Tracey Moore (photo courtesy of Moore)

FEMALE TALENT TAKES CENTER STAGE AT BLACK LILY’S MUSIC AND FILM FESTIVAL

It started in ?uestlove’s living room.

Philadelphia-based musicians Tracey Moore and Mercedes Martinez, who make up the soul group Jazzyfatnastees, would have jam sessions at the DJ’s digs.

“We just grew so big that we needed a bigger venue,” says Moore. “We took it to New York.”

But that didn’t solve all of their problems. “It got to the point where the women who were involved in creating these jam sessions started being pushed to the side and marginalized,” remembers Moore. “Out of our frustrations, we started talking to our manager and we wanted to start our own s***.”

And start their own collective they did. “[We were] definitely on some renegade gorilla style tactics,” says Moore. In 1999, Moore and the crew created Black Lily: A Women in Music Series. This week will mark the second Annual Black Lily Film & Music Festival for women artists. The festival, which will be held in University City from May 1st to 4th, will feature films from 30 women and trans directors from around the world. The concert component of the event, scheduled for Saturday May 3, will star Bahamadia, Ladybug Mecca, Jaguar Wright, and Amanda Diva.

In 2000, the Moore and the Black Lily ensemble– which included greats like Kindred The Family Soul and Jaguar Wright - began having shows at The Five Spot in Philly. Every Tuesday night – for the next four years - the women’s music series graced the stage of the nightclub, which has since closed due to a fire in February 2007. “It definitely facilitated something that was greatly needed in the female musician collective,” says Moore. It also created a place for local musicians – and the Philly music scene in general - to gain exposure. “It became the spot to be on Tuesday nights. One time, Alicia Keys was in town and she came through, and got on stage and jammed out.”

Eventually, the weekly jam sessions had to come to an end. The goal of Black Lily was never to make money. But since expenses were outweighing costs, it was hard to continue. “It was costing more than we were being paid…We were loosing.” The money they earned from the door was used to pay artists and bands. And to make matters worse – or better, depending how you look at it - the weekly acts started getting signed to music labels.

Black Lily became a non-profit organization in 2004. Since then, the collective has grown into an organization committed to supporting women artists – particularly musicians and filmmakers - of all ages. Its mission is to showcase both emerging and established artists by highlighting their work and providing opportunities for networking and training. Aside from the music and film festival, which had 2000 attendees last year, the organization created the The Black Lily Girl’s Workshop series.

These workshops hope to provide a safe space for young women to learn how to use equipment and technological skills that – for social and economic reasons – they may not otherwise be exposed to.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Moore says that art was always part of her foundation. “My mother [was] adamant about us not just hanging out on the street corner. She had four girls. The last thing she wanted was her 16-year-old daughter and her 14-year-old daughter coming home pregnant.”

For Moore, creating a component of Black Lily that mentored young women was a must. “I believe in giving children some options, let them see what’s out there. The world is bigger than their 10-block radius. Some kids never get a chance to find that out,” says more, co-chairman of Black Lily, Inc. “I was one of those kids who I totally embraced the arts because my home life was something I wasn’t necessarily happy to go home to.”

This year’s girls program started with an eight-week pre-festival series that consisted of DJing, sound production, and video editing. “It’s very important to us that we build in skills development for everyone who wants it, young women included, and that’s why we’ve focused so much on the workshops,” says Black Lily President Maori Karmael Holmes. “The Girl’s workshop grew this year by having a series of workshops eight weeks prior to the festival.” Holmes says that she hopes to one day have a full-time summer camp for young women.

As far as the future of Black Lily, Moore and Holmes say they want it the festival to become the equivalent to a Sundance or Coachella festival. “I hope that Black Lily continues as a festival and becomes a kind of women’s indie haven on the level of south by southwest focusing on independent female musicians and filmmakers and grows larger in international recognition,” says Holmes. “I like the size of our festival and its boutique nature–I don’t know if it should be any larger, but it would be great if we could find more funding and bring in more artists.”

Moore agrees: “One of my personal missions is to help educate and strengthen women. We can be a really strong force to be reckoned with.”

Touché.

Click here for a full schedule for Black Lily’s Film Music Festival, which jumps off this Thursday.