like, ‘OK, if this is what I got to do — then this is what I got to do.’ ”
Despite the frigid weather, the then-25-year-old Badu found a warm and welcoming community in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood. In 1992, Entertainment Weekly correctly noted the area was the “red-hot center of a national black arts renaissance.” Chris Rock called it home, as did Gil Scott-Heron. Digable Planets copped a spot and recorded its second album, Blowout Comb, as a love letter to the hood. Badu moved into a cozy apartment above Mo’s Bar & Lounge, right around the way from one of her favorite spots, Brooklyn Moon Café. Spike Lee’s 40 Acres and a Mule — the studio behind Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X and Jungle Fever — was close by. “[I was] right in the center of Blackness,” she remembers. “Dreads, headwraps and people who looked like me who I didn’t know existed. I felt like I belonged there. I met people who felt the way I felt, and that’s when I knew I wasn’t alone in my journey or quest to find out, ‘Who am I?’ ”
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To answer that question, Badu would need to enlist her own spirit guides both within and outside of the music industry. One of the most memorable was a woman named Queen Afua, who became a mentor of sorts for young Badu. In addition to helping Badu with her holistic journey, Afua “became my family away from Dallas. She communicated with me like a mother.” But to keep her profile as low as possible, Badu didn’t tell Afua why she was in the Big Apple: “I didn’t tell anyone in New York anything. I just wanted to live.” And so, she lived. When she wasn’t kicking it in Fort Greene, Badu was taking classes at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater taught by dance legend Joan Peters. She took a Kemetic language course, because why not? “A lot of things were happening, and they all became a part of who I am,” Badu says. “You know, as Erica in America.”
Badu constantly told herself to be as “regular as possible,” because she knew the album she was trudging to Battery Studios in Midtown Manhattan to work on with a group of musicians who would go on to become legends in their own right — people like James Poyser and Questlove from Philadelphia’s The Roots — was going “to take this motherf–ker by storm.”
Jai Lennard
The album, Baduizm, did just that. It debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and ruled the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Buoyed by the meditative smash hit “On & On,” Baduizm helped usher in what became known as neo-soul: a type of R&B that built on the traditions and stylings of the past while breathing new life and energy into the genre. While most neo-soul tracks sampled or interpolated older soul songs, “On & On,” with its rolling bass and booming drums, was wholly original. It felt like a completely fresh idea (and Badu was full of them) but also something familiar and comfortable — the delicate balance most artists work their entire lives trying to strike.
“[I’d] never seen someone just full of a bunch of ideas,” Questlove recounted in a 2024 interview with Poyser. “She had a lot of choruses ready. She was the first person I met that instantly had a clever chorus ready in the stash.” For the album’s third single, “Other Side of the Game,” the Roots drummer recalled that Badu came in with the idea to rework the famous chorus to Inner Circle’s “Bad Boys Reply.” Even more impressive, he remembered, was that the version of the song that made it onto the album was essentially the first take that was committed to tape: “I thought, ‘Oh, this girl is going to make it.’ ”
Dressed in an oversize sweatshirt and sweatpants with a warm-looking knitted cap, today Badu comes across every bit as enchanting as she’s made out to be. Sitting in the back room of South Dallas’ Furndware Studios, she speaks with a calm directness that you would expect from a shaman or elementary school teacher. Every question elicits a thoughtful pause and an even more thoughtful answer. When I ask Badu about making versus performing music, for example, she goes into a deep rumination about the focus needed to create great music. “I want to focus, I want to be in the moment of the foreplay. Creating the music. The tragedy. The love. The experience of the whole thing,” she says before exhaling. “Then I go somewhere else after this is done. This is a movie and the studio audience is cracking up and crying and s–t… I hope that answers that question.”
