Episode 04: Nkechi Anele

Better known as 'Nkechi' (pron. ket-chee), music has been an enormous part of Nkechinyere Anele's life. Starting her music career in 2011, Nkechi fronted the Australian band Saskwatch for a decade. Through Saskwatch, Anele toured all over Australia and played at popular festivals all over the world including; Splendour in the Grass (AUS), Byron Bay Bluesfest (AUS), WOMADelaide (AUS), Groovin' the Moo (AUS), Glastonbury Festival (UK), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (UK), Back in Black (ESP) and CMJ (NY, USA). In 2016, Anele started guest presenting Triple j radio's Roots N All show becoming it's full time presenter in 2017. Nkechinyere Anele along with Lucille Cutting co-created The Pin in 2016 in order to address their questions around race, identity and culture of biracial and bicultural people in an Australian context.

Transcript

[Chelsea]: Hi and welcome to Control with Chelsea Wilson, the podcast where we speak to wildly inspiring women in the music industry who have taken control of their music and control of their careers.

The COVID 19 pandemic has impacted all of our lives in different ways - my guest on this episode, describes the period of social isolation as a time of growth and reflection resulting in a newly changed relationship with art, music and life. She’s a broadcaster, writer and vocalist, I’m speaking to Melbourne-based Nkechi Anele.

Like thousands of us, I first came across Nkechi through her work in soul indie outfit Saskwatch. She is electric on stage. Saskwatch tore the roof off clubs and festivals around the globe, creating a body of work and touring extensively for over a decade. Unexpectedly becoming an ABC broadcaster after being invited to fill in on Triple J’s Roots N All program, Nkechi has found a new stage as a journalist and is driven to create spaces on air and online for emerging artists and people of colour.

I was so appreciative of Nkechi taking the time to join our digital studio during lockdown. We talked a lot about mental health – her hopes for a more ethical music industry – the process of ending a long creating collaboration and the spice girls. So here it is - this is my chat with the incredible Nkechi Anele. 

[Chelsea]: Welcome Nkechi. So great to have you on the control podcast.

[Nkechi]: It's so great to be here. I've really learnt so much and we've just started.

[Chelsea]: So how are you, how have you been going through this social isolation? We're in the depths of it still here in Melbourne.

[Nkechi]: I kind of want to answer this in two parts. So like the first time we were locked down, I became very like superficially, like into wellness and care. And I was like, okay, I'm going to sleep in, I'm going to eat really good food because I'm not going out. I'm going to drink like really nice wine. That's a tear up from where I normally, or maybe to tears up if I’m honest with you from where I normally drink. Um, I'm going to watch all these TV shows that people have told me I need to watch. And, and, um, I started Uni and I was like, great. I've got like free days, um, to do this. And then we got to the end of that first look down and we all came out of it and had that month of freedom.

And in that month of freedom, I just felt like I really wasted that opportunity. Um, I came out feeling kind of gross and like I could have used the time a lot better. So when this locked down happened, um, I really kind of thought, right, this is six at the time, six weeks. Let's do this seriously. Um, let's do some stuff that you've probably been putting off because you're distracted by life and the excitement of it.

Um, and let's kind of like dig deep to maybe places that you don't really want to go to or feel ashamed about talking about in a group of people. So during this, this lockdown, I stopped drinking. Started having like sessions with a psychologist to just like go through a lot of things that are probably in the back of my mind.

[Chelsea]: Wow.

[Nkechi]: Um, and still doing the, still doing Uni and everything like that. But, um, taking the time to kind of work through stuff, um, which has been a big thing for me. I got last year, um, I was diagnosed with depression and it's something that I, I honestly believe I've probably had for a really long time. It's not very, like when I say depression, I guess sometimes it comes very weighted and for everybody obviously experiences it quite differently.

But, um, last year for me, it was like a big emotional kind of roller coaster of pulling myself out of being in quite a, quite a scary place. And so I feel like, I was kind of in this space where I wanted to keep doing that work, but there's so much excitement going on in my life. And the year just like gets - this industry's quite, quite fast paced.

