written by Chelsea Hofland, music journalist

"There’s not really a singular experience. One of my greatest joys is watching people enjoy themselves. That includes watching bands and seeing how excited they get about their craft. It’s magical. And being able to contribute to that for bands as well as audiences is magical. Sometimes it’s the night that changes their lives."

"I always say that the best thing in 2011 was Spotify coming to the US. I graduated from university the same year, but some things are more important ;-). Suddenly I had access to the entire music catalogue across the globe. That’s incredible! Later on, I was finishing up my degree in MBA and there was a course about data. I saw a predictive model and it was amazing. I went to work in marketing and realised I needed data to be a better marketeer. Then I got my masters in data science and started combining music with data."

"Artists speak in a language of creativity and storytelling. Usually not in numbers. Working with data means still using your gut feeling, but validating these feelings with data. A scientist always creates an experiment based on a hypothesis. Data will prove if they are right or not. For instance: “This song will work really well”. Great hypothesis, but you can use data to check if that’s true. Look at other songs like yours and see how they used their marketing to promote the song, which markets they focused on and more."

"We did a campaign with an artist who didn't do music in a long time, so we needed to re-engage her audience. Data was a big help to see how fans in different regions viewed the artist. Our goal was for her to be taken more seriously. The results? The comments about her songs changed. Earlier they spoke more about her beauty, and now the narrative had shifted towards the songs."

"I don’t think there’ll be lots of robots making music. I’ve heard very few artists wanting to spend less time on making music. I think AI can help artists do what they don’t love. I speak to lots of artists who don’t want to be an influencer, creating content. So, they ask AI to help create TikTok videos. Or if an artist isn’t excited about legal, they can ask AI to help them understand their contract."

"FemTech is technology created by women. It’s not the best word, because it normalises that tech was always men-based. But that is the truth. Often times, women have to create spaces for themselves to exist. To have a voice. To be of importance. FemTech is about making yourself invaluable as a tech creator. Create that tool for a company that makes the difference! That’s how underrepresented voices, such as female ones, are able to rise.

And that’s important to occur, because it’s about representation. It’s hard to see yourself do a job if you haven't seen anyone like you do it before."

"Give a shit – instead of pretending to give a shit. Do the thing. Hire more diverse people. There are no more steps. Don’t SAY you are doing the thing, actually do it. All other stuff will come into place. That happens automatically when you bring in different people."

"Chapell Roan, RAYE, Tanner Adell, Nova Twins and Meet Me @ The Altar."

"My friend Hazel runs this really cool company called Musiio. It’s so powerful. It lets you identify the mood, tone and sound from a song. Perfect for people working in sync.

AudioShake is amazing too. Run by Jessica Powell. It splits music in stems.

TuneCore is currently run by Andreea Gleeson. It’s technology for self-releasing artists and helps them with distribution, publishing administration, and promotion.

And lastly, Downtown Music who help creators and companies with publishing, royalties, distribution and administration. Molly Neuman runs CD Baby there."

"Most of the work I do is to get more people that don't suck to work in music. That includes women, people of colour, queer people. I hope they’re motivated and inspired after the panel."

"Someone like Tyla, Burna Boy or BLACKPINK. Countries like India, Nigeria, South-East Asia and South America are on the rise, economy-wise. The same goes for Spanish-speaking countries."

"I’m not cool enough to know who these people are. Oh, wait! Jordan Adetunji. He has a song about Kehlani, the singer. And later on, he managed to get Kehlani on the remix. It’s amazing."