An Exposé: Mariah Carey Didn’t Get Inducted into The Songwriters HOF and It’s Sexist Bullshit

You can read my follow up article: here

Let me just preface this article with the following statement: I think BOTH Mariah Carey and Jermaine Dupri deserved to be inducted into the 2018 Songwriters Hall of Fame (SHOF). However, only Dupri was bequeathed the honor this year, despite both he and Carey-long time writing collaborators- being nominated. As an Atlanta native and an unabashed lifetime member of the lambily (MC’s name for her fandom), I feel relatively well-versed in both Dupri’s and Carey’s songwriting catalog, so I was pretty shocked at the brush-off knowing what I know.  

Carey fiercely guards her songwriting capabilities and credits. As a broke, struggling 18-year-old in New York City, Carey- without a penny to her name and no proper shoes upon her feet-refused to sell her songs to other artists, allowing her to retain the rights to her catalog. That’s a pretty bold move and one that could only come from an artist fiercely protective and proud of their ability to write songs. (Carey wrote and released 4 #1 singles on her first album alone, so it turned out to be a pretty good decision to keep the catalog.)

This exclusion ostensibly denies her very real and prolific success as a songwriter, independent of her industry-dominating success as a vocalist. Buttressed within the context of the rampant sexism that suffocates the general music industry, it appears that diminishing women’s work is so common it doesn’t even cause as much as a ripple in the pop culture dialogue when a woman’s contributions are overlooked.  

Establishing Bias

So what exactly are the parameters for deciding who gets inducted? Is there a way to somehow quantify the success of a songwriter’s catalog? What is the process the SHOF employs to determine its inductees each year? 

As I was gathering the little data available to answer my inquiries- including reaching out to the SHOF and their PR company- I noticed the topic of sexism in the music industry actually was being talked about. An NPR piece announcing Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer centered their discussion around the relatively new acceptance of hip hop artists into the world of “high art” award validation. Before Dupri, Jay-Z made history as the first hip hop songwriter to be inducted into the SHOF, just last year. (Since this piece isn’t long enough to get into the politics of race, I just want to honor the fact that that has to be analyzed within this discussion, and acknowledge this piece is incomplete by focusing only on the sexism portion.)

The NPR segment essentially argued that traditionally sexist and racist systems are always slow to be redesigned to fit new categories, so the expectation that both female AND male Black hip hop artists could be simultaneously recognized in these types of forums isn’t realistic. And when you look at the numbers, the Hall of Fame is historically very unfriendly to female songwriters. 

This year there were 24 total nominees with 10 ultimately inducted- 9 men and 1 woman. While this on its own is not enough to perhaps imply a bias in voting, the SHOF’s history might be: Out of 426 total inductees, 396 are men and 30 are women; two of these women were inducted in tandem with a male songwriting partner. The first Black woman to be inducted wasn’t until 2002. That means of the total inductee population, 93% is comprised of men with 7% representing women. It seems hard to believe that only 7% of female songwriters are worthy and qualified for induction. 

To be fair, the SHOF operates within a larger sexist system. The music industry has always been male-dominated. The boy’s club mentality that permeates the late-night studio sessions and networking events make it near impossible for women to jump the hurdles they systematically face. Women make up a small segment of producers and songwriters in the industry; Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Associate Professor at USC and founder of Annenberg Inclusion Initiative explains: “Women are pushed to the margins or excluded from the creative process.”Scholar Mavis Bacon furthers this argument, claiming that the “entrenched sexism”in the music industry sees women “face harassment and put-downs” on the daily.

Of course, women already know this. Since 2014 in Nashville a group called the Song Suffragettes has been exposing these obstructions. Founding member Kalie Shorr, quoted in the Tennessean, summarizes a shared experience of industry-related sexism: “‘We had all individually gone into a stuffy Music Row office and had someone say, 'No,' followed by 'because you're a woman.’” This female songwriter collective focuses on exposing the sexual harassment they face and shed more light on what it’s like trying to avoid the unavoidable: “For most female songwriters, cutting themselves off from their male counterparts isn't an option. Co-writing is networking, so it's helpful to work with people who are further along in their careers, and most of the hit songwriters in Nashville are men. Several women told me they'd agreed to a co-write, thinking it would help them professionally, only to realize their male writing partner assumed it was a date.”

Though some of both Carey’s and Dupri’s biggest hits have been co-written, Dupri’s induction is essentially awarding him full credit for their successes, effectively erasing Carey’s contributions to her own music. 

To add salt to an already festering wound, Carey actually INTRODUCED Dupri to accept his award this past week. If this isn’t a sign of Carey’s unparalleled grace, it’s surely representative of that fact that she was likely unsurprised at the snub. Carey has always been vocal about the lack of acknowledgment of her writing credits and emphasizes in numerous interviews she would rather be known for her songwriting ability than her vocal talents. In a recent V magazine article, Carey states that songwriting is an art “a lot of people don’t give women enough credit for, unless they are known visually as someone strumming a guitar, or they’re behind a piano most of the time.”

