The 23by23 campaign: a progress report

Late last year, DJs Sydney Blu and Rebekah Teasdale – who usually operates under just her first name – started a new campaign called 23by23. The idea behind it? To increase the percentage of women releasing music on dance’s biggest labels to 23% by the end of 2023.

As far as goals go, it’s modest to the point of pathetic. As Ears To The House has argued previously, the answer to this problem is for women to back themselves by starting their own labels and supporting each other – thus when they start gaining traction, the bigger labels will be forced to take notice.

Instead, Blu and Teasdale are relying on the old boys network that apparently prevent women from releasing more music to fix the problem. Dodgy logic aside, how are they getting on with their mission? Ears To The House investigated, and this is what we saw.

On taking a look at their very modern website, there isn’t much to see. The events calendar seems to show no forthcoming events for at least the next 12 months – and all the previous events appear to be remix contests. Somehow, 23by23 have got the idea that remix contests – where you own none of the rights to the work you do and even a winning entry doesn’t guarantee you a release – are now liberating.

No publicity appears to be on the horizon, either. The blitz of events and interviews when the campaign was launched has totally dried up – which is hardly surprising after considering the dance music press almost never follow up on their own stories. The few events which do exist are purely advertised on the social media pages.

Speaking of the socials, the news is a little more encouraging there, with frequent promotion of music by female artists, but the focus yet again seems to be heavily on their remix contests. And one thing which never appears to be explained anywhere is how they’ll help keep those who win these contests in the public eye afterwards.

All in all, some work done, much left to do. We just hope, for their sake, that their PR guy at Additive Music has upped his game ever since sharing a horrendously bad review of “Mattel” by Masters At Work from our Amateur’s House days…


Incidentally, those of you wondering about #ForTheMusic, Rebekah Teasdale’s other campaign – a progress report on that is forthcoming soon…

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