Gracie Abrams Honored by She Is the Music: “An Interesting Time to Be a Woman in America”

Alicia Keys and She is the Music, a nonprofit pushing to increase the number of women working in music, honored Gracie Abrams and her female team members during the inaugural Women Sharing the Spotlight event on Thursday.

Held at The Peppermint Club in L.A. with partnership from Live Nation Women and TuneCore, the event also honored 50 women in the music industry. The Hollywood Reporter served as the night’s media partner as the organization asked honorees to bring a rising talent in the industry as their plus-one to build community with women earlier in their career.

Keys, who brought rising artist Baby Rose as her guest, introduced Abrams, highlighting how she walks-the-walk with a majority female team. The 17-time Grammy winner emphasized that having an all-female team is still a rarity in the industry. “This is a reminder that we belong in every room, we belong at every table and we should be leading every conversation,” Keys said.

Abrams began her speech by thanking Keys for inspiring her as an artist, along with the rest of the She is the Music team, including Universal Music Publishing Group chairman and CEO Jody Gerson. “Obviously, [it’s] an interesting time to be a woman in America, and I firmly believe that the way we survive and thrive is by leading,” Abrams told the crowd, thanking the women on her team by name.

Abrams finished her brief remarks by “improvising off Margaret Mead,” as she put it. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed women can change the world,” Abrams said. “In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

She is the Music was co-founded by Gerson, Keys, Ann Mincieli, Sam Kirby Yoh and Dr. Stacy Smith of USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initative. Dr. Smith, alongside TuneCore CEO Andreea Gleeson, presented the latest findings from the annual Inclusion in the Music Business report. Data from the annual report is what initially inspired the group’s founders to take action, according to Keys.

“Myself, Ann Mincieli and Jody Gerson, we were shocked,” Keys told THR after the event. “We are three women in this business, [who are] pretty successful, we could not believe that the numbers and the statistics were that bad. It was a big wake up call.”

Keys said the beginning of the organization was all about how the group could create spaces and opportunities for women in the industry. “You have this dream and you have things you want to do, but oftentimes, you can’t get in the door,” she explained, adding that creating the opening was important.

“There’s nobody who can tell you that you can’t open the door for another person. Nobody can tell you that,” Keys said of the importance of events like Women Sharing the Spotlight during a time in which entertainment companies back away from DEI initiatives. “I don’t care what they say.”

“All of us are people who have the opportunity to reach out to another person and say, ‘I see you and what you’re doing is amazing, and any way that I can help what you’re doing’ — the head of Live Nation [Women] Ali [Harnell] just said that to Baby Rose,” she continued. “This idea of really cultivating community and getting to know each other, I think that’s at the heart of everything.”

See more photos from She is the Music’s Women Sharing the Spotlight below.