Charlene Kaye: Diversity Shredder review – killer riffs slay toxic music industry

Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh This is a fun and feverish journey, with well-crafted comedy and screaming guitar, through the star’s career so far In an industry that claims to be inclusive, it’s so easy to feel tokenised. For musician and comedian Charlene Kaye, it has been an uphill battle feeling like the token queer Asian female guitar player, in demand to cater to people’s otherwise superficial concern around diversity, as well as their attempts at being perceived as politically conscious. But if you’re booked and busy, and genuinely skilled at what you do, does it matter if the requests come in through slightly nefarious means? Diversity Shredder is a fun and feverish romp through Kaye’s journey of finding her artistic voice, and what it means to be an Asian American musician in the context of a very broken and unbalanced capitalist system. Using well-crafted, multi-genre musical comedy along with her masterful guitar skills, Kaye reflects on the mental gymnastics at play when you’re a person of colour trying to navigate a career in music, when all people really seem to want is Cassandra from Wayne’s World. Kaye has built a global following via Instagram and T