#THESHOWMUSTBEPAUSED

At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, the request for the respect of black faces, black bodies, and black representation is no longer the minimum. Black and brown communities, and every other community, are now demanding the respect, alliance, and reformation of companies and organizations who had previously hidden behind veils of covert racism. True to the new millennium wave of social media, these companies and organizations were called out…. via hashtags!

One of the hashtags that dominated many-a IG news feed was #TheShowMustBePaused. Created by two music industry professionals Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas, #TheShowMustBePaused, also known as Blackout Tuesday (June 2), was a direct response to the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others at the hands of police brutality.

Agyemang and Thomas, –by the way, did I mention these ladies are Senior Directors of Marketing at Atlantic Records?! #BlackFemaleExecs! Okay, cool. Agyemang and Thomas’s initiative intentionally “disrupted the workweek to bring attention to the long-standing racism from the boardroom to the boulevard”. As continued in their IG post “the music industry is a multi-billion dollar industry; an industry that has profited predominately off black art. Our mission is to hold the industry at large, including major corporation plus their partners who benefit from the efforts, struggles, and success of black people accountable”.

Amen to that! So how have they done since June 2? Outstandingly, I’ll say! Since then, these powerful music mavens have propelled conversations across multiple platforms, across seas (see UK music industry reports), and with multiple large corporations, including Apple, Soundcloud, and Billboard Magazine, whose cover they also graced in June 2020.

Of course, we still have a long way to go until true equality, but even slow progress is still progress.