Today I am chatting with Rasha Shaker, a music marketing professional living in Nashville. Rasha has worked with brands, bands, music festivals, venues and more to design strategic marketing plans, and she's currently pursuing an MBA in Music Business at MTSU. She has helped a touring artist generate over a million dollars in sales, and she lead a marketing campaign with a 14x return on ad spend. But as impressive as these things are, she's so much more than that.

As is usually the case with my podcast, we ended up talking about the human stuff - fitting in to a complicated world when you're neuro-divergent, VR and music in the metaverse, race and gender diversity in country music, and much more. Rasha is an incredibly bright mind with a huge heart for empathy and I strongly encourage everyone to hear what she has to say about neurodiversity in music and making room for people with disabilities at your table.

As always, feel free to reach out via email if you want to chat about any topics in this episode.

Key Moments:

02:48 - Neuro-diversity, what does that mean?

09:34 - Calling out microaggressions and flight vs fight vs freeze

17:13 - Passion for music meets passion for diversity inclusion

24:07 - People can exist in these spaces and it doesn't need to threaten your identity.

36:19 - VR as a technology that helps people with disabilities enjoy music

42:50 - What Rasha's been listening to lately (with an interlude - Ode to Lady Gaga)

57:14 - Why companies should hire neuro-diverse individuals to solve their problems

1:01:32 - Turn yourself up to 11 and be unapologetic

Follow Rasha:

Website - rashaker.com

Instagram - @ra_sha_ker

Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashashaker/

Books mentioned:

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

Dare to Lead - Brene Brown

How to Reach Us:

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Learn more about Steph at stephbelcher.com

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When Songs Mean BusinessBy Steph BelcherDec 21, 2022