Badu makes you feel as if you’re the most important person in the world when she’s speaking to you. It’s a skill many successful people have, but few can also make you feel like the luckiest — as if she’s letting you, and only you, in on a cosmic secret. That may owe in part to the spiritual tangents she sometimes goes on when answering questions. Or it may simply be the attentiveness she offers in conversation. She says she has learned that the way to become successful — and to maintain that success — is to be healthy, present and aware, and to never stop learning.
Born Erica Abi White in Dallas, Badu didn’t always aspire to “make it.” She simply wanted to create art like most of her family had done. She grew up with her grandmother, mother and uncles, in what she describes as “a house of music lovers and collectors.” There was music in every room — literally. “There were records from wall to wall, a radio in the bathroom that was on the local FM soul station,” she recalls. Everyone was allowed to have their own corner to express their musical tastes. “My uncles would be in the back listening to funk. They were into Bootsy [Collins] and George Duke and Stanley Clarke. My mother was more into the sirens — the Chaka Khans, the Phoebe Snows, the Deniece Williamses, The Emotions. My uncle, who’s a rebel, was into Prince and Pink Floyd and Three Dog Night,” she says. “I had a variety to pull from.”
Erykah Badu photographed on February 7, 2025 at Mars Hill Farm in Ferris, Texas.
Jai Lennard
Badu immersed herself in everything artistic Dallas had to offer a young person. When she was in elementary school, she began taking classes at the Dallas Theater Center, as well as the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, where she would sing and dance and perform in plays. Badu and her younger sister, Koko, also frequented The Black Academy of Arts and Letters, where her mother and godmother volunteered. TBAAL’s founder, Curtis King, recalls seeing the “it thing” in Badu from an early age.
Badu went to Louisiana’s Grambling State University to study theater but left in 1993 and returned to Dallas before she graduated. She planned to pursue music full time — but since dreams don’t come true overnight, Badu found herself working a series of odd jobs to support herself while she worked with her cousin Robert “Free” Bradford to record her demo, Country Cousins. The two would perform around Dallas as a duo — she would sing and he would rap. But even with the 19-song project, Badu couldn’t pay a label to take her on. She says she auditioned for everyone — Sony, Priority, Bad Boy, So So Def — but didn’t catch a break until D’Angelo’s then-manager, Kedar Massenburg, saw her perform at South by Southwest and received her demo. He immediately signed her to his fledging imprint, Kedar Entertainment.
“As soon as I heard ‘On & On,’ I knew that I had to get involved,” Massenburg told Billboard in 2017. “The thing that struck me immediately was the beginning, because Erykah had used a beat in the intro that Daddy-O, a member of a group I managed called Stetsasonic, had created: Audio Two’s ‘Top Billin.’ ”
Country Cousins was the foundation of what became Baduizm, and Badu’s debut cemented not only her career but also the neo-soul scene that had been developing. “I think Tony! Toni! Toné! kind of opened the door, D’Angelo took it to the next level in terms of edginess, and Erykah solidified it,” Massenburg said. “That’s what Baduizm did. You’re saying, ‘I don’t need to wear these kinds of clothes or look this kind of way, this is my “-izm.” ’ The only thing that dates it is the term ‘neo-soul’ — maybe that’s the issue. It places it at a time when that term meant a certain thing. Take away the term, and it stands with the best of the artists that are out here today.”
Jai Lennard
You would think, with the impact she has had on R&B and hip-hop, that Badu would have dropped more than five albums over her 28-year career. But nope — just five studio sets, a live album and a mixtape. Granted, they’re all classics and helped either introduce a new sound or popularize a new style of working. Take 2008’s New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), which was recorded mainly on laptops with Apple’s GarageBand software, with Badu emailing sessions and files back and forth with producers. At the time, it was a pretty novel idea to forego the studio for your bedroom — only new, cash-strapped artists were doing that. Badu helped bring the practice to the mainstream — just one of many examples of her being aware of the winds of change before most of her peers.
