" I think socioeconomic status and background is one of the key areas where the music industry isn’t diverse enough."

Today's guest is Lara Baker, General Manager at FUGA for the UK & Ireland. On top of being named in Billboard's International Power Players 2022, she was also honoured with Music Week’s Women in Music Roll of Honour and SheSaidSo's Alternative Power List. She is passionate about improving diversity, gender balance and inclusivity in the music business. She has sat on UK Music’s Diversity Taskforce, supported the Love Music Hate Racism campaign and organised regular women in music and diversity-focused events. Lara joined FUGA in early 2023. She came from Songtrust/Downtown Music Publishing, where Lara worked for 4 years as Director of Business Development for the UK, IE and Australia. Lara's background and passion have always been supporting independent labels and artists. Her music career began in 2004 at AIM (the UK trade association for independent labels), where Lara spent 14 years serving the independent community, ultimately as Marketing and Events Director. During this time she created the AIM Awards, the leading celebration of independent music, as well as AIM's year-round programme events including AIM Connected, AIM Sync conference and Indie-Con (now known as Future Independents). There is a lot to talk about and Marc and Lara definitely get into it.

FUGA is the world's leading B2B music distributor. FUGA is the number one choice for some of the world’s top labels, management companies and distributors, including Epitaph Records, Ultra, Curb, Mom + Pop, mTheory and Domino. As GM UK/IE, Lara's role leads new business and client relations for the territory.

Show Notes:

#HowWeListen Live: In Conversation

FUGA

AIM

WIN

Merlin

Songtrust/Downtown Music

Women in Music Awards

shesaid.so

Keychange

Black Music Coalition,

Women in CTRL,

00:10 - Byta.com

03:52 - Getting started, school & first job

04:50 - Music business school

07:57 - Socioeconomics and background

09:00 - AIM getting its start

12:16 - Why indies needed help

15:52 - The Big wins at AIM when I was there, Spotify/MTV…

18:00 - Merlin and WIN explained

21:15 - Diversity in music not reflected in the organization

25:00 - Women in Music Awards, genesis

26:38 - Mentoring

28:50 - The gender pay gap, really bugs me!

36:45 - The Socioeconomic barriers

41:00 - Byta.com

43:00 - Things have changed, what artists need to do and how FUGA helps

46:00 - The Hives.

52:00 - More initiatives

54:10 - Byta.com

Music by Fin Productions and Oliver Lyu

Artwork by Jen Pmphrey

Hosted by Marc Brown

Series coordinated by Jamie Ford

Produced and edited by Colin MacKenzie

Music by Fin Productions and Oliver Lyu