We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful LadyMGMT. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emma Hampton below.

Alright, Emma thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Our most meaningful project has been working with our artist, LaDarryl, on his upcoming release. Truthfully, any project we do for LaDarryl is meaningful to us. We all went to school together so it’s been special to see him evolve throughout the years. We all feel incredibly passionate about LaDarryl as a person and as an artist. Working to show the world the LaDarryl we know and love is the best project we could be assigned.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Lady MGMT started out as a class project. Morgan Massey, Sam Long and I were all working on BlueTOM Records, the record label for the University of Memphis. We got assigned to work with the same artists and after graduation decided to keep it going! We realized that we all had different strengths and made for a pretty unstoppable force.

We all have a lot of passion for music, and even better, we have passion for the visions of the artists’ we’re working with. There’s nothing that brings us more joy than that moment when we get to see the smile on an artist’s face when their dreams become more tangible.

We have tackled anything from helping artists produce an event, writing their bios, planning out their social media, and more. Our goal is for artists to feel that they can come to us with any project, and one way or another, we’re going to get it done. We may be small, but we are determined! We are strong believers in “If there’s a will, there’s a way.” We tell our artists that at the very least, we can guarantee them that they’ve probably just found their three biggest fans.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Show up, show up, show up!! The music scene is a competitive field no matter what city you’re in. (We, of course, are biased towards our Memphis artists. No one else brings it like a Memphis musician). Regardless, though, wherever you are, show up for your local artists. Everyone is going to have their own tastes in music, and that’s completely valid. But show up for your local artists you don’t even know that well! You’ll be surprised to find a new love for an artist you didn’t expect and you’ll be amazed at the community that can be built from that.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I would say it’s a mixture of learning to not give out favors and to be more assertive. At the end of the day, we just want to help artists; it’s not really about the money for us (cliche, I know). But there are people who will take advantage of that. Partially because we’re women, and partially because we were too nice and they thought they could utilize that. When we first began Lady MGMT, we felt bad asking for people to pay for our services so we tried doing favors for artists, but then these artists took credit for the work we did, and acted as if we hadn’t really done anything for them at all. It was a huge slap in the face considering how much hard work we put into helping them. As women, I think we definitely have had to combat our natural instinct to downplay our capabilities and don’t feel right asking for the credit we deserve. We’ve had to really learn how to be assertive and direct and demand the respect and credit we feel we deserve.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @lady_mgmt

Image Credits

Posters designed by EsMod and LaDarryl