Pop Finds A New Spirit: Sisterhood

BEBE REXHA’S DINNER PARTY IN Los Angeles wasn’t necessarily meant to be a bold feminist statement. Rexha, a singer-songwriter who has penned songs for Rihanna and Selena Gomez and will release her debut album Expectations on June 22, just wanted to celebrate the female community she had struggled to find for years in an industry dominated by men behind the scenes—and by solo divas in the spotlight.

- Raisa Bruner

“You never saw Britney [Spears] and Christina [Aguilera] hanging out, or Shakira and Britney, or Jessica Simpson,” Rexha says.

But at her Women in Harmony dinner, Rexha and her peers—including pop experimentalist Charli XCX, up-and-coming singer Kim Petras and country breakout Kelsea Ballerini—were happy to make new friends and swap phone numbers. The evening testified to a paradigm shift for women in music: this is no longer a moment of divas duking it out for a sole spot atop the pyramid. Instead, rising female artists like Rexha are finding new power in banding together.

It’s a recent change, a long time coming. “Women weren’t coming together on their own,” says Julie Greenwald, chairman and COO of Atlantic Records, about the ethos of past decades. She cites 2001’s hit single “Lady Marmalade” as a rare example of an “event record” that brought together Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya and Pink on one song. Today, though, those kinds of crossovers happen all the time: Aguilera herself tapped Demi Lovato for her recent single “Fall in Line”; Swedish pop favorite Tove Lo brought in fellow women Charli XCX, Icona Pop, Elliphant and ALMA to appear on her latest release; and Rexha was looped in with rapper Cardi B and Charli XCX to feature on a recent collaboration with Rita Ora, aptly titled “Girls.” According to Greenwald, the reason these features were once rare was due in part to a dearth of women in the marketplace to begin with: the explosion of music streaming has created more room for female artists to develop a following instead of fighting for limited airtime.