Spotify to highlight women creators with Equal campaign

“When we give more power to creators, we’re giving their art the freedom to shape the future,” said Spotify in a statement.

The full Equal campaign includes: 

• Celebrating women creators around the world, with the launch of Equal Hub, takeovers of flagship Spotify playlists and partner playlists. 
  • The Equal Hub is a dedicated space on-platform to highlight women creators and allow fans to seamlessly stream their music and podcasts. It will extend beyond March and is programmed globally. 
  • Over 200 of our top Spotify playlists like Today’s Top Hits, Viva Latino and Modus Mio will feature women on all of their playlist covers to celebrate and amplify awareness on the platform and ensure that even more fans have the opportunity to listen.
  • Some of our non-profit partners, including Girls Make Beats, She’s The Music, Sound Girls, Glaad, Color of Change, Women in Music and Women’s Audio Mission will create unique Spotify playlists highlighting artists who are leading and shaping the future of music.  

• Amplifying stories from women with Womn, a new music and talk show with episodes released throughout the day on 8 March. 
  • A diverse group of women creators, influencers and cultural figures will discuss women-centred content and share their reflections on music that inspired them. Encouraging others to listen to more women too.
  • The dynamic voices include Tokimonsta, Jenny Lorenzo, Spotify’s Dope Labs hosts Titi Shodiya and Zakiya Whately, Jazzmyne Robbins and more.

• Supporting women voices with a new invite-only Equal Board. Made up of 15 organisations from around the world, Spotify’s Equal Board will provide each organisation with a one-time grant and work together on tangible ways to make the audio industry more equitable for women creators.
• Engaging fans by encouraging them to 'flex their power to listen’ and to play more women, no matter the day. With data-driven social videos highlighting the breadth of content on Spotify created by women. And also with social share cards, empowering fans to share their recommendations of women creators.
• Extending its commitment to women creators beyond March. In April, Spotify will be launching the Equal music programme, fostering equity for women in 50 countries from Japan to Argentina and from Malaysia to the UK. It also aims to continue to build on the success of programmes like Sound Up and EQL that provide new opportunities for women creators in audio. 

The streaming platform also celebrated the top-streamed women artists and podcast creators globally (based on streaming data from January 1-February 22, 2021). Taylor Swift takes the top spot with more than 2.3 billion streams. Ariana Grande is up next, followed by Dua Lipa. Additional top streamed women artists include Halsey, Karol G and Blackpink. Crime Junkie hosts Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat are the most popular women podcast creators globally, followed by Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper. Additional popular women podcast creators include Elise Hu, Host of Ted Talks Daily and Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, hosts of My Favorite Murder.

Spotify indicated that it takes its responsibility of highlighting and amplifying women voices seriously by curating top audio destinations for women artists with global playlists like Women of Electronic, Women of K-Pop, Women of Rock and Galdem - Queens to name a few. And also women-led podcasts like Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel, Science Vs and Supernatural with Ashley Flowers.