Um, and there was stuff that was still sitting in the back of my mind that I really wish that I had the time to, to look into and, and work on without the social pressure of all the social angst that I had on myself to always go out and always be like in the music industry or be hanging out with my friends, all that stuff.

So as much as it's been really stressful to like, not be able to go out cause like music and going to live venues and being around creative people is for me, like a very - It's my outlet. Um, or like joy. It's my outlet of stress. It's, it's where I go to kind of get/feel enriched by everyone else. And then like come home and chill.

Um, it's been very stressful in that sense that I can't, um, be around my friends and have like as much human contact as I had before, which has been another really big thing. But also in this time, I think I've found like a very happy place within myself. And I'm really thankful for this pause. Cause I think realistically I've been at, I've been wanting it and not knowing how to do it for myself, so the world's kind of - the whole world had to shut down for me to be able to do this. And I, yeah, that's, that's where I'm at.

[Chelsea]: I think that's really interesting your point around the music industry and this space that we work in. We don't have breaks. It's one project to the next project. It's a tour. It's a single, it's a tour. It's a single. And if you jump off that train for a moment, it's are you still in the music industry? There's so much pressure on us to keep producing, right.

[Nkechi]: Yeh!

[Chelsea]: I mean, I read somewhere that you said you were questioning. If I don't make art for a while, am I still an artist, but this period it's really made us happy. We have to stop it's uh, you know, um, global. Pause.

[Nkechi]: And to be honest with you, that took the pressure off that feeling. Cause last year, Saskwatch finished up. So Saskwatch has been my life in my twenties and we literally announced that the band was ending the day before my 30th birthday. So I felt like I'd really closed this chapter. And also I had to transition from being a performer, to being an audience member, to being a cheerleader for my friends a lot more than I had been in the past. And that was something that I really wanted to do. But I did feel like am I no longer part of this industry? And especially because I got into Saskwatch and music, because it was something that I extremely loved and I didn’t, to be honest with you, I didn't like the industry side of it.

I really hated it. I hate doing interviews. I hated having to talk to people that weren't musicians very much my naivety around the industry. And then like switched to 10 years later where I'm working on radio and I'm like, um, I am on this other side now. Um, and just feeling like, have I like crossed, crossed the line that I, I never saw myself crossing.

And does that now mean that I'm like on the other side of this industry, but it's been really nice to see like everything pause and, and, and, and realize, yeah, I'm still an artist I'm still creative. I'm still doing things. Even when I think that I'm not like, um, my mom always reminds me sometimes I'm like, I've done nothing this week.

Cause she's like, that's a load of crap. I could show you the receipts of like creative things that you've been doing.

[Chelsea]: And I want to say, you know, a huge congratulations to you for, you know, 10 years of being involved in an incredible collaboration. And you know, often it feels like all the band’s over, you know, so somehow that's a fail but you should get a gold medal for this.

I mean, not only did you - you know, you sustained a, an outfit that made something really beautiful and brought so much joy to so many people's lives. And, I think ending that in a way that is celebratory is incredible. There's no point, you know, sometimes things do have, um, you know, books, great books, they have endings.

[Nkechi]: It's one of those things like, and I can only speak from my experience, but it felt like for me, that if the band continued, I don't know if I would have loved it anymore. I don't think I would enjoy being in it, and I don't think I would appreciate and enjoy the people and the life that I've had from like meeting them.

Yeah. Like saying goodbye and bringing back past band members and listening through albums, try and work out what songs that we wanted to play. It was like being, it was like somebody taking your hand and walking you through these - the last decade and, and being able to see, like, we were just a bunch of kids that used to rehearse and just want people to feel good.

Like, that's one of the things that have been a consistent motto. It's like, we just want to make good music that people can enjoy.

[Chelsea]: And, you know, it's such a huge part of a decade for you, you know, your life, your twenties. I mean, those are going to be memories and experiences that are going to be with you for life. And it's not the end of your musical creative journey, but it's been such an amazing part of that. I mean, now that it's been a - It's almost a year since that celebration show - have you had a chance to kind of reflect on what some of your Saskwatch highlights were?

[Nkechi]: Oh, I've got so many. I bribed my best to be my best friend using Sasquatch, getting her to free festivals and gigs.

