Inaugural Black Music Summit to be held in Ibiza next year

As the news breaks that Ibiza will host the first-ever conference devoted solely to Black music culture, we catch up with co-founder Jordan Hallpike to discuss why the time is now for increasing diversity and inclusivity within the top tiers of the industry.

You were the musical director of Ibiza Rocks and stayed with the brand for 12 years. How did that role influence your decision to create the Black Music Summit? 

I came through various iterations of a role at Ibiza Rocks, but effectively I was always involved in the curation of the talent and the conceptualization of the events. Ibiza Rocks very much started in the world of indie and rock and guitar music. As the company started to pivot away from that music scene, I realised there was a void for something new and that was really when I started to dip into my love of Black music and book more Black artists and explore more genres of the Black sound. I worked very closely with a lot of fantastic people at Ibiza Rocks and I love the island very dearly. I was also very inspired by events and summits and conferences that I've been to in the past. I'm a huge lover of electronic music so every year I go to IMS. I go to ADE. I’ve been to Miami’s Winter Music Conference. I always knew something was missing and I didn’t know what that was until suddenly it was glaringly obvious.

Was there a catalyst for getting this idea off the ground?

This grain of an idea had been with me for quite some time but the real turning point came last year when I was invited to speak on a panel at Abbey Road Studios. It was about a year after the death of George Floyd and the global spring of the Black Lives Matter movement. There was a palpable mindset shift. A lot of conversations were being held, a lot of pledges were being made by infleuntial organisations and people. Myself and Kenny Eshinlokun, the founder of creative agency Taboo, began to explore some ideas together. It was very clear to see that the tide was turning and the idea for the BMS was born.

What do you hope to achieve with the event and why?

It’s a moment of collaboration within the Black music community and we are all united by the same mission - that we want to see greater representation within the music industry behind the scenes. Because, in front of the scenes, in many aspects of entertainment, Black culture is thriving. Whether it's the charts, whether it's on TV, whether it's live shows. But there are some astonishing statistics around the disparity between what we listen to on the radio, what we see on the TV and the people that are actually making decisions behind the scenes. We’ve all had our own journeys to get where we are, but there are still barriers for growth and barriers for progression for many Black people. In fact 88 percent of Black people that were interviewed have said that there are still barriers to their career progression. And this isn’t just about seats at the table, it's about seats at the top tables. Because that creates the trickle-down effect, which gets more people into entry level positions. When people at the bottom can see themselves at the top, that’s when real change kicks in.

Why did you choose Ibiza as a launchpad for the event?

Ibiza is the perfect place for us to create this because there is already an empathy here and there are movements towards greater representation and greater equity. But in terms of line-ups, in terms of events, in terms of spaces that Black people feel like they can occupy, I do feel like we are underrepresented in Ibiza. You only have to look at the online clubbing calendars to see who's performing and see the type of events they are playing: there isn't a huge representation of Black people there. And I find that especially interesting because Ibiza is the island of house music – a genre that was quite literally created in Chicago's predominantly Black nightlife scene. 

What kind of support have you garnered both in Ibiza and the UK?

WME are supporting me with this project as I’m doing it as part of my day job, which is great. And we've got key stakeholders from the Black music community. We've effectively built a creative council of 14 prominent voices within Black culture who will act as a steering committee. They all came over for a launch event in Ibiza last month. We hosted the wild corner at Hï for the Martinez Brothers closing party, which was incredible, with a really diverse sonic soundtrack. It’s crucial that we showcase that Black music doesn’t just mean hip-hop: it means hip-hop and soul and jazz and funk and house and techno too. We also held a dinner at Pikes and we invited influential names in the Ibiza industry to join us. Danny Whittle from IMS. David Levy. Seth Troxler. People who are part of the island framework. I'm experienced enough in this world to know that to really embrace a project, especially one which is progressive in its mindset, then you need to have the buy-in of the community. Whether that's your own community, whether that's music community, whether it's a black community, or whether that's local community. And we feel like this is a collaborative project. It elevates the kind of conversations that the industry needs to be having and that can only benefit Ibiza as a whole.