Latch Explores: British Asian Identity in the Music Industry with Achal Dhillon
Our third interviewee in this series examining British Asian identity and representation in the music industry is Achal Dhillon, Founder and Managing Director of Killing Moon, which started out life as a music blog and has since gone on to become a record label, management agency and live promoter.
In the interview below, Dhillon speaks about his experience growing up as the son of Indian migrants in a predominantly white, middle-class neighbourhood in West London and how coming up in the music industry continues to be littered with micro (and sometimes much more obvious) aggressions directed towards his race and heritage.
At this point, we’re going to look back to our old friend the UK Music Diversity Report from 2020, which shows an enormous disparity between entry-level and senior positions in the industry when it comes to ethnicity. According to the report, which surveyed 3,670 participants (and considering that prior to the pandemic 197,168 people were employed in the music industry in 2019), 34.6% of entry-level positions were filled by people of Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds with a considerable drop off to 21.6% at the mid-level and then 19.9% at the senior level. While these figures are an improvement on the 2018 numbers, it does show a systemic failure by the industry to support Asian, Black and ethnic minority employees into more senior roles. Of course, what we’re talking about here isn’t isolated to the music industry, it’s in every industry and at every level. For example, the 2017 McGregor-Smith review identified discrimination and bias at every stage of an individual’s career, sometimes even before it began.
The only way that we can move ahead and away from a system of discrimination is through frank, honest conversations and companies coming forward with actual solutions. As Dhillon mentions below, one such organisation doing great work to foster greater diversity is Liverpool Sound City. Their Rip It Up initiative, a programme through which Sound City, Youth Music, sm-mgmt and others have come together to drive real change by offering ten bursaries and providing the framework for young talent to emerge and enter the music industry. As they say, “Racial inequality within the music industry remains a vital issue, one that needs to be confronted with action rather than words. Rip It Up furthers Sound City’s work in championing young, diverse creative and business talent from all backgrounds.”
The festival also held a talk between Ammo Talwar (Chair of UK Music’s Diversity Taskforce), Paulette Long OBE (Co-Chair of UK Music’s Diversity Taskforce) and Jennifer John (musician, choir leader, businesswoman and part of Liverpool City Region Music Board). That talk is full of food for thought, so before we dive into the interview with Achal Dhillon, we’ll leave you with this motivational comment from Talwar: “it’s about explaining to people that this is a journey but we’re going to put some smart targets along the way. It’s not going to take forever because we don’t have that time and we’ve had hundreds of years of the other stuff. I like the phrase ‘nudge and nurture’. In the music industry it’s double nudge and nurture. Ultimately it’s really important that you’ve got an accountable person that really drives it and is in those decision making rooms. This is systemic racism. It’s going to take systems change, not tokenistic talent development schemes for black women. It’s root and branch.”
Now to Dhillon, the head of an ever-expanding music company, who is doing his part to change the narrative on diversity for those working in the music industry and for those yet to enter it.
Tell us about yourself and your role in the music industry.
My name is Achal Dhillon. I'm basically a man. A brown man. I was born and raised as a second generation immigrant (which means you're the child of the ones that actually immigrated, so I'm not sure how that makes me an immigrant given I haven't actually emigrated anywhere. I've had plenty of people to remind me though, throughout my life) in West London. My parents are "really" from India originally, but came to the UK when they were very young following the British withdrawal from India. I didn't grow up with a lot of people who looked like me, outside of my immediate family; I grew up in a white, middle-class area which exposed me to a lot of different cultures and opportunities therein, such was my parent's insistence that I be sent to a state school, rather than a private school. This did not stop people from singling me out due to my skin colour, and the first time I was called a Paki was when I was maybe 3 years old. I used to play drums in a lot of punk and emo bands at school and at university, which I've recently started doing again. I've worked for independent labels and managers, as well as the majors. I founded Killing Moon as a blog about 7 years ago when I found it impossible to break into the industry jobs market properly. It's now about to turn into something massive that our General Manager will yell at me about if I say what it is too early, but it's going to be fucking great.
What do you think about the representation of British Asian people in the music industry right now?
I think it's about the same in terms of representation of British Asian people in general - I'm supposed to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or an accountant, or like Chancellor or whatever. Some of the less-violent encounters I've had to remind me of my station in society, including being told at an early job interview I had at a well-known (at the time, I guess) indie label, by the owner, that Indians don't tend to make very good A&Rs. These days the very worst I have to live with are microaggressions, which following the events of last year I've become more responsive/confrontational about. I think beforehand I had this idea in my head to never draw attention to my Indian-ness. I felt embarrassed about it. I would just smile politely when any comments pertaining to my race would come up, however uncomfortable that made me. I'm even starting to feel I shortened my name to "Ach" to make it sound "less foreign", I remember in primary school being told that I was saying my own name incorrectly...
This year is probably the first year in my life I've truly felt comfortable talking about it, mainly because I understand change doesn't happen when you're silent. I've also come to appreciate that there is a racial hierarchy of sorts, often hiding in plain sight in the UK, and perhaps I'm more in the middle of it rather than at the top or, as George Floyd's killing revealed to a lot of people, at the very clear bottom of it.
Having said all of that, I am patently aware of the hypocrisy that exists between different minority ethnic groups and the microaggressions that exist between them. Just look at what is happening in India politically right now. I do wonder where [Narendra] Modi learned his shit from, though. I want the conversations on diversity to be holistic, self-reflective, and honest.
Which platforms do you think are doing a great job at highlighting British Asians in contemporary music culture?
Without agenda or reservation, I think we are, as a company. Myself and our project manager Sam speak on this issue often, and we try to reflect what we're doing into business practice, and probably in our personal lives as well, I would hope. There are also initiatives like Rip It Up and Power Up and others that are specifically aimed at POC enablement within the music industry, who are awesome.
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