Jaguar Jonze is among Australia’s top 100 cultural leaders in The List magazine
‘The music industry has used the glitz and the glamour to hide its true ugliness,’ said the pop artist. ‘It is an industry diseased with a culture of abuse, discrimination and sexual harassment.’
After more than two years of tireless advocacy at the forefront of the Australian music industry’s long overdue movement to expose bad behaviour, pop singer-songwriter Jaguar Jonze is eagerly awaiting the release of her debut album next week.
So she should be: titled Bunny Mode, it’s a swaggering, powerful set of songs that announces the artist born Deena Lynch as one of the standout voices in Australian pop music.
It’s also an act of triumphing over trauma. But the path to its release was diverted by an unexpected and draining detour into activism, after Lynch disclosed in March 2020 that she had been sexually abused by two unnamed male music producers who threatened to derail her career.
Although she reported the incident to Queensland Police four months after the event, which took place in March 2019, Lynch says the alleged perpetrators were charged with sexual assault only last year, after she recounted her horrifying experience on Network 10’s The Project.
At the Australian Women in Music Awards in Brisbane last week, Lynch shared the inaugural “change maker” award with a former Sony Music Australia employee, Tamara Georgopoulos, for their efforts in speaking up about their mistreatment, which spurred a groundswell that has become a cultural tidal wave.
In a resonant speech from the stage, Lynch said: “For so long, the music industry has used the glitz and the glamour to hide its true ugliness. It is an industry diseased with a culture of abuse, discrimination and sexual harassment.
“We still have so much work ahead of us. “If you ask me for what I really want, after my sacrifice, trauma, and advocacy, it is opportunity. Ongoing safety. Freedom, equality, and justice.
“I want our leaders and influencers and gatekeepers to have integrity, to fill their responsibilities, and take accountability.”
For her pioneering efforts at forcing the music industry to finally listen to its valuable women workers, Jaguar Jonze is among Australia’s top 100 cultural leaders, with the full list to be revealed in The List – Arts and Culture, a 92-page glossy magazine published in The Australian on Friday.
As well, a profile of the artist and the story behind Bunny Mode will be published in the Review section of The Weekend Australian on Saturday.
But for Lynch, her debut album – to be released on June 3 via Nettwerk Records – offers a chance to close an exhausting chapter of her life.
“I want the same privilege of every other artist in this industry,” she told The Australian. “I don’t want to be asked to attend an award ceremony because of something that’s unrelated to my artistry; I don’t want to be asked to speak on a panel just because of my advocacy.
“I exist in this world as an artist, and that needs to be No.1 again,” she said. “That’s why I came into this industry.”
Jaguar Jonze’s national tour begins in Melbourne on June 18 and ends in Newcastle on July 10.
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