#TheShowMustBePaused organisers outline the next steps for the movement

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 #TheShowMustBePaused initiative organisers have outlined the next steps for the movement.

Founded by Brianna Agyemang, a senior artist campaign manager at Platoon, and Jamila Thomas, senior director of marketing at Atlantic Records, the first step in the #TheShowMustBePaused initiative saw the music industry blackout last Tuesday (June 2nd), for a day of “disconnecting from work and reconnecting with community.”

The initiative was launched by Agyemang and Thomas following the death of George Floyd, and countless other black citizens at the hands of the U.S. police, urging the industry to join them in fighting for social equality and racial justice. Now, the two women have detailed the next steps in #TheShowMustBePaused in an interview with Billboard, and have shared they are working on two new committees in their organisation.

Stressing that voting in the forthcoming U.S. elections should take priority, Thomas shared that the two new committee branches will focus on both social justice and systematic racism, as well as restructuring organisation in the industry to allow more growth room and opportunities for black people. 

Speaking about the initial launch of #TheShowMustBePaused and the subsequent Black Out Tuesday, Agyemang told Billboard she wanted “people to know this came from pure emotion, anger and sadness at what was happening in the world.”

“This was not thought out in advance at all,” she added. “It was not a march. It was not a rollout. When George Floyd died, it was like, ‘Here’s another thing after Ahmaud Arbery, after Breonna Taylor, after COVID-19’ It was a way for people to release and pause, because in the end we have to fix it and we have to heal as a society. And we can do this by changing the future.”

Read the full interview with Billboard here.