[Chelsea]: [Laughs]

[Nkechi]: Um, I was able to take my, um, my mom introduced me to a lot of soul music. My dad introduced me to a Nigerian music. My mom was the one that was behind the soul music and we supported Earth, Wind and Fire – and that she introduced me to. I brought her as my plus one and him, and literally introduced her to Earth, Wind and Fire. Like how's that for a full circle moment? And also, like being able to play in all those old theatres and travel around. But my favourite memories, there was like this golden era of cherry bar where you would just walk in and know everyone, and everyone would dance all night and it was sweaty and hot and gross, but like, uh, hung out with Sharon Jones and the DAP Kings there.

I met Tom Morello there, Chick Corea’s, son, or his nephew or something like that. Met his partner there and came to one of our gigs. There are all these moments that happened in this like tiny little nugget in Melbourne. Um, but yeah, being able to travel overseas and perform internationally and meet, like, go from liking somebody, or like, hearing someone's music and then meeting them within a really short period of time because they're playing at a festival that you're at is just like mind blowing.

[Chelsea]: Yeah. And at the time did you, did you get to celebrate any of the wins? Cause I know it can just be ‘Right. You've done that tour. Now we're just working on the next tour or better get back in the studio’. It just, does it feel like it was all just a massive whirlwind?

[Nkechi]: It feels like it now because I look back on it and feel like it was condensed. And also realising now that's not normal to perform that much or to fly that much around Australia to perform. Especially after our second album came out, which is where we kind of got that momentum and support by triple J um, in Australia, which kind of opened us up to so many festivals. There were definitely moments where I actually actively, um, would take a moment while performing on stage to just be right to just, to look around and be like, this is what we're doing right now.

Um, and also knowing like the backgrounds in which all of us who come into this band and thinking like where these nerdy kids that retreated into music to find ourselves, or to get away from whatever. And we're standing on this big stage with this whole crowd of thousands of people supporting us. Yeah - there's definitely moments. I definitely took in a lot of moments. Um, we played Glastonbury, I think ed, Edinburgh, fringe festival. And I remember on the last night. Before I walked on stage, just thinking “You’re overseas, doing this”. Like it was always on the last night that everything would come together.

Cause that first kind of, the first performance is you're shitting yourselves. And normally the first performance is the most like, everything kind of, you're working out, if at all, everything will work live. And then when things stuff up, you come back and you're just like, right. We're going to nail this and then you get performance fee and then it's like, you don't even, it's like, you don't even have to try - you get this freedom because you've had so much rehearsal time.

But yeah, I definitely take every moment in, like going to New York for the first time and being around like heaps of black people. Also for me, like being able to travel, I went to the UK and got to meet family who I don't think I'd ever meet if I wasn't touring. Um, and telling them, “Oh yeah, I'm here to do this like small gig” or, um, when we're touring, I got to like jump on stage with them in the UK.

And I took my cousin and I'm like, “Oh, I've got to go perform something to walk through this door. So I'll see you at the front”, never being at the venue before. And he's standing in this venue thinking like, “Holy shit, this is my weird Australian cousin. And she's standing on stage singing”. Like that was our kind of first introduction to each other.

It's like, I realise now that it's not normal, but also it was like everything that I wanted in life. So it it's the dream that I had, the dream and the want that I had. So I didn't care that it wasn't a normal thing because I've found that my people in my place that I knew I wanted to belong to since I was a kid.

[Chelsea]: How are you feeling now with your relationship with live performance and with songwriting?

[Nkechi]: Um, performing for me was the thing that I felt, “Oh my God, have I lost this”. And at times I kind of feel like a, I miss it, but I'm, I know this is really bad to say, but I'm glad Saskwatch finished up last year because like I'd stopped performing.

So when COVID happened, it wasn't a step down. I didn't lose anything. Creatively like this time around, I asked Olaf our keys player for a keyboard because he has my, I go given a piano when I was really little, like a really beautiful, upright piano, but I have no room for it in my place. And my parents were like, well, we're going to sell this. And I was like, you can't because it's actually my piano, but I know someone who wants a piano. So we kind of have a friendship loan where until I can have a house, whatever. Um, but like until I have a space. Where I want a piano, Olaf can keep it. Um, and I've got his keyboard, so we've got this beautiful trade going on.

