University of California Riverside (UCR) is a school that prides itself on being inclusive both in social and academic aspects. Considering UCR has a mix of different genders, ethnicities and sexualities among the student body, why has the headliner position of arguably the biggest school coordinated event reserved for only male performers?
Block Party is an annual concert held by the Associated Students Program Board (ASPB). The student run organization is funded by fees charged to each individual student quarterly. Every fall since 1999, three artists and one DJ perform on campus during welcome week to create the first taste of independence for many freshman students. It is a highly attended event that runs out of spots for entries days before anticipated.
Flo Milli was the first and last woman who headlined the UCR fall concert in 2022 alongside Emotional Oranges and Lunay. Since Milli’s performance, no other female artists have been selected as headliners of the concert, but have been included in the concert as openers and DJs of the event. The most recent female performer was DJ Chels at the 2026 Block Party.
Notably, the organized concert that included the most female headliners was ASPB’s winter quarter festival Winter SOULstice.. Winter SOULstice was an R&B concert that brought many big names to campus. H.E.R and Alina Baraz, two female artists, were both headliners of Winter SOULstice and managed to deliver an entertaining performance while maintaining an energized crowd. An article from The Highlander covering Winter SOULstice in 2019 states, “despite being the last (and therefore latest) performer, Baraz receives the largest crowd enthusiasm by far.” Winter SOULstice was not at the same capacity of students as Block Party or Spring Splash, but the female headliners did not lack the ability to keep a crowd energized and entertained.
Winter SOULstice was canceled for the foreseeable future in 2024 because of budget constraints in the promise of focusing funds on the fall quarter Block Party festival and the spring quarter Spring Splash festival. Even since the termination of Winter SOULstice, many can agree that the quality of the festival has gone down.
The criticism of ASPB’s lack of inclusivity does not stem from the exclusion of different genres. Most concerts have had a variety of genres including hip-hop, indie and EDM. Since the festival’s origin in 1999, the headliners of the Block Party concert have either been male bands or soloists of different respective genres.
Although Block Party does not lack genre inclusivity, it lacks women as headliners. Female artists can draw in a crowd, they can keep an audience energized and put on a well produced performance, sometimes even better than their male counterparts. As stated in a 2018 article from The Highlander covering Winter SOULstice “H.E.R. knew how to connect and relate to the audience better than any of the other performers. By speaking to the crowd’s sensibilities and expressing herself effortlessly through her music, she capped the night off excellently.” The limited space that H.E.R was given in 2018 did not cause her set to be any less entertaining and captivating to the audience.
Considering ASPB is a student-funded organization, there should be more consideration taken when choosing a headliner for one of the biggest social events of the year. Every genre of music has popular female artists. There are many major female artists that the majority of the student body enjoy and would like to see in concert on campus. Genres most represented in Block Party lineups such as hip-hop and indie have many popular and well known female artists even though they are considered male dominated genres.
Musical talent is not gender conformative. There are genius female and gender-nonconforming artists as well as male artists. It can be argued that many female and gender-nonconforming artists have to work harder than their male counterparts to be taken seriously in the music industry. This is because the majority of the music industry is dominated by men due to the plethora of jobs behind the scenes. Considering that it took 23 years to have the first woman headliner at the fall concert, it should be ASPB’s goal to keep the inclusivity when it comes to the festival.
Since ASPB is for the students and by the students, it is important to have a range of artists of different genders, ethnicities and sexualities to be reflective of the diverse UCR student body.
