Despite the fact it’s 2025, female artists are notoriously under-represented in most mainstream music scenes. It’s glaringly obvious when you look at most festival lineups, and while obvious iconic acts immediately spring to mind as counterpoints, the sad truth is that many acts are still to getting the opportunities that their male counterparts are receiving. Andrea Dee, founder of Amplify Her, has made it her mission to change this situation. Founded in 2023, Amplify Her aims to establish a support system for female musicians through skill shares, meet-ups, showcases, and, most importantly, building a community based on shared experience. Their current artists-in-residence include Ministry of Sound collaborator Fabia Anderson, Irish chart topper Tolu Mackay, and dance chart powerhouse Mia Mi, an enviable roster of fabulous voices spanning multiple genres.
Fabia Anderson, Tolü Makay, Mia Mi - Ampliy Her @ Water Rats
“It started because I’m a musician,” Dee explains. “I’m a singer-songwriter, been in the industry for twenty years. Right after COVID, I did a big show – and it was a huge show – and I put all my energy, everything in it and the show was great…two hundred people came, everything went great but then afterwards, nothing. And I just, I mean this is the life we live, right? But I just felt like I don’t know what else to do. I was like, oh my god, I wish there was a space I could go to and say how I feel and talk about what’s going on and perhaps get encouraged or inspired by people that are going through the same things as me, learn or share when it’s not going well. I then went back to doing my thing with my music and I decided to do a showcase with only female artists. The reason why it was only female artists was because I just read that only 13% of women about three years ago were headlining festivals and that really made me mad because I thought we’re over this, you know, I thought we’re like moving forward. So I started looking into it and it was always like up and then it goes down and then it’s an up and then it goes down.” She motions with her hands to create an imaginary line graph, mapping the interest in female artists over time.
“And so that made me mad. [I asked my husband] ‘why do you always go to concerts and see male artists that are famous from the 90s or 2000s?’ And he says to me, ‘oh, because there was no great female artists’ and that pissed me off even more.
So I decided to put an all female lineup together. and this is where Amplify Her first started. When we did the show, it went great. It was sold out. But as I was telling the audience what was happening, I also noticed that I didn’t have time to speak to the other artists that were there. I didn’t have time to you know, just have a place where again, we could support each other. So I then created the coffee mornings, the cocktail meetings. And then it was like a monthly events. And then it went to showcases. The whole point is to come together and support each other at our events. But also now, because we’ve been doing it for two years, people from our community will meet at other events. so you just don’t feel by yourself. You have people that are there doing the same thing as you and just pushing their career forward.”
Dee’s fight hasn’t come without it’s challenges, which only galvanises her more. ”I think in the women’s world, we definitely are starting to make a name for ourselves and people want to support and want to be there. I would say when I go to conferences, men, most of the time, look at me and think it’s cute because they have no idea what Amplify Her is. So they kind of give me the, ‘oh, you’re cute’ [look]. That makes me mad. But in a way, I use that energy to keep pushing because I’m like, ‘I’ll show you’. And yeah, I mean, financially, it’s a struggle. I took all my savings for the first year. I don’t want it to be a charity, not because there’s nothing wrong with charities, but I do feel that as musicians, we deserve to be paid. And there’s a way of looking at it as this is what we deserve. And I want Amplify Her to be an example of that. So I will fight until I can anymore. And I should also say that I had a baby three months after I started Amplify Her. She’s 15 months now. So doing mommy full time and running the company and, you know, still doing everything on the side is… yeah, it’s busy.”
A lifetime in the music industry as both a singer-songwriter and a producer has given Dee a expert perspective on the community that a performer needs, as she tells us. “My music career was difficult, I didn’t have a community, I didn’t have a group of people…well, I had an amazing band, I had a community but [it was all] men, I worked with a lot with men. The kind ones, the nice ones, my band…but then there’s the industry one and the ones that were not so kind.
So yeah, it’s tough, I left my house, my home when I was eighteen. I was in New York City by myself. I’ve done the three million jobs plus the singing at night plus the recording in the studio whenever there was just enough time after work, until four o’clock in the morning. And I think you have to also make sure that you know the bigger picture and the vision and what you want. It’s very important because stardom, although it looks appealing, is not made for everyone and that place is also very lonely. So again, that aspect of community is very important because when you have your people and I say ‘your people’ because that’s what we do at Amplify Her, we have people that go through the same thing as you so it’s easier to be like ‘shit!’ or ‘this is happening’ or ‘my career is going great but mentally maybe I’m not feeling so good’ or [the] opposite. So just having people there, to me that’s the most important part. I did a loop because I started my career and my music producer said to me twenty years ago, he said ‘you should do something with women in community, this is your thing’ and I thought ‘you don’t believe in me, I’m going to show you that I can be a musician’, but then twenty years later I’m actually doing that so it’s quite funny. It’s always been live performance for me, I toured and all this stuff but I think the more I performed, the more I started thinking how nice it is for people to come to shows and know each other and how nice it is to share this moment of talking about the songs. I love this art and I saw the passion in people and I thought this is so nice. I think my passion for community comes because I’ve been without my family for a long time so my friends are everything to me. Especially with [being] creative and the process of creative and there’s no perfect – that doesn’t exist – but being around people that are trying just gives you good energy, whatever you do in your life.
Ampliy Her @ Water Rats
So how can we, as fans, back the female artists we love? “To support, the first thing is online, like just being there online, Instagram is like just following the journey. Come to the indie shows, just being there at the shows makes such a difference for an artist because it means that whatever you’re doing has value, you know, people want to hear you. So just show up really, buy tickets, spread the word with your friend to your friends. We have three memberships and one of our membership is for music fans and this is a total, a new avenue we want to take starting in 2025, 2026 and it’s looking at exactly what do they want. What [do] the people that come to our events that are music fans, what is needed for them? [Maybe] they’re kind of like, ‘oh, I’m not an artist…’, but I want to know what they want as well. So with that membership we’re launching a newsletter where you can discover your indie artists in London, Brighton, Bristol [to] just kind of support them and see if you really like their music or even be part of the process. That’s something that’s important right now as artists do their music, you know, just being there and seeing the growth is very interesting, I think as a music fan.’
For artists, Dee’s advice is clear. ‘Having a passion is like a blessing and there’s a curse to it because loving something so much that you’ll do anything for is amazing but also it’s hard. I would say work on your skills, work on practice, practice is key and build your people, your community, your musicians, your band or your people that are with you, believe in you. Take your time because you have time, even though people will tell you or you will hear that at twenty five your career is over. That’s bullshit, don’t worry about that. Take care of yourself, grow your career. You have to also go outside your comfort zone in terms of promotion. It’s important if you don’t promote yourself and you don’t believe in yourself, nobody’s going to do that for you and I will even say if you have a team, you still have to do the work. If you believe in yourself you have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing. People will say no, [but] keep pushing as long as you believe it, somebody out there will believe it as well and then continue! If you are an artist keep supporting other artists as well because that’s very important for you and for them. And I know that not every day is an easy day sometimes but as long as we have your plan, your goal, your dream, your vision, you can make it happen.”
With events across the UK ranging from industry tips, informal coffee mornings, and showcases of some of the finest underrated female artists, Amplify Her can only grow in their aim for equality in music, a goal which deserves applause.
Join Amplify Her at https://www.amplifyher.co.uk/membership
Discover more, including the next Amplify Her showcase, at: https://www.amplifyher.co.uk/
An interview between of Amplify Her and Kate Allvey on 20th March 2025
Photos by Ellie Ohajah
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