Um, and so I had that, which has been fun to play. Um, I don't know. I didn’t, I didn't feel like this was the, I feel, I felt like this was a time for me to do other work. Um, because I, I had spent 10 years with music. This there's so much stuff that you learned post being in a band that has a level of success that we'd been touring for 10 years.

And I've got some, really, some really toxic habits that I had to unlearn that are acceptable as a touring band, but not a, not a way of living and ensuring longevity of life as an everyday person. Cause like you said, like this industry is a steam roll of an industry. That is fuelled by alcohol and reckless behaviour in the name of creativity. I had to learn to stop being a little like grungy rock star and my behaviour around certain things as well. That's been something that I've had to unlearn.

[Chelsea]: Just sounds like such an incredible, an intensive period of growth for you in so many ways.

[Nkechi]: I've just seen it can destroy people. Like seeing older say older, but they're not really that much older than me realistically, but musicians who've come before our band. I remember seeing them when I was younger thinking like, “Oh God, I hope I didn't turn up -turn out like that. Like, why are they so dysfunctional?” And I get it now, it's like, you're touring. Imagine that your job is to go to party, like is to create a party for people all the time to put your emotional weight into ensuring that other people have the best night of their lives. And it's scary. And a lot of people numb that out with a lot of different things or deal with the stress of touring and being stuck with like a certain number of people for sometimes months on end, um, by doing destructive behaviors that we support because creativity and, and like insanity are kind of very close together. And so our industry supports people in tearing themselves down if they can be creative out of that. And so even though, like, I've never, like in saying that I've never been at the very extreme end, I just recognise that there, because I'm around people who are some people who are very much on the I was like, oh, I'm not like them. But then when I interact with people who haven't had that lifestyle. I've realised, Oh my God, I've got these really, really bad traits that are not functional in everyday living. And also it's going to shorten my lifespan or like end it. And I don't want that. I want to be able to have the memories of the past decade. I don't want to lose that.

[Chelsea]: What changes, do you think, or what can we do in the music industry to look after our artists more, so that we're not having these stories or situations where people are becoming self-destructive?

[Nkechi]: I think we treat artists- who actually extremely sensitive people - like shit and that we can feed them and give them like alcohol as payment for their emotional hard work and labor and creativity.

We wouldn't do the same for somebody in any other industry. I think as well, there's this whole, there's this whole bro culture, which I see and kind of like really broken down, especially in the wake of the more like, in the wake films like, um, ‘Her Sound, Her Story’. Which really talks about the female narrative of this industry. It's the first time. And at a very specific time for me, where I realised that I really craved female friends in this industry and didn't have them because I saw them as competition because that's the way this industry was built. Men were fine. It's like, because most bands like a majority male. Anyway, with like a female lead singer.

Um, because people wouldn't hire female musicians to be in their band. So there was this like huge disparity. And because of that, instead of women banding together, we became competitive against each other. And so we lie to each other and act like one of the boys and everything's fun and ra ra ra ra ra.

And I think ‘Her Sound, Her Story’ opened up the, the, the level of isolation and the abuse that is felt by women in this industry. And allowed us to speak about it more and also mental health a lot more, but there's so many times where I'll go to a festival and I'll be like, “Hey, have you been?” and they’ll be like, “Oh, I'm fucking killing it. Everything was great. Our tour was amazing. Everything went well. We were so fucking amazing”. And that's not the truth of it. At all! But everyone wants to save face and they push each other to like this bro culture of like getting so, “Oh man, I was fucking wasted on stage and I did this like hardcore shit” and it's like, I was sober, and I watched you - and that was the worst performance I've ever seen. I've seen people do performances off their fucking head and seen like their managers support that behaviour, if not facilitate it. And instead of getting medical help for them, we just say, “Oh, isn't that cute? Let's like, let's give them more alcohol”, you know, it's this really fucking weird thing that happens in this industry.

It doesn't happen anywhere else. I think there needs to be more nurturing and I definitely feel that when you see that people to, when you'd go on these like really great big festivals, even Blues Fest does, does this really well for me, the first ones who did it, they had like physios backstage. And it was amazing.

