Wilco's Jeff Tweedy tells us why he's calling for reparations in the music industry: “American culture is black culture”
Tweedy’s plan, while conversant with and influenced by the idea of reparations, is, at the moment, still structured to redistribute money to traditional non-profit organizations, rather than to individual victims of music-industry-wide racial injustice. It is focused, for now, on the publishing wing of the industry, which Tweedy sees as a focal point for a great deal of the economic racial injustice that has historically taken place in music.
Thus far, Tweedy has been disappointed by the lack of support, public or private, by his fellow artists for the idea he’s proposed. One of the precious few artists who have joined Tweedy’s call to action is Nashville singer-songwriter Erin Rae. “When I saw Jeff’s tweet, it really energized me,” says Rae, who’s already reached out to her performing rights organization, SESAC, to see if it’d be possible to implement the opt-in option.
So, with everything that’s been happening the past few months, like a lot of people, I’ve taken it as a call to be introspective and listen and examine what my role in it is. On one hand, I feel like I could pat myself on the back and say, “Well, this is stuff I’ve been aware of and have tried to be on the right side of and be an ally,” and I think that is mostly true.
It’s not an exaggeration to say our culture wouldn’t be our culture without black genius. There’s a shameful history there, and there are things the industry should still be ashamed of. There are things about the way black artists are treated today that are different and unfair. It’s always been something that I thought, “Surely, in an industry that is so full of forward momentum and progressive ideals, and really being at the forefront of integration and a lot of things that the music business should be very proud of, in my opinion…” You can be proud of having led, in some regards, but it’s not going to last for long if you don’t commit to the full picture. To me, the full picture embraces the finances and the economy of how things have played out in our country.
For a black artist to succeed, almost across the board, most of them have needed to have a white audience, and that’s part of what we were talking about before — what kind of venues they have access to, what kind of financial state their black brothers and sisters are in. A lot of these communities do not have disposable income for concert-going.
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