With the UK festival season ramping up, the issue of gender inequality within the music industry has raised its head again. This is especially in the light of Glastonbury Festival having all male headlining acts this year. We wanted to discuss this problem with three visually impaired female artists, but to also ask how disability factors into this.
Lachi is an American singer/songwriter and producer who specialises in dance music. She is also founder and president of RAMPD, who specialise in helping disabled talent get into the music industry. Sirine Jahangir is a singer/songwriter who rose to prominence during her 2020 appearance on Britain's Got Talent and she has recently graduated from the prestigious BRIT School. Denise Leigh is an operatic soprano, who has sung at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games and at the Fringe events for this year's Eurovision song contest.
Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Beth Hemmings
Production Coordinator: Liz Poole
Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image, wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three individual white squares house each of the three letters). Bottom centre and overlaying the image are the words "In Touch" and the Radio 4 logo (the word Radio in a bold white font, with the number 4 inside a white circle). The background is a bright mid-blue with two rectangles angled diagonally to the right. Both are behind Peter, one of a darker blue and the other is a lighter blue.