They, and they had this as well. I know this is so ridiculous and it will probably get laughed at, by people listening to this, but they have like soup and salad. That's just like on tap backstage all the time. And so like the amount of love that you felt because you had like, had this like physical nurturing and always feeling like you could be fed, so you weren't waiting on your rider or drinking alcohol to stop feeling hungry or whatever.

Um, people gave their best performances. And, and are loyal to that festival and I, and that is happening a lot more now, but I think like we, we look the other way in this industry when people are like extremely vulnerable and, and in really toxic and dangerous situations, like we really, uh, it scares me now is like someone who's 30 looking back at how young we were like 21, 22 completely wasted. Um, alcohol poisoned, like should have been taken to the hospital to get our stomachs pumped and people just say, “Oh, their rock and rollers”, and that's the way that it's treated. And managers kind of are like, well, I'm not your parent. I can't do anything about it. But if this was in a, in a work setting and somebody turned up to work in a building in an office like that, you would get them help straight away.

It's just like this thing, I don't know. Like, it's not to say that we need to clean up everything. Like, of course we're very hedonistic - artistic people are quite hedonistic by nature anyway, but I just feel like there needs to be more of a, like a catchment system to make sure that people don't really dive bomb through.

And I feel like people need to be more aware of that in venues in with management. And when you, when people are taking care of artists, like, I don't think that's there. And I see a lot of artists burn out. Like, I feel like Kaiit even said in her Aria speech, like take care of your artists. I think this industry loves burning through vulnerable people.

[Chelsea]: They work people, you know, they, yeah.

[Nkechi]: Yeh!

[Chelsesa]: You get a new booking agent. It's “Right. We're going to book you” – I mean I was speaking to Thando the other week and said she was during the 164 gigs a year, you know, and just flying back and forth from here to WA and you know, to loads of debt is also something that, you know, we don't, we don't talk about a lot. And a lot of artists say, Oh yeah, “I went on this amazing tour to the US and I did this”, but they've actually racked up thousands and thousands of dollars of personal debt to do this.

[Nkechi]: That was a year that we, we, um earnt, probably like a quarter of a million, um, in touring, like just playing at festivals. And when you took away all the money that we owed; we were left with fuck-all.

I was - throughout Saskwatch’s 10 years, 10 years of, um, performing. I was working three to four jobs. I was, I gave up a full-time job, a very secure full-time job to be in the band out of passion. I was working three to four jobs. I had, uh, I used to do days where I would wake up, work in a, in one of those like call centres, but where they're not selling anyone like a survey, one, do that for seven hours and catch a bus to like a restaurant work there till like 10:30 and then catch another bus and go work at a bar until one o'clock in the morning. And then repeat that over the weekend. Or I would do a gig for Saskwatch, go to bed, wake up at six o'clock in the morning, go to my job, work that, come home, go to a rehearsal like two days later - people don't see that stuff. And because it is like really enjoyable, like it really is to be traveling, but to feel so, like it got to the point where taking a flight somewhere felt like catching the bus to me. But there's so much money that artists spend just so that they can share their art.

And it's weird as well now being like someone who's gone through 10 years of it is now on the more industry side, seeing like younger people come through and, and just hoping that this industry is treats them better. But I think like I do see signs of it. I do see signs of this industry changing and I, and I want to change with it.

That's the other thing, I don't, it's been really alarming to me to have those conversations now and see ‘Her Sound, Her Story’. I cried. The women in there that I thought were really strong and powerful and should have been untouchable and hearing that they had experiences that were similar to mine, broke me.

And, um, and I think it broke a lot of women and made us realise that we needed to stick together and also needed to hand down that knowledge of what to do. Or that expectation of how we should be seen and treated. Yeah.

[Chelsea]: Completely agree. I wanted to talk to you about your move into broadcasting, taking out the helm of the Roots ‘N All Program have this transition to the other side of the desk. Do you feel that it's changed your relationship with music?

[Nkechi]: Yeah, I've become a much bigger fan and audience member. And I love it [laughs]. When I first started, um, I was just so excited cause I got to go to heaps of festivals for free. And so I just went to every festival I could find and being an audience member thing, but it's made me really love and appreciate music.

