Since 2009, Small Green Shoots has played a unique role in levelling the playing field for young people and new artists from diverse backgrounds who are trying to join the music business. Here, its founder – and Music Week Women In Music Roll Of Honour inductee – Natalie Wade talks about the black-led charity’s work so far, and its big goals for the future…
WORDS: COLLEEN HARRIS I
f it takes a village to raise a child, then Natalie Wade has mastered the art of it. Being the eldest of 13 half-siblings has, of course, helped.
“One of my proudest moments was when I got a job and I could pay for all my brothers and sisters’ school trips,” she tells Music Week. “That was like, ‘Yay, I brought home the bacon.’”
Fast forward to today, and the same ethos forms the cornerstone of Small Green Shoots, a charity she founded and runs with young people from low-income backgrounds – giving them paid training and career connections within the music and creative industries. “Everybody gets paid at Small Green Shoots, it’s a rule,” she declares. “We’re a complete network, we’ve got each other’s back. If one of us fails, we all fail. I work them really hard, but I don’t micromanage.” And it works. Her “Shoots” – as she calls them – are taught everything from invoicing and cash flow forecasting to Photoshop skills and are given roles in marketing, PR and A&R for their own outdoor events. “[One] was with me for three weeks,” she continues. “We put her to work as an artist liaison – she had to make sure artists were on time and that their managers were seen to. She just needed that confidence – she’s now a management assistant over at Modest Management.”
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mall Green Shoots has taken in more than 30 young people since 2009, and since September 2019 they have helped raise more than £389,000 for artists, organisations and creatives. Beneficiaries have included Jorja Smith, who approached them early on for funding.
“When I met Jorja her managers were so honest, they said, ‘We’ve had this success, we didn’t realise the first single was gonna get picked up and we just need some money to get the mixing done,’” explains Wade. “We were like, ‘Yeah, we’ll definitely help’. Jorja was preparing to come down from the Midlands to work at Starbucks in Croydon at the time – and look at her now.” Another example of success came when Wade introduced a then-13-year-old Mahalia to her first manager Matt Ross (Columbia, Sony Music, Sent Entertainment) – and the rest is history.
Building any great vision takes self-belief – but that didn’t come easy for Wade. As a mum-of-one in a career as “someone’s assistant taking notes” at label meetings where nobody looked like her and where she was even mistaken for ‘the talent’, it got to her.
Playing a leading roll: Natalie Wade was inducted into the Music Week Women In Music Roll Of Honour in 2020
Wade then proceeds to reel off a list of Shoots now working at Disney, EMI, Sony Music and Insanity.
“We set them up for a meeting with someone who does the [role] already, like Nick Matthews at Paradigm,” she says. “One hundred per cent of them have no connections. It’s about who you know; I am the ‘Who you know’.” It can be challenging at times, she will admit. Most Shoots are NEETS (not in education, employment or training) and some have underlying factors that can hamper their aspirations.
“We had one who was with me for three years,” Wade recalls. “She was academic but from the kind of background where debt is dangerous – debt is a scary guy standing in your doorway on a Thursday and you’re having to lie and say your mum’s in the bath. That’s the story she told me and I know that story, I’ve lived that story. She didn’t want to go to uni because uni meant debt!” With a little push and help to build a portfolio, the Shoot won a university scholarship. “It was a bit of a culture shock for her, so we kept her on two days a week while she was studying to make sure she was attending, and motivated – she only got a first!”
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“Because of the way I talk… I felt different in those meetings and I realised I had to play to it because I was never going to pass,” she says, referring to her upbringing
on an East London council estate, at odds with her middle-class colleagues. “I’m half-Irish, half-Jamaican,” she continues. “I remember my Jewish stepdad said to me, ‘What are you waiting for, do it yourself!’ because he comes from a background of business owners. I was like, ‘Nooo!’ and I remember my mum saying, ‘Leave her alone’ – because every Sunday dinner he’d be on at me and I’d get upset because I don’t come from the kind of background where you can take risks. I know what Morrisons extra value pitta bread tastes like, I don’t want to go back to it. But he was just on me. He said, ‘It’s not going to change unless you do it.’ I did and he was 100% right. If you’ve got someone behind you, it’s a game changer.” Calling on her network of contacts, Wade steadily built a team that reflected the diversity she craved in the music industry she loved. “We have a majority black female board, this is because the Shoots have a say in who our board is,” she says, giving full credit to her team. “Shoots are in our recruitment process so we can’t hire without their consent. It’s been part of the culture from the outset, that they build the organisation and their voice is current throughout. They are constantly informing me of their needs.”
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