That same awareness inspired her to launch her label, Control Freq, in 2005. At the time, Badu said it was her attempt at making a “profitable home for artists, with fair contracts that will return ownership of the music to the artists after a period of time.” The first artist signed to the label was Jay Electronica, the father of Badu’s third child. “I didn’t develop him at all. I just wanted to be near his greatness,” Badu says. “He needed to be heard and I had a platform. I wasn’t interested in building an artist from scratch. I was interested in artists who were building their own platforms.”
When it comes to her own music, Badu is less interested in what she puts on wax than in what she puts forth onstage. “I tour eight months out of the year for the past 25 years,” she says emphatically. “That’s what I do. I am a performance artist. I am not a recording artist. I come from the theater. It’s the immediate reaction between you and the audience and the immediate feeling. The point where you become one living, breathing organism with people. That’s what I live for. It’s my therapy. And theirs, too. We’re in it together. And I like the idea that it happens only once.”
Unlike most performance artists, however, Badu doesn’t create her music with the live aspect in mind. Once she decides to perform a song, she begins to re-create it for the stage. “It’s like, ‘OK, now this is one arena. Now, what are you going to do with it in here?’ ” (One of her most popular songs, “Tyrone,” was only ever released as a live rendition, on her 1997 Live album.) The results speak for themselves. Badu — this year’s Women in Music Icon — has emerged as one of the premier performers of her generation.
In 2015, while on an apparent hiatus, Badu released a remix of Drake’s gargantuan smash “Hotline Bling.” Produced by the Dallas-based Zach Witness — who first connected with Badu after she heard a remix he did of her 2000 song “Bag Lady” and reached out to him — “Cel U Lar Device” was posted to SoundCloud without much explanation.
The track became the lead single for her mixtape — and most recent project — 2015’s But You Caint Use My Phone (a nod to “Tyrone”), which she recorded in less than two weeks with Witness in his home studio. The tape centered on a theme of cellphone use and addiction, with Badu putting her spin on a few other popular phone-based songs like Usher’s “U Don’t Have To Call” and New Edition’s “Mr. Telephone Man.”
Since then, Badu has popped up here and there. She says she only collaborates with people whose music she really enjoys. Dram featured her on his debut album in 2016. She jumped on a track for Teyana Taylor’s self-titled album in 2020. She lent her vocals to a Jamie xx song that came out in January. And at the 2025 Grammy Awards, she won the best melodic rap performance statue for a collaboration with Rapsody, “3:AM.” “It snuck up on me!” she says. “I remember collaborating with [producer] S1 and Rapsody and we had such a good time promoting the song and I just felt like it was all for her basically. She worked very hard to get to this place.”
Jai Lennard
She still loves rap, although she doesn’t follow it as much as she used to and now experiences a lot of it through her children: Seven, 28; Puma, 21; and Mars, 16. (She says they also have attempted to make music, which is not surprising considering their fathers are all rap legends: André 3000, The D.O.C. and Electronica, respectively.)
“[The thing I like about rap right now] is the same thing I liked about rap when I first met it,” she says. “Rap is the people. Hip-hop is the people. It’s the folks. It’s the tribe. I have the luxury of experiencing having children who I watch grow up and love and encourage very much, and I cannot separate them when I see artists who are that age coming up. That’s how they feel. They are continuing the tradition.”
Badu may say she’s not as tuned in as she used to be, but she’s clearly keeping tabs on what’s hot right now. She’s been hard at work on her first studio album in 15 years, which is being produced solely by The Alchemist, the hip-hop journeyman who has had a resurgence as of late thanks to his work with the Buffalo, N.Y.-based Griselda crew and artists like Larry June. Badu posted a teaser of the project on Instagram to an exuberant response from fans who’ve been damn near begging her to drop something new and show the generations of artists who’ve had her pinned to the center of their mood boards how it’s supposed to be done.
The album has been taking up most of her time; she says she can’t wait until she’s done. And whatever time that isn’t occupied by her family and nonmusical interests — such as her cannabis strain collaboration with brand Cookies called That Badu — goes toward keeping herself in the best mental, emotional and physical shape possible and making sure she’s set for the future. “When I was building my house, I was making sure that I was building ramps for when I was elderly and couldn’t walk by myself,” the now-54-year-old says. “When I do my workouts, I do workouts that are conducive for picking up groceries and grandchildren and things like that.”