And also just like seeing artists grow musically. It's like my favourite thing. I want artists to feel really welcomed into this space. Um, and, and seeing them grow and wanting to be there to nurture them in a positive way has been a really big thing that I've held, held close to myself. Um, especially as a presenter, if I interview artists, I want them to feel like if this is their first interview, I want the experience to be a good one.

And I want to be honest with people. Um, and I also want to just give people a platform, even if they're new, it doesn't matter how established they are, if what they're doing is good; um, I want them on my show. Um, but in saying that it's also been really interesting as someone who hated doing interviews and in hindsight was quite arrogant when it came to doing interviews. Cause you get, cause I used to get asked them the same shit questions. Like what's it like being female? What's it like being like, Oh, that's an interesting name. Where does that come from? Like making sure that the questions are like really good and, and that they feel like, they've been, like that they're really listened to.

But I've also experienced like interviewing artists who complete dicks. And, and, and because I know that I've probably been like that in some interviews - realising how much energy that person has put into talking to an artist. And it's like, they're not doing it for their benefit. Like I'm not talking to an artist because I think I'm doing them a great favour.

I'm talking to an artist cause I think what they are saying or creating is really important. And I want to find out more. Um, and it's not to boost my ego or to boost my show it's because I’m, I'm, I'm genuinely intrigued by them and I want, I want to give them as much space as possible to, to be discovered by other people.

Um, so that's been interesting. And then also like conversations about artists, like being on that other side and being in radio and, and being around heaps of people that listen to heaps of music and have that, that, um, library of information that I never ever have, um, has been so cool as well, like being around like Zan Rowe - who's one, like is my radio idol and Tim Shield and Henry Wagons and all the Triple J people and seeing how much they love music and can really understand the cultural significance of it or the connections within things has been really cool too. Yeah.

[Chelsea]: Has it given you any insights into the music industry or altered your take on how the industry works?

[Nkechi]: Kind of, I have much more appreciation for people who are trying to facilitate spaces to have performances. I know I've talked a lot of shit towards that, but I do have a lot of empathy for people wanting to create spaces for art. Has it changed things? I don't. I definitely, yes. My, my step into radio was literally a step, which other people go through a lot of, like, do the hours before they reached triple J I came on as a guest and then got asked to stay, which is ridiculous. And so I was building my networks and learning how to stand up for myself and say, I don't like this music because A, B and C to a manager of a band or to a publisher with like scary, or like standing up, um, standing up to the language that I wanted to be like, how I want it to be addressed and saying, I'm not playing your artists.

I don't care. How many times you send me an email. Like, I don't, I don't like this song. And that's my right. As a, as a broadcaster who, who curates my playlist to say that. I don't. I really don't like the side of things – this is a side of the industry that I hate is the egos, egos of the people in the industry who are not the creatives.

But I appreciate that sometimes it takes those personalities to fight for an artist.

[Chelsea]: I think, I mean you go to big sound and there's a lot of people there who I just, you know, you go, are they here? Because they think working in music is cool or do they really love music?

[Nkechi]: Well sometimes people in the industry talk as if they're the artists. And from my experience, working with people in the industry, there are some people who in the industry. Who are bigger divas than the artists and the artists that actually catering to the egos of their managers instead of the managers, catering to their artists. And I have a really big issue with that.

That's my hate about the Australian industry. It is really fucking bad in the Australian industry. You have these artists who are starving, who are working multiple jobs so they can perform and go into debt. And then you have these managers who like to take the artists plus ones at festivals and like tickets from the artists' festivals so that they can sit around, drink for free and talk shit with other people who are managers doing the same thing, but they're not, I'm like, you're not doing any work right now.

Maybe some are like, I know you have to like, meet, like meet people to get things done. And I'm not saying this for everyone. There are definitely some people in this industry that I saw like come in because want to, their mate’s bands to do something great. And have gone on to create record labels and be managers for heaps of bands and take them there may expand into international markets and succeed.

And I'm just like, If I had that brain and that ability to do that for a friend or do that for a band that I'm so passionate about. Like, Holy shit, that's so amazing. And I have so much respect for them, but there are a lot of people who are not like that who come into this industry because they hustlers in, in the most self-serving sense.

