The LGBTQIA community has greatly influenced music, and both music and culture have long been moved by the community in return. As more and more artists feel empowered to share their authentic selves onstage and off, the power and influence of queer creators grow as guiding forces across culture.
Today, Spotify introduces GLOW, a new global music program celebrating and amplifying LGBTQIA artists and creators. It's our latest initiative to support people of this historically marginalized community of voices and reassert our commitment to equity in audio. It ensures that queer creators, and their contributions to music and culture, are heard and honored year-round.
Putting LGBTQIA artists front and center GLOW is supported by an on- and off-platform ecosystem where LGBTQIA artists and users are authentically represented and meaningfully included.
The GLOW hub will serve as a dedicated space on Spotify to highlight audio offerings of LGBTQIA voices for queer listeners and allies.
Our Global flagship playlist, GLOW, will refresh monthly and highlight tracks by LGBTQIA artists.
Throughout the year, we'll amplify 11 artists from around the world within the GLOW hub, on billboards across the U.S., and in even more ways.
Our 360 program provides editorial and partnership capabilities, marketing support, and charitable giving to organizations like QORDS, Astrea, Black Trans Femmes In The Arts, ChamberQueer, Allgo, It Gets Better, Youth Music, and Casa Chama.
At launch, we'll be working with 11 amazing artists: Bruses, Jean Seizure, Leland, Liniker, Natalia Lacunza, Arlo Parks, Joesef, Pabllo Vittar, Sam Smith, Tove Lo, and Villano Antillano.
All in, GLOW will streamline and heighten the support Spotify has provided through our annual global Pride activations. It will be available in 50 markets across Europe, India, Asia, Africa, North America, Latin America, the Nordics, and Southeast Asia.
To launch, we're hosting LGBTQIA artists and songwriters at the Spotify At Mateo office in LA, including jesse saint john, who has written for Britney Spears, Lizzo, and Kim Petras; JHart, who has written for Troye Sivan, 5SOS, and Little Mix; Ilsey, who has written for Panic! at the Disco, Miley Cyrus, Mark Ronson, and Harry Styles); and INK, who has written for Beyonc , Leon Bridges, and Lil Nas X. The attendees will participate in three days of writing sessions aimed at celebrating and inspiring collaboration among creators in the LGBTQIA community.
We recognize the power of our platform to elevate, uplift, and spotlight voices that have been historically marginalized, and we're committed to using it to drive cultural change. GLOW is supported by Spotify's Creator Equity Fund as the latest part of our ongoing commitment to fostering equity in the audio space. By providing equitable resources to queer artists on a global level, GLOW is another way we're working to create greater equity, empathy, and representation for the LGBTQIA community. We work closely with our partners at GLAAD and others to ensure GLOW best represents LGBTQIA artists and listeners in authentic and meaningful ways.
Meet the team behind GLOW The backbone of GLOW is Spotify employees who are passionate about music, artist empowerment, and above all else, their queer community.
Lisa Ritchey, she/her, Manager, Artist Partnership Team What is your role in bringing GLOW to life? I am a manager on our newly formed Artist Partnerships Team, but I've been in this type of role for the past three years. I currently work across pop, dance, and indie, finding ways that we can bring Spotify into the entirety of an artist's career outside of a record cycle-touring, festivals, merchandise, integrating artists into campaigns within those genres and our playlists-finding new and creative ways to partner together with artists.
I've worked on Spotify's Pride campaign for the past three years. I came in and was very, very passionate about LGBTQIA artists and how we can better serve that community and the fan base. After working on Pride, I started working on what would be an evergreen program very similar to Frequency or EQUAL with a colleague (the Head of Rock on our Editorial Team, Laura Ohls). We started working on this probably two years ago and in that time, the team has grown exponentially, become more robust, and received a lot of support company-wide.
Why is GLOW important to you? I, along with the majority of the community, am very weary and skeptical of corporatized Pride. If a company is going to show up in June, they have to show up throughout the year. Where this program is amazing is that its sole purpose is to support the community on- and off-platform year-round. The way that we are showing up in this program also feels different-we're supporting these artists because of who they are holistically. These are artists who are doing incredible things and they just so happen to be queer.
Who are some queer artists or cultural icons who have inspired you? In the '90s it was hard to find robust queer representation, and you had icons like Elton John and George Michael, so when The xx showed up and I found out that Romy and Oliver from The xx were both queer, it kinda blew my mind and it was the first time that I felt seen. St. Vincent was pretty huge for me and really made me understand myself more in college. Frank Ocean-truly, his tumblr coming-out letter, I want to get it framed and put it up in my house because that was so huge not only to me, but to music and culture in general-I think that was around the time that I was truly figuring myself out, so it meant a lot.
And the beautiful thing that we're seeing now is just, more. The floodgates have opened and we have so many artists to choose from.
Cahleb Derry, he/him, Associate Manager, Music Marketi
Europe Stories
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
13/03/2026
Spotify has always been built around your taste. More than 80% of listeners say personalization is what they love most about us. Now we're taking that even ...
13/03/2026
The new Spotify Legends Club has opened its doors. Its members: select German-sp...
13/03/2026
Pushing drum sampler technology into new territories
The latest version of Klevgrand's software drum sampler has just arrived, boasting a newly designe...
13/03/2026
Expanded headphone support & engine improvements
IK Multimedia's recently introduced ARC On-Ear system brings the power of their monitoring-correction s...
13/03/2026
Extra sound collections, more presets & new Keys category
UVI's rhythm and pattern instrument has just received a major update that introduces four new ...