That’s not to say she isn’t having fun. Another of her nonmusical hobbies is car collecting. Badu, whose grandmother bought her toy cars instead of dolls when she asked for the latter as gifts, lights up when asked to run down what’s currently in her collection: “I get happy when talking about it.” There’s a baby blue ’67 Lincoln Continental with suicide doors and a chandelier in the back (“Original interior, original white wall tires, original radio”); a 1989 Land Rover Defender; a 1971 Sting Ray Corvette (“Matte black, neon yellow stripe. It looks like the Batmobile”). A collector since she was 21 years old, her first car was a 1965 convertible Super Beetle. “Before I was Erykah Badu the artist, that was my hobby that I loved.” Her uncle Mike, the one who was into funk music, is also into cars and keeps and maintains some of hers; the rest are tucked away in a Dallas garage.
It all sounds surprisingly normal for a music superstar of Badu’s stature, and that’s just what she likes about it. And it’s the same reason why, after all her success, she has remained in South Dallas. “It was very hard for me to be away because this is where I want to be,” she says. “I wanted to come here and build. This is where everybody is. I’m five generations in Dallas. This is my place. It’s my home.”
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Women dominated this year in music, and Billboard is ready to celebrate today’s groundbreaking artists at its annual Women in Music event.
This year’s honorees include a diverse group of artists, ranging from rising stars to seminal veterans, from pop and country, to R&B, Latin and beyond. The 2025 event will honor aespa, Ángela Aguilar, Erykah Badu, GloRilla, Gracie Abrams, JENNIE, Megan Moroney, Meghan Trainor, Muni Long and Tyla.
Laverne Cox will host the 2025 Billboard Women in Music event, which will take place Saturday, March 29, at YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California.
Presenters, performers and the coveted 2025 Billboard Woman of the Year will be announced in the coming weeks.
“The 2025 Billboard Women in Music celebrates the incredible women who continue to drive innovation, inspire change, and reshape the future of music,” Dana Droppo, Billboard‘s Chief Brand Officer, said in a statement.
Billboard‘s Editor-in-Chief, Hannah Karp, added, “From rising stars to legendary icons, this year’s honorees are redefining what it means to be a trailblazer in the industry. We’re honored to highlight their outstanding achievements and contributions through unforgettable performances, powerful tributes, and an evening that will truly shine a spotlight on their impact. It’s a privilege to continue Billboard’s tradition of recognizing the women who are pushing the boundaries of music and culture, and we can’t wait to share this incredible night with our global audience.”
Sponsors for the 2025 Billboard Women in Music event include official whisky Partner Crown Royal, HarbourView Equity Partners, Bose and Honda Stage, the presenter of the Rising Star Award.
A limited quantity of early access tickets will be available for purchase on Wednesday (Feb. 12) starting at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT with code WIM25. Public on-sale then begins Thursday (Feb. 13) at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT via Ticketmaster here. Prices begin at $89.
See below for the full list of 2025 Billboard Women in Music honorees so far.
aespa: Group of the Year
As the music industry prepares to celebrate at the 67th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday (Feb. 2), the latest report from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative suggests that things for women in music are holding steady but not moving forward. The study is based on the year-end Billboard Hot 100 chart and Grammy nominations in key categories.
After documenting significant change for women last year, the Spotify-supported study finds that there was little movement in 2024. Women comprised 37.7% of artists across the Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart last year, which is a bit better than 2023 (35%) and a significant improvement from 2012 (22.7%). More than a third (38.9%) of individual artists on the year-end chart were women, compared to 40.6% in 2023 and 35.8% in 2012.