You do have to be a hustler to be an artist, uh, regardless. But like I see, them doing it in a really narcissistic self-serving sense and I hate that deeply. When I go to Big Sound, it's like, I just want to talk to the artists. I want to find out what they're doing. What do they want? If they're like, Hey, I've sent you a song blah, blah, blah.

Sometimes I get artists will send me songs before their publishers is even send me music. Like I'll, I'll say that I get their email the day before. And I'm like, you should ditch your publisher because I'd rather have a relationship with you and find out about this music through you. But I also understand as an artist that I hate doing the admin.

And so they have a purpose. But yeah. I try to maintain relationships with the artists and their manager it as well. Like I don't, which might just be a unique thing about Roots ‘N All, because it's kind of like everything else that like, it's the in-between of Triple J's music. Um, I've got a lot of freedom and I'm not like stuck to one specific genre.

Um, and I'm more grassroots, if anything. So it means that I do end up speaking to artists a lot more than I do speak to managers, but there's like that old salty dog of a muso in me. That's I just want to hang out with my people who are musicians and find out about them and find out what I can do to help them, or, or like hopefully have good advice to them or some experience in what they're doing that I can, I can be like a sounding board or, well, let them know my opinion. But also like the scary side of that is that sometimes you have artists that come to you who put their hours in and created all these, like put the hours in the time, the blood, sweat, and tears to create these artistic works. And then they come to you and they're like, “Can you tell me what will make me successful?”.

And I really hate that as well. Like I've had to, I definitely, when I got this job at triple J had to put in like a line with my friends, cause a lot of my friends are musicians. Telling them, you can talk to me about your music, but there is, there's like a line that I will not let you cross with me. I'll, I'll put my foot down when I feel like I don't want to talk to you about this anymore. And they respect that. Um, which I'm really grateful for too.

[Chelsea]: Um, I wanted to ask you about radio quotas because you know, there's been a lot of advocating in the Australian music space about reviewing our quotas. I know Triple J is such a champion for Australian music and play beyond those kinds of base quotas. Um, I think the hack report said that out of the top 100 songs played on Australian radio across 58 stations last year, only 21 out of that hundred were by solo female artists or female groups, which is just kind of crazy. Um, but also the university of South Australia - and I'm reading some quotes to you here - um, say that men make up 80% of presenters on radio in Australia, which is huge. So, you know, how, how do you think we can go about, about this?

You know, can we approach adjusting these quotas in a kind of inclusive and ethical way?

[Nkechi]: [laughs] I've got so much to say on this. I don't even know where to start. Yeah. There’s a shit ton of men that work on radio, but I think that's a reflection of Australia. I don't think it's unique to the industry. I do believe to some extent that we should have quotas around certain things, certain areas that are extremely lacking, not necessarily quotas on people, uh, I think we need quotas of like, we need to make space for this if they're asking for it. And if, you know what I mean? Um, like we have a lack of disability. We've got a very ableist culture in Australia and we have a lack of, uh, people with disabilities that are on air and have voices on air across national stations.

Like Dylan Alcott’s probably the exception to the rule there. Realistically he's like the only one as well. I think it's about having opportunity like we said before, to give people that opportunity to be in those spaces and to learn and to be at that at the level of good. Cause I think that's the other thing that people have the argument around is ‘are they the best fit?’, which is another way of being extremely exclusionary. In the same breath, I know that from my experience with The Pin, like we did a panel and because we connected with an organisation, they have a mandate that the percentage of people on panels that they're associated with have to have a certain percentage of men, women, people of colour, of sexual orientation - and for the purpose of our panel, we did that because we wanted the financial support to pay the people that were on our panel.

But it meant that we fucked our panel up because the representation wasn't conducive to the conversation that we wanted to actually have. So I find there is fault with like, it's not perfect, but I think we need to be opening up channels of opportunity and up-skilling. We, it's not like, “Oh shit, we haven't, we don't have enough women. Let's start hiring them”. My, my thought process is “Unless they're there already are women at that stage, um, who should just be given the space anyway and should be thought of”, but like, I definitely really believe in the type of management that is enriching and provides opportunities for people. So getting people at every kind of level coming up and giving them the opportunity to continue to step up, because that's realistically what's happened to the men who, the majority of these industry - they've come in at a whatever level and then been offered a hand up continuously, whereas that's not happened to women. And they either at management are like, at a managerial level, there's probably like the equal amount of women to men. And then you lose that at the higher and higher you get, because they're not being given that opportunity to step up.