13/03/2026
13 Mar 2026
VEON Delivers Record Digital Growth: 4Q25 Digital Revenues Grow 84%...
13/03/2026
Friday 13 March 2026
Sky Adds Blood on Snow to Original Film Slate in Acquisiti...
13/03/2026
RT has announced today that Rick O'Shea is the new presenter of Arena RT Radio 1's flagship weeknight arts and culture programme. Rick has been pres...
13/03/2026
Lights! Camera! Action! The 98th Oscars set to air live as RT backs the Irish n...
12/03/2026
Staines-upon-Thames, UK, 11th March, 2026 - Yospace, the trusted leader in Dyna...
12/03/2026
In Latin America, women are shaping music and defining its future. To kick off t...
12/03/2026
En Am rica Latina, las mujeres est n moldeando la m sica y definiendo su futuro....
12/03/2026
Let's turn back the clock 20 years: The music landscape was a world away fro...
12/03/2026
Bad Bunny is no stranger to Spotify's Billions Club. In fact, he has a whopp...
12/03/2026
Spotify was at the London Book Fair this week, joining conversations across the publishing industry about how people can make reading part of their daily lives....
12/03/2026
Mastering tool improves mono compatibility
Tokyo Dawn Labs' Ohlhorst Digital range is a series of mastering-focused plug-ins developed by Jan Ohlhorst, ...
12/03/2026
Wave FX processor integrated into four products
Lewitt have teamed up with Elgato to create a new processor for the company's Wave Next product range, i...
12/03/2026
Free tool for annotating audio files
Mix Notes is a new, free iOS App that provides users with a simple way to annotate their audio files. It's been cre...
12/03/2026
Side-chain ducking tool gets an upgrade
Devious Machines' popular side-chaining and envelope-shaping tool has just been kitted out with an improved enve...
12/03/2026
Ceremony to take place on 16 April 2026
The MPG (Music Producers Guild) have revealed the full shortlist for this year's MPG Awards, which will be takin...
12/03/2026
Emulates three classic dbx 160 variants
The latest arrival to Overloud's Gem Series plug-in range faithfully recreates not one, but three versions of th...
12/03/2026
New granular soft synth announced
Said to be their most advanced software synthesizer to date, Baby Audio's latest release has been built on a new granu...
12/03/2026
Latest version now live!
Edit 11 March 2026 - Bitwig Studio 6 is now live, and available for all to download!
The latest version of Bitwig's DAW softwa...
12/03/2026
Latest free eBook now available!
Designed for recording engineers, audio-technology students and technically minded musicians, our latest free eBook deliver...
12/03/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity expands SITLine network encryptor portfolio - more...
12/03/2026
Rohde & Schwarz to showcase future-proof EMC testing solutions at EMV 2026 Rohde & Schwarz will participate in EMV 2026, Europe's premier trade fair and c...
12/03/2026
Modern media operations demand a platform that unites automation, orchestration, and human oversight without compromise. In this post, we explore the six key te...
12/03/2026
A deep dive into the platform
Architecture The Blue Lucy platform follows a distributed microservices architecture, meaning the overall operational capability...
12/03/2026
Orchestration platform enables broadcasters to deploy multiple AI models safely with full auditability, rights protection, and regulatory oversight.
LONDON, En...
12/03/2026
Wuppertal March 12, 2026
Riedel Expands Managed Technology Division in the Ame...
12/03/2026
Advanced Media Server Delivers Double the Channel Density at Half the Cost per C...
12/03/2026
The Late Late Show Show St Patrick's Day special
Dancing with the Stars f...
11/03/2026
First Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) deployment of the emergency.lu platform for refugees and their host communities' use provides dependable broadband for humani...
11/03/2026
Following a successful first series, UKTV today announces the commission of two ...
11/03/2026
Wednesday 11 March 2026
Sky and CANAL launch new partnership to develop English-language drama
Sky and CANAL are today announcing a strategic co commissioni...
11/03/2026
NTCA, Cartesian Release New Report on the Business Case for USF
March 11, 2026
Network Economics
News
NTCA - March 11, 2026 - As the FCC and Congr...
11/03/2026
TELL US YOUR (SHORT) STORIES
The 2026 RT Short Story Competition is now open for entries
Recognising and rewarding the best new Irish fiction writing for...
11/03/2026
RT 's The Traitors Ireland is among the nominees for the 2026 Celtic Media Festival Torc Awards for Excellence, announced today....
10/03/2026
10 Mar 2026
VEON's Largest Market Pakistan Almost Triples Mobile Spectrum i...
09/03/2026
Contains all six dual-ensemble libraries
VSL's Duality Strings series offers an intriguing alternative to your average string library, capturing two str...
09/03/2026
Outstanding Contribution To UK Music
Photo: Samuel Bradley
Ahead of their upcoming MPG Awards, the Music Producers Guild (MPG) have revealed the latest win...
09/03/2026
Two new high-quality DI boxes announced
Boasting some impressive technical specifications and versatile routing options, Strymon's latest active DI boxe...
09/03/2026
Latest MPE-capable Soundbox library released
The follow-up release for Sonora Cinematic's Pure Nylon has arrived, and becomes the latest addition to the...
09/03/2026
Popular wireless mic head design revived
Sennheiser have revealed that the MD 9235, a cardioid mic head designed to pair up with their handheld wireless sys...
The LGBTQIA community has greatly influenced music, and both music and culture have long been moved by the community in return. As more and more artists feel empowered to share their authentic selves onstage and off, the power and influence of queer creators grow as guiding forces across culture.