“Women artists in 2024 saw little change,” Dr. Smith said in a statement. “In fact, it is the number of men that has declined while the number of women in 2024 was consistent with prior years. This suggests that it is fluctuations in the number of men, not gains for women that is driving these findings. For those interested in seeing change in the music industry, this is not a sign of progress.”
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The percentage of women songwriters on the year-end Hot 100 chart in 2024 was 18.9%, which was similar to the percentage in 2023 (19.5%) and significantly higher than the 11% of songwriters in 2012 who were women. Whereas women of color were responsible for the gains seen for women in 2023, this was not the case in 2024. Last year, the number of women of color represented on the year-end chart as songwriters dipped while the number of white women songwriters increased. Just over half (54%) of those songs featured at least one woman songwriter, on par with 2023 and significantly higher than 2012.
“While there may be movement in the independent space, the songs and charts evaluated represent the agenda-setting music that has the greatest opportunity to launch and grow a career,” said Dr. Smith. “Until the people in the executive ranks and A&R roles take seriously the lack of women in the industry, we will continue to see little change.”
Looking to producers of popular songs in 2024, once again there was no increase for women. A total of 5.9% of producing credits on the Hot 100 year-end chart were held by women, compared to 6.5% in 2023 and 2.4% in 2012. And of the 14 women producers on the year-end chart in 2024, only two were women of color. Across all 13 years of the study, 93.3% of songs lacked any women producers.
“Behind the scenes, women have not lost ground since the gains we saw last year,” said Dr. Smith. “However, the numbers are not growing. Programs like Be The Change, Keychange, She Is The Music, Spotify’s EQL, Women’s Audio Mission, and others are supporting talented women who are ready to take on opportunities. These numbers can continue to grow if the industry looks to these organizations and the many qualified women ready to work as songwriters and producers.”
Artist race/ethnicity was also assessed in the report. The percentage of artists of color (what the study calls “underrepresented artists”) on the year-end chart in 2024 (44.6%) fell significantly from 2023, when the number stood at 61%. Despite the decline, the percentage of artists of color remained on par with the proportion of the U.S. population that is people of color. Additionally, it was still meaningfully greater than 2012 (38.4%).
The drop affected both men and women of color, though the decline for women was steeper. In 2024, 40.8% of all women artists were women of color, while 46.9% of men were men of color. In 2023, nearly two-thirds of women on the popular charts were women of color (64.9%) as were more than half of men (59.4%).
The report also assessed Grammy nominations in the six categories that comprise the General Field: album, record and song of the year, best new artist, and producer and songwriter of the year, non-classical. According to Annenberg, just under a quarter (22.7%) of all nominees in these categories in 2025 were women, similar to 2024 (24%) and significantly greater than 2013 (7.9%).
The Annenberg analysis counts all nominees in album and record of the year, not just artists; in those two categories, producers, engineer/mixers and mastering engineers are nominated alongside artists. (There are no so-called “supplemental” nominees in the other four categories named above.)
This year, female solo artists took four of the eight nominations for best new artist, the same as last year. But last year, a male/female duo (The War and Treaty) was also nominated. That represents a slight drop for women this year, but women still had parity.
In song of the year, the number of female songwriters who are nominated inched up this year, from eight last year to nine this year.
Annenberg reports that the one nomination for a woman in the producer of the year, non-classical category represented a significant jump, as Alissia is only the second woman to be nominated in the category since the study began tracking nominations. (Linda Perry was nominated in the category six years ago.)
Meanwhile, four of the five nominees for songwriter of the year, non-classical this year are women: Jessi Alexander, Amy Allen, Jessie Jo Dillon and RAYE. The only male nominee is Édgar Barrera. This compares to just one female nominee last year.
“The Recording Academy has demonstrated that it can recognize the contributions of women to the music industry—this is clear through the increase we observed last year and that it has continued into this year,” said Dr. Smith. “The challenge now is to continue that growth and to see more women receiving acknowledgement of their talent and effort through awards like the Grammys, particularly for women in producing roles.”
The latest report from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative can be found here.