Yemi Alade Reveals the Harsh Realities Women Face in the music Industry

It’s a well-known issue that women in the Nigerian music industry face more challenges than their male counterparts.

This sentiment, shared by both men and women in the industry, often meets skepticism, with critics claiming it’s exaggerated or unsupported by evidence.
In a recent interview with The Beat 99.9FM, singer Yemi Alade discussed her personal experiences of gender-based unfair treatment in the music industry. Here’s what she had to say.
Yemi Alade spoke about her experiences in the music industry, highlighting the unfair treatment that women often face as she stated.

YEMI ALADE: I’ve come to understand that it is a difficult road for female musicians. It’s difficult for guys too oh, don’t get it wrong. Guys are dealing, they are a dime a dozen. So for us. But we have unwritten challenges. People want us to prove ourselves two hundred times over even when we have the biggest lead single.

Let’s take for instance there was a time when I had a lead single. I was still coming up. I had a lead single and another guy had a lead single, and his lead single wasn’t even up to fifty percent of mine in terms of the reach the song had had. But he was still given preference over me. They didn’t want to pay me. They said “which other song does she have?” and the other guy sef no get any other song, he just dey try. But my own was cut throat that I had to prove myself. My manager had to jack his trouser! If he did not jack his trouser, I won’t have seen 2 kobo that day.

But I had performed at over five hundred free shows, and I was still going for the free shows. I had both a name and there was talk around town that Yemi is such a fantastic stage performer, but nobody was willing to cut 5 naira, any cheque, for this girl. But my fellow guys who didn’t have up to that, they were getting paid.

So those difficulties are the things that I have overcome and I always say t0 my fellow woman, let’s stop being the victims. It’s already a man’s world, let’s deal with that. All we just have to do is show up and show out. And that’s what I’ve been operating with. Show up, show out. Let the talk about you be great and bigger than any bad talk anybody has to say about you.