This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist News
Jameela Jamil criticises those who question her production credits on new James Blake album
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 11 October 2021
Jameela Jamil has responded to people who have questioned her producer credits on three quarters of the tracks on her boyfriend James Blake’s new album, ‘Friends That Break Your Heart’.
“A lot of mostly women [are] insisting I couldn’t possibly have actually worked on my boyfriend’s music, and that he must have just credited me to be nice”, she tweeted. “I was a DJ for eight years, and studied music for six years before that. You are part of the problem of why women don’t pursue producing”.
Sharing a screengrab of that tweet on Instagram, she added that she had initially said that she did not want any credit on the new album, due to abuse she had received after her name appeared on four tracks on Blake’s last record, ‘Assume Form’.
“In the end I took the credit I deserved because of how important it is for women who work on music to visibly exist in the space of music production, and because I would want any of you who follow me to take ownership of what is rightfully your achievements”, she wrote.
“I hope you’re taking credit for your work wherever you are in the world right now”, she continued. “I hope you know that if you’re not being believed over your achievements, that it’s not a reflection of you, it’s a reflection of people who are so underachieving, cowardly and insecure that they can’t fathom that you could be impressive. And it happens at every level in every industry. Even to me. Even when I don’t credit myself, my boyfriend just quietly credited me”.
Blake added in his own Instagram post: “Fuck yeah. Thank you for the time you put into this record, Jameela. It would’t be half what it is without the insane skill set you brought to it. Love you and I hope all this serves as an example to women who are routinely discouraged by eye-rolling wankers that your work is necessary and important”.
“The double standard is so fucking irritating”, he went on. “Why does nobody ask me what the men … on the record did specifically? Because they’re looking for confirmation of their sexism, hoping that indeed Jameela was just a pretty fly on the wall getting the men’s credit just for being a girlfriend. And they can all fuck off”.
‘Friends That Break Your Heart’ is out now, and Blake will be touring the UK in April and May next year.
