Meet SHADES: the cross-label LGBTQ+ alliance championing visibility across the UK music industry
A powerful moment of unity has been quietly building across the UK’s label ecosystem. What started as an informal gathering has solidified into SHADES: a cross-label alliance which brings together the UK LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) of Sony Music UK, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group UK, aimed at advancing inclusion at scale within the UK music industry. SHADES is now inviting independent companies across the recorded and publishing sectors to join the movement.
SHADES centres its activity around five key principles:
- Solidarity: Creating a Culture of Belonging
Fostering and creating environments where LGBTQ+ people feel seen, supported, valued, and respected, enabling them and their allies to contribute authentically and confidently.
- Humanity: Strengthening Community & Connection
Through events, conversations, and shared experiences, we build meaningful connections across teams, breaking down silos and enhancing collaboration.
- Advocacy: Developing Talent & Leadership
We provide opportunities for employees to grow beyond their core roles, building skills in leadership, strategy, and programme delivery.
- Discovery: Learning, Listening & Evolving
Creating space for learning, reflection, and open conversation, helping people better understand LGBTQ+ experiences and the wider social and cultural context we operate in. Through insight, education, and shared discovery, we identify opportunities for meaningful change, strengthen allyship, and support a more informed, inclusive, and forward-thinking organisation.
- Empowerment: Acting as Strategic Partners
We are aligned with organisational priorities, whilst partnering with charities and organisations and other UK labels/publishers that have a clear aligned vision, purpose, and objective, supported by governance structures, planning frameworks, and resources. We have an opportunity to contribute to equity, creativity, collaboration, and innovation through diverse thinking which helps us stay competitive and strategic in our fast-moving industry.
- Stories: Reflecting Our Audiences & Society
By elevating diverse perspectives, we help ensure our organisations reflect the rich diversity and innovation of our artists, audiences, and communities, in turn strengthening cultural relevance and connection.
From nickname to mission
The origins of SHADES are themselves rooted in a moment of queer joy. Back in 2022, founding members Sachin Dattani (The Orchard) and Kim Silveira (formerly of Warner Music Group) found themselves being playfully scolded by a drag queen at an event for wearing sunglasses inside – ‘OK, Shades’.
The nickname quickly became a mission: to ensure that LGBTQ+ people are not only represented within industry, but empowered to help define its future.
An idea is one thing, but execution is another. The process of turning a shared identity into a structured alliance started informally: Dattani and Silveira initially organised a casual gathering of the companies at a pub near Charing Cross “to get everyone in the same room” – an ambition that quickly turned into the idea of hosting an official cross-label Pride afterparty in 2022, with Trenton Tomlinson (Universal Music Group UK) joining the SHADES fold.
Reflecting on why the collaboration felt so effortless, Tomlinson notes the natural alignment among the group: "There was a lot of synergy in the work we were doing - it made sense to join forces. We all had shared values, we all got on - it just kind of made sense to get together and make something bigger."
Engagement & Culture Coordinator Matt Cham (Warner Music Group) joined the group in 2024, and was struck by the unique momentum behind SHADES. “I came in [to Warner Music] to support our ERGs, and could really feel the shared mission and values between our companies.”
Today, led by a steering committee made up of Dattani, Silveira and Cham alongside Jake Smith (Warner Chappell Music), and Trenton Tomlinson (Universal Music Group UK), and with the support of the BPI’s Hailey Willington and Jake Hills, the collective is combining voices from the UK’s three largest music businesses to drive inclusion and uplift LGBTQ+ voices across the industry.
Celebrating queer histories: exhibiting Switchboard’s The Log Books
SHADES’ first cross-industry event, a one-day exhibition and evening mixer staged at The Gallery in Tileyard, marked a pivotal next step for the alliance as it looks to expand into a definitive, industry-facing platform.
Curated by the highly respected creative studio Sugar For My Soul, led by Sara Farrell, and hosted in partnership with the BPI, the event featured artists’ interpretations of The Log Books, a recently-launched book charting four decades of LGBTQ+ life in Britain through the call logs of charity helpline Switchboard, aligning with the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT).
The day brought together over 100 industry representatives to elevate queer storytelling as both a cultural record and a means of creative expression, encouraging reflection and meaningful engagement across the industry and raising more than £1,500 for Switchboard.
A blueprint for shared impact
Colleagues from across the industry have been highly supportive of SHADES’ ambitions.
“In the world of music, you have friends across other parts of the industry – and those people want to come together to support meaningful causes. ERGs aren’t competitive”, says Smith. “We’ve got an incredible Engagement & Culture Team [at Warner Music Group] and I’ve felt great support, as have the other members.”
Tomlinson agrees. “I’ve had some great sounding boards [at Universal Music Group UK] as we’ve been building SHADES, including from Sharlotte Richie (Senior Director, Global Impact & Communications) and Ange Lawrence (Chief People, Inclusion & Culture Officer) – and we’re now seeing other ERGs across the organisation looking at how they can partner up with other labels too.” “Our [Sony’s] Director of Diversity, Inclusion and Social Impact, Charlotte Edgeworth, is all for it and couldn’t be more supportive”, adds Dattani.
SHADES’ work forms part of a broader shift toward cross-industry solidarity across various diversity dimensions, as the music industry increasingly recognises that working together can bring systemic change. Black ERGs across the recorded music sector have joined forces to form The Collective, while Music+ is an existing professional network for those who work within the music industry and identify as either marginalised or minority by their gender identity and/or sexual orientation, which offers a WhatsApp group for networking and connection as well as a slate of in-person meet-ups.
“We’re very conscious there has already been great work done in the LGBTQ+ space”, says Tomlinson. “The likes of Pride in Music, an earlier pan-industry movement, and Music+, which still exists today, have opened the door for SHADES. What we’re doing isn’t reinventing the wheel; it’s a means to uplift and support the work that’s being done across the music industry.”
“We want to continue that legacy, reach new communities, and create the best environment possible for queer people in music”, adds Dattani.
Building a community
With a successful event under their belts, the SHADES team wants to build on its early momentum, add more structure to the alliance, and work to ensure that LGBTQ+ people are not only represented in the music industry, but empowered to lead and redefine its future.
As SHADES sets its sights on future events and initiatives in the year to come, it will be “gathering more voices to strategise what we can do to create the biggest impact and sense of community”, says Cham. To do this, the alliance is working with the BPI as it looks to branch out beyond the ‘majors’ and grow its ranks – including recruiting new members from across the UK’s independent sector over the coming months.
“I work for The Orchard, an independent hub within Sony Music UK – and it’s really important to have independents on board with SHADES”, says Dattani. “They are a key part of the music community and it’s important that they have a voice in what we do.” “We want to build a community”, adds Smith. “This is about bringing a multitude of lived experiences together for a shared cause.”
Further events are planned for 2026.
If you are interested in keeping in touch with and joining the SHADES community, please register your interest here.