So, men control the songwriting and music industry and systematically seek to shut out women through using their power to perpetuate an environment of harassment and inaccessibility. Got it. This contextualizes the incredibly disproportionate number of men inducted into the SHOF compared to women, and might also explain why Dupri was voted on by the membership but not the elusive chanteuse. 

Methodology

I was curious who the people were that comprise the SHOF voting population, how they got there, identifiers they use to determine the qualification of nominees, and who disperses this information, so I looked into the history of the organization. The SHOF was established in 1969 as a means of honoring songwriters whose “work represents a spectrum of the most beloved songs from the world’s most popular music songbook… In order to be considered for induction, nominees must have been published songwriters for a minimum of 20 years with a notable catalog of hit songs”(their emphasis). “The 2018 roster of Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees is a prodigious representation of creators of cross-genre hits, certain to resonate with everyone.”

The SHOF has two kinds of membership: voting and non-voting. In order to be a voting member, an individual must: be working exclusively as a “music industry professional”; pay a yearly fee; and “must provide company name and title/position information.”  

The selection process begins with “annual elections”which determine the nominees. Next, “eligible voting members will then…turn in ballots with their choices of three nominees from a non-performing and three from a performing category.” It is uncertain if there is a specific process used to determine how many performers are inducted each year or what system is used to analyze the voting numbers. Using this criterion, the following categories emerge as markers of the Hall of Fame’s qualification requirements: Prodigiousness; Longevity; Diversity; and Notable Hits

These are then assigned a tool of measurement: Prodigiousness is measured by prestigious accolades; Longevity, measured by time actively working and songs recharting; Diversity, determined by a number of unique genres the writer has charted on; and Notable Hits, measured by the number of songs that have charted at #1 and the length of time a song stayed at #1.  

A point is awarded to either Carey or Dupri depending on who “wins” each category. For example, Carey has been an active songwriter for 28 years versus Dupri’s 26, awarding Carey the point. (Table 1).

Not surprisingly, Carey wins in every. single. category. 

Not only has she been actively writing hit songs longer than Dupri, but her catalog includes more professional accolades, diversity, and relevance in the pop culture song canon as well as on the billboard charts. While it is arguable that both Carey and Dupri have seen a decline in mainstream success in recent years, the singer has seen more recent success than the rapper. Carey was nominated for a Golden Globe this year for writing The Star, eponymous with the animated Christmas movie. 

Speaking of Christmas…

I happened to catch an interesting snippet on the radio recently when a popular Fleetwood Mac song suddenly recharted on Billboard because of a current meme. The host remarked that one of the true tests of the relevance and longevity of a song is to see it rechart 41 years after its release. (Coincidentally, the song, Dreams,was also written by one of the most famous singer/songwriters, Stevie Nicks. She also has not been inducted into the Hall of Fame.)  

Carey is perhaps the only other songwriter who has experienced this remarkable level of recharting success, thanks to her ubiquitous Christmas bop All I Want for Christmas is You. The anthem has become the de facto sign that the holiday season has officially arrived. Released in 1994,  AIWFCIY became “the first Top 10 song with the word “Christmas” in its title.” The song continues to rise on the charts each year, and in 2017 reached its highest spot to date, breaking the top ten for the first time at #9. The New Yorker called the song "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon.” It’s currently the 11th best-selling single of all time. Reminder: she WROTE this song with Walter Affansieff 24 years go. No Dupri song falls anywhere on the list of best-selling singles. 

Carey’s songs have landed on charts representing 9 unique genres; she has written hit pop, r&b, hip hop, and dance songs; she introduced a contemporary song into the traditional Christmas canon; writes successful music for animated children films; and has written for other successful artists. Dupri’s success has been confined to hip hop and r&b hits. While many have been hugely popular songs, his portfolio is nowhere near as diverse as Carey’s.The SHOF alleges on their site that Dupri has written 30 #1 songs…which is odd because by my calculation he has ten so you know...

Carey has written 17 out of her 18 number #1 hits, even parlaying her unmatched achievement into a successful Las Vegas residency. 

There is no doubt that Jermaine Dupri is one of the most legendary hip hop producers of all time, pioneered new sounds, helped put Atlanta on the map as the new hip hop Mecca, and has written smash hit songs. It’s really not about Dupri’s credibility at all; but it just makes absolutely no sense to publicly ignore the contributions Carey has made and continues to make to the songwriting community, while essentially honoring her collaborator who has quantifiably achieved less success. 

It’s undeniable that Carey was more than deserving to be inducted into this year’s Hall of Fame. And if for whatever reason it had to be between Carey and Dupri, Carey’s legacy squashes JD’s. And if we are going to truly utilize the #metoo movement to thrust the real issues of sexism than women face in all industries, it’s important to call out all systems that stifle us.