Alexandra Notman

Mashka is unaware of the dangers. Tail wagging, ears flopping, she bounds down dirt paths, through tall grass, past rubble to cooling tower number five. An unofficial tour guide, the stray dog leads artist Julia Oldham into the enormous structure. Then Mashka, glossy black and spry, lies down on the moss-covered concrete floor of the soaring cylindrical tower and happily chews on some elk bones, blissfully oblivious to the radioactive isotopic dust that blankets her world.

This came as something of a shock to Janita, a critically acclaimed Brooklyn-based alt-pop artist who hails from Finland. Janita, now on Morgan’s ECR Music Group label, relocated to the U.S. when she was 17. “I started my career so young, I got used to being paid when my music was on the radio,” Janita recalls of working as a musician in Finland. “A third of my income came from being on the radio. Artists in the States don’t know what they’re missing.” Janita has joined the #IRespectMusic fight.

While awards shows can be vapid, vanilla, insular and aggressively mainstream, they are also—for better or worse—a reflection of social mores. Awards shows demonstrate where the power lies in Hollywood and where it may shift. And it is shifting—albeit slowly. Asia Kate Dillon, a non-binary actor, earned an Emmy nomination in 2017 for their role (playing a nonbinary character) on Showtime’s Billions.