Can you give a brief background? Where are you from? What’s your current role?
I am Akim Bryant. I am currently the associate director of music programming for Pandora, also head of R&B programming. I've been in this industry for close to 20 years at this point. My first job out of college was in music, doing music programming. It's mind-blowing to me that I'm still here. Music has always been a passion for me, so that's awesome.
Describe your day-to-day life. How much do you sleep? What time do you end?
We have different deadlines on different days, which is the challenge trying to fit in my eating schedule, my sleep schedule and everything, and then all the other side projects that I'm working on as well. I would say on average it is waking up at eight a.m. Well, during the pandemic, at least it's been about eight a.m. Wake up, grab breakfast, usually start working by nine and then usually just try to get the day prepared. Figuring out what things I need to accomplish for the day and I also manage about four individuals. So I just try to figure out what their kind of duties and responsibilities would be for the day or for the week. And then lunchtime usually happens somewhere around, probably around one-two o'clock. And then I'm in meetings, usually for most of the afternoon between noon. Then I'm wrapping up, going through emails, and just wrapping up the day until about seven or eight. And that's where my personal time starts.
What does music mean to you and how has your love for music shifted after working in the music industry?
Music was just always part of my life. I grew up in a somewhat musical family, my brother was a dj, actually. He got placement on New York radio at one point. So he was part of all the record pools and back in the day when it was vinyl being sent directly to all the dj's. So I had access to his whole catalog, so all of his crates. I would just listen to the music, listen to the vinyl. I also was addicted to radio growing up. I would just sit in front of the radio and there were a few jockeys. Essentially, I would call throughout the day and have conversations. Wendy Williams is one of them when she was on WBLS back in the day or whatever.
I fell in love with R&B music and kind of always have been really into lyrics because music and writing are my two passions. So what the songs were saying lyrically, really captivated me. I started writing poems because of music. And then ultimately, it kind of led to stories. And I have a couple of novels out as well, too. So that kind of all led to the same type of path. Music has just always been there. I can't imagine my life without it. There was the whole concept of the industry being, you know, 80 percent business and 20 percent music, which, you know, over the decades has absolutely shifted. I would say today it’s about 99 percent business because the access to the industry is different and is not as exclusive as it used to be because of the internet and social media. People can kind of break in and then have their own influence. Before it was kind of all in the hands of tastemakers. The benefits have been that there's more representation, there's more independent artists able to do what they need to do to reach an audience. So a lot of positive things about it. On the flip side, it's made music too accessible and too many people who don't really have the passion for music are working in music. People who don't have a clear understanding of what happened in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s, kind of leading us up to this point in the music life, not really having a clear understanding of the legacy and the history of music because all of it is very much tied together.
What song or artist brings you comfort?
Oh yeah, that's R&B music for me. That's that, it's everything. If I'm in a bad mood, I want to listen to something by Erykah Badu. A lot of her songs have helped me in my journey in life. She wrote songs about life and emotions and relationships. And, you know, if you're in a bad place or even if you're in a good place, there was just always a message, a very clear message to the music that I loved. Or digging into Janet's (music) or Rihanna and Beyonce. And that's a completely different feeling. It is a different sub genre within the genre where you can find the vibe that you're looking for. Again, I'm all about the lyrics.
What is something you wish you knew before getting into the music industry?
I just wish people would share information a little more. It's changing now that the industry is expanding, it's a little more accessible now. So it's not as much of an issue, but there are still a lot of people who have experienced a lot of trauma in this industry and have gone through it. People have been put through the wringer just to get to the positions that they're in. Therefore, they feel like- if I go through it, the next person has to go through it too - just like passing your trauma on to people, which is crazy. I just wish people were more cognizant of that and that they realize that they're doing the opposite of what they wish somebody would have done for them. So my wish is for the industry to be a little bit more open and forgiving. I can't pass all the traumatic experiences that I've had personally on to the next generation simply because I went through it. That's not helping us build and it's not helping any of us grow.
What specific mental health issues pop up in your line of work?
You have to get used to being challenged by 90 percent of the people you come across in this industry. A lot of people who think they know best. Therefore, they have certain mentalities and certain ways in which they think things have to be done in order to get the right results. Like, nobody's a magician. I think specifically about Rihanna before she dropped Good Girl, Gone Bad and “Umbrella” came out, and “Umbrella” was a very different type of song. It was very pop leaning and I just remember all the arguments that I had with people about whether or not it would do well. It's just interesting to see the kind of set mentalities that people get into when it comes to these creative spaces, when in actuality, since it's a creative space, we should be opening more, expanding more perceptually on what we're thinking so that there's more opportunity for these ideas to flourish.
What is something you wish you could change about the music industry as a whole?
Again, just the exclusivity of it. We need to share the information, share the good information, more of the information that's going to help people grow, and artists need to talk to each other more. And if we can just drop those barriers, we can get back to a place where we have the icons, like Prince, Whitney and Michael. We can start to create some more of those types of artists again, because right now I personally don't think that's ever going to happen again until we change course.
Have you worked with anyone that needed to go treatment but didn’t or did? What held them back or allowed them to go?
I would say 80 percent of the people I've come across in this industry need treatment. There's a lot of people who always feel the need to prove themselves. And that is the sickness of the music industry, running around kind of always poking your chest out and banging on it like Kong Kong, like that is the sickness, that is the disease, that is the caricature of a music business executive that literally nobody in the world likes as a person.
How has the industry’s response changed on mental health?
Yeah, the past couple of years due to the pandemic, due to George Floyd's killing, there has been a lot more movement, a lot more conversation about mental health. I was actually part a webinar a few months ago. It was an industry webinar where most of the people work for a record label or somewhere in the streaming space. Shanti Das spoke. She's a former music business executive, and I believe she was working at Def Jam for a long time. She actually spoke on the panel about her struggles with mental health and everything that she went through. Essentially, she ended up having to leave her very, you know, she was vice president of marketing, and she had to leave her job and leave the industry because it was negatively affecting her, starting to affect her physical health. And so she started an organization. About helping people within the industry. It's a lot more of these types of initiatives that are happening within the industry so that people feel more comfortable to talk about what they're going through, which is amazing. That's a huge shift because before no one would ever want to admit that they were struggling.
What are the best practices for destigmatizing and providing work-life balance?
Speaking up for one, you have to ask for help and not be ashamed to. I would also say sleep is necessary. I don't know why people think it's not. You really have to be grounded in who you are as a person outside of what you do for a living. You can easily get caught up. I got caught up in my early 20s, my mid 20s, late 20s. I got caught up in what I was doing. And connected it to my identity. When I lost the job, I didn't know what my identity was, so I had to find myself again. So, yeah, just being completely unwilling to lose yourself in the madness that this industry can represent.
What resources does your company provide? Do you see value in having more?
We actually have a whole bunch of resources. There's an email there probably goes out every month detailing all the resources and sending the links to them all. We have a Diversity and Inclusion department too. I was actually part of the last panel session. So yeah, we have Can We Talk sessions - creating some type of topic around mental health or something that people could potentially be struggling with, and then they create a panel of about five to seven people who can speak to their experiences. It opens up to questions and then ends by providing, of course, the resources we have available across SiriusXM and Pandora. Also, one of the greatest things I think the company has done is extend Summer Fridays.
Is there anything else you want to share?
No, I think this was a great conversation. I think I would say, again, just industry-wise, I just want to reiterate how important it is for people not to pass on the traumatic experiences they themselves went through. That's misery loving company.
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