On Tuesday, celebs like Harry Styles, Pharrell Williams, and Lady Gaga began sharing images for the Black Music Action Coalition, a new organization founded by Black music executives. “Our Coalition consists of artists, producers, songwriters, managers, business managers, attorneys and other passionate industry professionals who are deeply concerned about systemic racism—not only in society at large, but within our own house—the music business,” the coalition wrote on their website.
Formed in alliance with #TheShowMustBePaused, another current initiative to address racism in the music industry, the BMAC has an extensive list of high-profile signees including celebrity artists but also executives on the board like Binta Niambi Brown, who oversees Chance the Rapper’s label, and head of Urban Music at Columbia Records Shawn Holiday, to name a few. There’s also an advisory board which includes Quincy Jones, Rolling Stone reports. Some of the names involved have a lot of work to do. (Meghan Trainor has signed on, but she’s also spent most of her career appropriating.)
BMAC describes itself to Rolling Stone as an “advocacy and trade organization,” not a union. As for the plan going forward, the BMAC wants to create “a review that specifically examines: inequities in the treatment of Black artists, the recruitment, advancement and salary parity of Black executives, and a general analysis of how your company will make things right by Black artists, executives and the greater community,” as well as determining how funds designated to fight racism are used.