PRODUCERS AS PREDATORS
Music industry confronts its own history of abuse
NEW YORK Jessie Woo just wanted to sing. So when the budding vocalist met a successful music producer who told her he wanted to help her with her music, she believed him.
Then, one night seven years ago, the producer raped her, she said.
It was not the only time she was preyed upon by male producers early in her career, said Woo, a cast member of VH1’s Love & Hip Hop Miami and host of several programs for BET Networks.
“With these producers, they’re putting you in rooms that you’ve dreamt of. You’re in the studio with artists like ... Lil Wayne, you’re seeing T-Pain, you’re seeing Beyoncé. You’re just seeing all these people stop by,” she said.
“So, you’re like, ‘OK, this person is a little creepy, but I have to be here ... I’m in the right place, I just got to manoeuvre around this person’s creepiness. I got to figure out how to dodge the bullet.’ And you’re dodging somebody who is set out to abuse you.”
Other women navigating the pop music industry have started to speak out about similar experiences as the #MeToo movement topples powerful men in Hollywood, politics, business and more.
As in those arenas, women can often find themselves being abused, sometimes sexually, by powerful men who hold the keys to success.
In 2017, Jessie Reyez, the singer who co-wrote the recent Calvin Harris hits One Kiss (with Dua Lipa) and Promises (with Sam Smith), released a powerful short film for her song Gatekeeper. In it, she describes how a producer harassed her: “Oh I’m the gatekeeper/ Spread your legs/ Open up/ You could be famous/ If you come up anywhere else, I’ll erase you.”
Last year, she identified her tormentor as music producer Noel (Detail) Fisher, who won a Grammy for co-writing the Beyoncé and Jay-Z hit Drunk in Love. Reyez said he had tried to belittle and demean her for not having sex with him, and for not having sex to advance her career.
Attempts to reach Fisher — who has also produced hits for Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Wiz Khalifa and more — for comment about her allegation and others that followed were unsuccessful. Calls to phone numbers linked to him and to his relatives went unanswered.
Reyez’s accusations were echoed by others who painted Fisher as a serial abuser.
“#METOO No wonder why I connected with your song GateKeepers @jessiereyez,” singer Bebe Rexha, 29, wrote on Instagram in May 2018. “He tried the same thing with me. I was just 19. I ran out of the studio crying. Awful Human.”
Another singer, Tinashe, commented on Rexha’s post: “The only session I’ve been in to this day where I left due to being soooo uncomfortable. Glad he’s being exposed for the (expletive) creep he is. Disgusting.”
Fisher has yet to enter a legal response to either of the cases filed last year, and attempts to find a lawyer representing him were unsuccessful.
Lawyer Genie Harrison, representing two of his accusers, said her clients “chose to hold Detail accountable” and are letting “other victims know they are not alone.”
“Whether it’s in music, or film, or corporate America, the abuse of power to coerce sex must end. The brave #MeTooInMusic victims who come forward will help accomplish this goal,” Harrison said.
Some allegations were made long before the #MeToo movement, which started in the wake of reports of sexual misconduct by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Lady Gaga, 32, said a music producer sexually assaulted her when she was 19 — before she released her debut album in 2008 and became a multiplatinum, Grammy- and Oscar-winning superstar.
“It’s something in my life that’s always really kind of defined me up until this point,” Gaga, told the AP in 2016.
For years, pop singer Kesha has been battling her former producer, Dr. Luke, in court after she claimed he drugged, sexually abused and psychologically tormented her — allegations that Dr. Luke, who has crafted hits for Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears and more, has denied. He has not been charged.
And of course, R. Kelly — a multiplatinum R&B superstar who also has created smashes for Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Maxwell and many more — has pleaded not guilty to charges with aggravated sexual abuse involving four victims, including at least three between the ages of 13 and 17.
For Kelly, the charges are just the latest in a long line of accusations against him. He was accused of child pornography for allegedly having sex with a preteen but was acquitted in 2008. He also secretly married his then protege, the late R&B superstar Aaliyah, when she was just 15.
The marriage was later annulled. Kelly has been accused of luring women with promises of helping their music careers, then abusing them. Some women have accused him of keeping them essentially as slaves. He has denied all allegations abuse, and his lawyer called him an “innocent man.”
Others continue to come forward with new allegations against powerful men in the industry. Earlier this month, in a New York Times report, several women claimed Ryan Adams — the critically acclaimed, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter who also worked as a producer for Willie Nelson, Jenny Lewis and more — offered to help them with their music careers but then turned things sexual, and he sometimes became emotional and verbally abusive.
In response, Adams acknowledged he was not “a perfect man” and had made mistakes but called the report inaccurate.
Adams has cancelled a planned tour of the U.K. and Ireland in the wake of the scandal.