Expectations & Volunteer Period for Folks Releasing

Grimalkin has many opportunities without expectations. The opportunities in the “Keep in mind” section above are very special and a blessing to have access to, especially in our current political and social climate and the top-down music industry.  

Keep in mind, this only applies to people’s individual music releases. It doesn’t apply to participation in and on compilations, remix challenges, virtual events including the Grimmys, hosting or attending hangouts, hosting workshops, attending and participating in our business and board meetings, being on our mentoring and production networks, performing at our annual festival, being on a lineup on a show we’re hosting, etc. Only artists who are releasing their projects with Grimalkin going forward will have reasonable expectations and a reasonable wait period prior to Grimalkin releasing their music project/s.

Reason for expectations and a 6 month volunteer period for releasing artists

Artists should be enough as working musicians. Music and art are invaluable. Sadly, it's not at all near realistic currently in the world we live in. Very few get that privilege. It's currently mainly those with connections and wealth.

When everyone we release music with contributes and shares the labor, then this work becomes manageable and sustainable. It will help us develop as a collective of diverse hearts and minds with shared core values but also with open minds to expand our values by learning from one another. It’s a step toward breaking down the remaining hierarchy and making us more horizontal and diverse in our leadership. It will increase our collective power. We'll be able to easily raise funds collectively (mobilize funds and resources to the community). We’ll eventually reach financial and workload and labor sustainability and we’ll eventually have money to pay people and pay people more, and we want to be able to pay folks fairly.

Individual artist’s solo releases have been the thing we do that supports our mission and collective power the least compared to everything listed in the “Keep in mind” section above. It provides individualized support to only one person or band, and so it also makes sense to have that be the thing that has required expectations and a wait period to participate in.

The “Keep in mind” things above more directly build collective power, cultivate collaboration, help people gain new skills, develop community care, joy and support. They more closely support our mission and grow our outreach. They are more directly driving our progress forward, including the ability to secure additional funding and technical assistance.

Additionally, individual music releases bring in the least amount of revenue and positively affect our outreach the least in comparison to the “Keep in mind” things, but individual releases also require the most ongoing time and labor. An artist’s solo release supports the person releasing much more than it supports Grimalkin, our community, mission, and cultivating mutual aid and support and collective power. 

Collectives necessitate reciprocation and doing something outside the norm takes trial and error. It will progress our mission. Our mission includes movement building, which cannot happen with folks that are not invested in our mission and in building collective power and engaging in mutual aid and support.

Eventually we hope to have a space so folks can help with everything regarding releases. In the meantime, Grim is training folks to lead the submission team so that eventually, other folks can lead this entire process. By  training others and developing a team of folks with various strengths focusing on different parts of the release process, it also will be so much better and effective because there will be collective power behind it.

Additionally, Grim continuously is seeking opportunities to learn and grow as an organizer, resource mobilizer, educator, facilitator, musician, advocate, leader, and human. They have received mentorship, consulting and advice from other more experienced and respected organizers that are queer, trans, BIPOC, neurodivergent, and disabled. Sharing and cultivating shared labor in the nonprofit sector is a difficult process to achieve and is a common struggle under capitalism, and it was eye-opening to hear this from numerous organizers independently of one another.

How This Positively Affects Our Collective Morale & Builds Collective Power

Knowing that people care and that they are contributing supports our emotional capacity to persist and it keeps us motivated. Additionally, those of us who help deserve to work alongside people who care- our emotional, mental and physical health matters and our "work" is not just our labor that people benefit from. 

Our work is all of it including asking for help when you need it, taking care of ourselves and knowing our capacity and communicating that openly.

Work truly is everything we do to properly take care of ourselves mentally, emotionally and physically. It’s necessary to reflect on our choices and decisions to be sure they align with our values, and take responsibility for our parts in conflicts and issues that arise and for our personal success whatever that may be. You can't be good to or for others if you aren't good for yourself. 

There Are Other Options For Releasing Music Outside of Grimalkin Without Required Expectations

In order to effectively mentor and support artists in gaining necessary skills to be both an independent artist and a grassroots organizer, people need hands-on experience to achieve it.

Everyone may not be interested in being a grassroots organizer, movement building, or building collective power.

There are other opportunities to engage with us without releasing your solo projects with us where you gain something without having to meet any expectations or have to volunteer to participate and receive support. They are listed in the “Keep in mind” things above.

Anyone who has done a physical self-release with all the bells and whistles (rather than silently releasing) knows how much work it is to do just one release completely on your own. Usually if you are, it’s likely once a year and not in a monthly capacity.

We encourage and recommend that musicians release their music with another label if possible and independently if possible prior to reaching out to us so that you have a frame of reference on how and why we are doing things differently.

There’s no exclusivity with releasing with us. Many of us at Grimalkin do that, including our founder, who is currently the person doing most of the labor required for the release process until more folks are trained who we currently have and new like-minded supporters answer our call to volunteer with us.

There are other labels that people can submit their music to that will not have these expectations and will not have a 6 month volunteer period. 

You have options. You can start your own label or collective. There are many labels you can submit music to. You can try releasing independently. We have been doing a series of workshops led and hosted by different label-heads in different countries, which you may benefit from viewing to help you in your efforts.

If more people help us, we’ll eventually have more money and resources to go around, not only for the folks doing work to move us forward, but for everyone in our community who hasn't done this work, because there will be more resources and funding for the things in the “Keep in mind” section above that people can participate in without the expectations that releases have.

Closing Remarks

Much love and appreciation to the folks who are currently contributing. Many of those folks contribute because they believe in our mission regardless of music releases. That has been increasing slowly. We now have help from folks that haven’t yet released with us, some that don’t ever plan to release with us, and folks that have said they aren’t ready for that step yet with their music.

We never ask volunteers to do something we haven’t done many times previously as a volunteer, and we’re always open to new ideas and suggestions on ways folks can contribute their skills, experience, perspective, and knowledge.

We collectively agreed on having a 6 month volunteer time prior to Grimalkin releasing someone’s music with us after they have successfully passed our submission team process. This does not warrant unlimited releases if an artist does their 6 months, has their release and then disappears.

We understand that many of us are disabled or have family issues arise, and since we're cultivating community care and self-care, we support and understand that folks may need to take short or long breaks from time to time. This requires a prior working relationship with Grimalkin and clear, effective, and timely communication.

We believe that by requiring support expectations as a prerequisite for releasing will not only create a solid and supportive team of folks truly uplifting each other, but that it will also grow our collective power, which of course will lead to the abundance we are striving for. Building community is not charity.

Our mission requires a strong collective to help us find ways and steps towards building community care, and not just for our individual self, but for the resilience, survival and growing power as historically underrepresented artists and musicians. 

Our goal is to counter the idea that our music and our lives are disposable capitalistic consumption or that we don’t deserve human rights and for our voices to be heard so that others like us can hear us and feel less alone. We need more people to step up and propose solutions, but then also actively assist in carrying them out.

The wealthy operate like we’re only worth our ability to help create them create more wealth. We’re working on solutions on how we can counter and provide antidotes to the ways in which artists are marginalized.

Effective solutions require the input of a strong collective working together.

Actively acknowledging our achievements and our stories and retelling and revisiting them is powerful. 

We can build and expand on this by trying additional ways to cultivate collective power through celebrating and sharing our histories and stories, and through the ways and actions that give time, space and opportunity to truly hear, support and celebrate each other as much as ourselves. We could do that if we had a strong collective of folks working together. 
We’re paving a reasonable path to get there. We have worn the beginnings of a path or paths, and we can shape and shed light on how to get there together.