New year, new goals: ESEA Music celebrates Lunar New Year with bold ambitions for 2025

29 January 2025 - Press release

ESEA Music, the community-led, non-profit organisation that represents East and Southeast Asian artists and music professionals in the UK music industry, is celebrating the Lunar New Year, this Wednesday 29th January with bold plans for the year ahead. 

The Lunar New Year is a time of reflection, renewal, and celebration - a perfect moment for ESEA Music to set out its ambitions for a more inclusive and dynamic music industry. 

 

ESEA Music’s three key goals for 2025 are: 

1) To advance ESEA representation in the UK Music Industry:
To advance greater representation of ESEA professionals across the UK music industry, surpassing the diversity benchmark outlined in the 2024 UK Music Diversity Report. The focus will be twofold: first, better ESEA representation within industry trade bodies and the BRITs Voting Academy; and second, increasing participation of ESEA professionals on music industry panels.

2) To uplift British ESEA talent:
To continue uplifting ESEA individuals in the UK music industry by expanding the Sesame mentorship programmethrough dedicated workshops which help support career pathways for ESEA artists and professionals. Additionally, through the ESEA Sounds writing camp releases and showcase, ESEA Music aims to create collaborative opportunities for artists, producers and songwriters, offering exposure for ESEA talent.

3) To ensure organisational sustainability:
To ensure the long-term sustainability of ESEA Music as a non-profit organisation by focusing on fundraising efforts and establishing a solid governance structure to guide the organisation's growth and future direction.

In 2024, ESEA Music achieved a key milestone in representation with ESEA being recognised as a distinct ethnicity category in The UK Music Diversity Report, showing that ESEA individuals make up 3.20% of the industry. 

“It acknowledges the significance of East and South East Asian representation. Historically, the 'Asian' category in the UK mainly represented the South Asian community. This development allows us to gauge the impact of our efforts in ESEA Music and provides data on the behind-the-scenes contributions of ESEA individuals for the first time. A milestone for ESEA Music that marks a significant move towards enhanced representation and visibility in the UK music industry." 
says Tiger Hagino Reid (ESEA Music Co-Founder) 

Additionally, in December 2024, the BRITS Voting Academy announced its 2025 diversity analysis, revealing ESEA representation had been recorded for the first time following inclusive adjustments to how ethnicity data was captured.  The data showed that 1% of the Voting Academy identifies as ESEA, marking an important baseline for future progress. Overall, 26% of Voting Academy members identify as being from a Black, Asian, or ethnic minority - up from 24% in 2024 - whilst 69% identify as White. ESEA Music is proud to have collaborated with the BPI on this milestone and looks forward to further progress in industry representation. 

In partnership with Beatport, the Sesame mentorship team will deliver three workshops on production, songwriting and royalties, and marketing and PR in 2025. These sessions aim to equip ESEA artists and professionals with essential skills and strategies to help them succeed in today’s competitive industry. 

ESEA Sounds is the programme and distribution label for ESEA artists platform empowering artists, producers and songwriters to collaborate, create music and celebrate cultural heritage. 

Now in its third year, ESEA Sounds 2025 set out to run writing camps with high profile mentors and is excited to confirm DJ and record producer, Jax Jones as a producer for this year’s programme.  
The initiative will also include single releases, showcasing the creativity of British ESEA talent. 

 

ESEA – Every Sound, Every Action.

Listen to the Sound of ESEA Music Spotify Playlist