Meet Music Producer and Mix Engineer, Sharon Onyango-Obbo
The music industry globally has historically struggled with gender equality despite the vast contributions women have made and continue to make in shaping music and the culture around it. Looking at the world of production specifically, only 3% of the top songs featured on the Billboard charts were produced by women dating as far back as 2012 according to USC’s Annenburg Inclusive Initiative latest report - this number fell to 2% in 2020. The progression of women producers has unfortunately remained stubbornly stagnant with factors such as gender stereotypes, patriarchal socialization and a lack of equal opportunities to blame. Ugandan-born, Nairobi-based music producer and sound engineer Sharon Onyango-Obbo is amongst those breaking the mould in this male-dominated industry. A classically trained musician with a background in Economics and a Master’s in Music Technology and Innovation, her discovery of GarageBand as well as a love for trap music during her teenage years set the stage for her career and she went on to make her official debut with Vallerie Muthoni’s melodic, trap-infused ‘Durag’, featuring Baraka.
Sharon’s drive and tenacity in the pursuit of her career embody the philosophy of shooting your shot, and the circumstances that led her to a position as Sol Generation’s Studio Operations Consultant speak to the importance of creating opportunities for one’s self. “I attended a webinar once with June Gachui, Bien from Sauti Sol,” she recounts, “I didn’t even wait for the event to finish before DM’ng him [Sauti Sol’s Bien Amie Baraza]. I drafted something in my notes app and sent it to him. He replied the next day saying we need you, here’s my number”.
Ever the optimist, Sharon has viewed the challenges she’s faced in her career so far as learning opportunities. “The biggest challenges you will face as a producer are those you create for yourself,” she says “You constantly have to keep on learning, growing, improving”. Whether it be adapting to the fast-changing nature of the music industry or navigating the nuances of setting prices that match the quality and value of her work. On the other-hand, she counts being a part of the magic that is seeing an artist's musical vision come to life, and the immeasurable value in building community through exchanging services as highlights of her experience.
Was there a particularly formative moment for you that led you to see that music production is something you were interested in pursuing?
Interestingly enough, I think when most people think about music tech, they focus on the plug-ins, the equipment. But for me it's always been a musical thing. My friends always tell me we think you love music more than you love us. I think that spark for me has always been a deep love for music. Every time I listen to a song, I try to look for new things. It arose from loving music a lot and respecting it, and being curious about wanting to find out how it was done and then doing it and being like this is fun.
Who or what are some of your major inspirations?
Wow, who isn't? Musically, I'm just so obsessed with what Kenyan women are doing. Vallerie Muthoni is at the top for me - and Xenia. Also seeing people who are your age in terms of production; I'm obsessed with Xprso. There’s also this artist called Josh Forehead, he’s actually one of my favourite artists of all time.
What was the moment when you decided to pursue a career in the music industry? And how was that received, coming from an African household?
I was really fortunate to land an internship in Singapore as a zero waste intern because I'm passionate about the environment. I went to Singapore and, you know, I think that was great. But I remember feeling like someone took a syringe and was sucking the life out of me. I physically got sick as well because my body was rejecting that type of corporate environment. When I came home, I made a pinky promise to myself - whatever you do in life just make sure that you love it. And no matter how difficult it is, make it happen. So I started working at an advertising agency that had in-house production staff. I got to mix a couple of jingles and while I was working at that advertising agency, I applied for my Masters in Music Technology and Innovation from Berkelee.
When did you actually start experimenting with putting your music out?
That's actually a really good question. I like people so I try to be charismatic but I'm actually a recluse. I'm not used to putting myself out there. But then I had a really powerful moment once. When I was working at the advertising agency, a friend of mine invited me to this event that was happening at Safaricom. It was a woman in music conference. We were talking about some of the bottlenecks for women in the industry I was like, I send my beats to so many people and no one wants to record over them. One of the panelists asked, “Okay, so what's your Instagram?” At that time I had deleted my Instagram, I didn't have Twitter, I didn't have anything. She put me on the spot and said, “this is your issue. This is everybody's issue. You complain about not having opportunities yet I'm here at this massive conference to ask you to share your Instagram handle and your fumbling”. I actually think I cried when I got back home, but I was like, you know what, she had a really good point because I'm not getting opportunities. Part of our training at Berkelee was career building awareness and self marketing sessions. By the time I was graduating, I told myself, “Okay, I don't really feel comfortable putting my personal life up on Instagram so is there a way of putting beats, pictures or music videos that people are familiar with for 12 weeks and see how that goes.” And that was the biggest thing that I ever did, because now when people see you making moves, someone might want to hop on and I started getting so much work from that.
What is the first song that you worked on as a producer that was released commercially?
That was a ‘Durag’ by Vallerie Muthoni. I gave her five beats and one of them was the ‘Durag’ beat. At the time, I've just been messing around on GarageBand. I'm not a professional, I'm not even an amateur. I don't know anything. So she sends it back to me and I completely fumbled it. I tried to mix it and it was trash - I was doing the most. It reached the point where the story died. But then after I graduated from Berkelee I was at home, not doing anything, so I started going to my old beats and decided to rewrite these old songs with the knowledge that I have now and ‘Durag’ was one of them. I really was just fixing it for my own personal pleasure. And then coincidentally Valleries calls me a few days later like, hey, I see your back, I see you're doing music. Remember that beat from two years ago? Do you still have that? Because you can send it to me. And the rest was history.
What has been your experience navigating this sector of the industry as a woman?
It's insane! My experience has been either very good in the sense that I get a lot of opportunities where let's say somebody wants a full female audio technician team or a female engineer. But then on the other side some really negative experiences have been people being really shocked that you know what you know. Say if you send somebody feedback on a mix and they'll be like, oh my gosh, you actually know your stuff. And I'd like to think so. So there's a bit of that.
All of this is really nuanced, which I think is why it's hard to talk about, because it's not that someone will outright tell you I don't like you because you're a woman. It's very subliminal. In certain cases you feel like you're being gaslit because people very openly disrespect your authority or think you don’t know what you're talking about. And then when you try to speak up on it, you don't have receipt's. I feel like I know it perpetuates the idea that women are always in their feelings but I actually feel like this person is displaying really intense misogyny. So because it's so nuanced, I mean most interactions being did that really happen? That's still something that I'm figuring out.
Given your economics background, what have you observed as being some of the major hindrances to the development of Kenya’s music industry?
There's three things I see, the first being opportunity. Not necessarily the availability, but the fact that we don't really empower ourselves to realize that opportunities can be created; the difference between seeing a job posting and saying I know that this company isn't hiring but let me message the CEO. I DM'd Bien, I wrote my own job description, I just shot my shot.
The second is knowledge and skills, but more so that there's no standardized way of deciding as producers that we're going to lobby together and charge twenty thousand for a mix. I want to say knowledge when it comes to publishing rights, master rights, setting the right pricing. When it comes to skills, I feel that African's in general, our musical sense, is impeccable. And most of the producers that I met started when they were teenagers and were learning through YouTube or through a friend or an apprenticeship. And I'm not saying that the only way to be able to learn this business is to go to school for it. But I mean, when you look at how many options we have, we only have ADMI. So for that kid in ELD [Eldoret], how are they getting to ADMI?
And then of course there’s the government but I don’t want to go down that route. Lastly, I think it’s just a culture thing that also makes it really different. When I applied for my master's, I had to do a spreadsheet that had different metrics. I had to convince my folks that I actually wasn't being crazy, that this is actually an informed decision. So I think it's also a mindset where you think musician and you're like my child is going to struggle. Whereas what my experience has been is that I actually have too many opportunities and I'm having to learn how to say no.
