Studies of song They are surely the most masculinized space in an industry already full of men.. The Catalan producer and DJ Awwz released an album last July, ‘Ladah temple’, made only with women because just by working with them he stopped feeling a “weight on him” that he often feels when he makes music with boys. Because not only the spaces are masculine, but also the dynamics. “Since I wasn’t comfortable enough in the studio or I couldn’t work as naturally as I wanted, I decided to start saying no to the men who contacted me to work and I focused on only women,” says Awwz, artistic name of Gem.
From that feeling that he defines as “weight on top” – “it is still another branch of the patriarchy where we come from”, he points out – a documentary short film entitled ‘Women in the studio’, which was screened on Saturday at the Aribau cinema as part of the In-edit Festival programme. From that feeling and from a data from a balance on music and gender of the USC Annenberg that indicates that there are less than 3% of women producers. “It is growing but very little by little, there are no female references in production, and it is very important that we create references for them,” says Awwz, who during her career has promoted projects aimed at promoting production among women. “In my case -continues the Catalan-, I didn’t think about the fact that I was a woman until I came out in the press and they always highlighted that “girl”, “woman”… Then I understood that there were very few and that, above all , there were no referents”.
The album and the documentary, directed by Marina Espinach and commanded by the Catalan producer but also with the presence of eight other artists (LaBlackie, RRUCCULLA, Simona, Ange, Demmy Sober, Tina Pámpano, Kristy V. and Ayy Den), has the will to act as a speaker for thoughts and situations that all of them have experienced while making music (not exactly the aforementioned ‘Ladah temple’). “There is no awareness about it and we wanted to make it visible,” says Awwz. Simona, an Argentine singer based in Barcelona, tells, for example, how once the discomfort of being surrounded by men in a studio affected her voices since she felt self-conscious. “There is a magic in producing a song in a space where you are comfortable, it comes out in another way,” Ange points out in the documentary. And she just so happens (or doesn’t) that many first times are in the company of men, which tends to make beginnings difficult.
Daily examples in their careers that come to reduce their artistic capacity and their projection“There are times when you’re in a studio surrounded by guys and it’s hard for your voice to carry weight… Or it’s like it’s assumed that you don’t quite know what you’re doing,” Awwz explains. Or directly: “I have had to say no to going to a studio because in reality what they wanted was to have something sexual and not work”. These attitudes in the industry are transferred to all corners, says Awwz, who, for example, has been transferred the ask “are you coming alone?” when preparing a live show. “They say it as if thinking that a technical man is missing,” he ditches. Coincidence or not ‘Ladha temple’, the album that has served as a pretext for this documentary, is, as he explains Awwz in the short, his work “more comfortable, more sincere, with different productions of mine without losing my sound than I have ever done”.