And I think it's because like men characteristically hire, uh, guys that have the same thought process or like look like them represent the same ideas as them quite easily. Even if there's a female applying for liberal, that makes the, um, the expertise and experience that they're after - but maybe does not reflect the person hiring them.

I think the reason why we have a lot of men in our industry at these levels is because it reflects the people at the top - and the people at the top of men. So of course, they're going to hire someone that feels safe and familiar to themselves. Like when I think about music and the way that I curate for my show, like I have a very African leaning because it's, it's what I love and what I'm passionate about. And it's what I unconsciously have a bias towards. Um, and I feel like that's the same with our hiring practices. I think we definitely need to have more opportunity to get to places where we're uncomfortable and hire people that may not be the fit that we're comfortable with, but who have a really relevant voice and a really relevant perspective that people are crying out for.

It's hard. And I know like Triple J is trying to correct that. Uh, somewhat. And I feel like ABC's somewhat trying to correct that, but who knows, it's really hard to change a system and a culture so quickly, as we know, as women who have been working since, for like, since the forties and fifties, Like, we're still kind of screwed when it comes to these things.

And we've had like decades to try and fix this. I don't think it's, there's going to be a quick fix and I'm not a fan of band-aid lack of like, “Oh, we don't have enough black people let's hire a black person”. Know what I mean? And then they fail and then they say, well, this is why we don't hire people like you. I feel like we need to nurture. We need to give people that nurturing experience to come up. Like if someone's not qualified, give them the opportunity to get that qualification. If someone's inexperienced, give them the opportunity to have that experience, give them that opportunity to grow and be the right fit.

[Chelsea]: I have one more question for you. I wanted to talk about the Spice Girls. I heard they had an effect on you.

[Nkechi]: Yeah [laughs].

[Chelsea]: So do you think the Spice Girls’ idea of girl power, like how does that sort of work in 2020?

[Nkechi]: The Spice Girls Girl Power was the first wave of feminists that I think a lot of kids in the nineties felt that was our first step into feminism.

Because young 20-year-old women saying girls rock, we're going to take over the world. We're invincible, we're unstoppable. And nothing you can just say or do is going to get in our way - to a nice pop song [laughs]. While looking amazing wearing these ridiculously cool outfits and representing multiple dimensions of femininity to a certain extent.

So yes, it's being caricatured and yes, it completely sucked that the one black character, sorry the one black Spice Girls, was called scary spice. Which talks speaks a lot about the way that black women are seen, but at the stage when the Spice Girls came out, I was desperate for any form of representation that kind of reflected who I was like seeing a black woman with an afro that loves music. As a biracial girl in Australia, that also has an afro hidden under plats that loves music and loves singing and wanted someone that looked like her to tell her it was okay. The Spice Girls were amazing.

[Chelsea]: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me Nkechi.

[Nkechi]: It’s been an absolute pleasure. It's so nice to like talk to somebody about this industry and, and also like it's very random - I feel women rarely get together and talk about this openly. And so it's really great to be part of this as well.

[Chelsea]: That was Nkechi Anele- I was inspired, moved and uplifted by our chat. I think conversations about mental health and wellbeing for artists are so important – we rarely talk about burnout or how to deal with sudden fame; how to cope with huge amounts of debt; the disappointments; or the sadness and or trauma when bands and collaborations end – even when things end on a high note, it’s a lot to process. If you need to chat to someone please contact Support Act or beyond blue. You can catch Nkechi every week on triple J’s Roots N All and check out her work on the pin.com. Info in the show notes.

You’ve been listening to Control. The episode was produced by Chelsea Wilson and edited by Amy Chapman with support from City of Melbourne’s Quick Response COVID recovery grants. This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Kulin Nations with respect to elders past present and emerging.

Until next time Chelsea Wilson signing off.