Artist collective We’re Sweet Girls was founded by Zoë Robinson (center, wearing a pink T-Shirt). The group promotes live music shows and perform as DJs around Tampa Bay venues. Photo via We’re Sweet Girls
There’s been a shift in the zeitgeist of the local music scene over the past couple of years, and it’s female.
Artist collective We’re Sweet Girls is a driving force behind this shift. It was formed two years ago by Zoë Robinson, who was active in the music scene, but was getting burnt out on not only how male-dominated the shows felt, but how un-reflected she felt as a woman.
Other friends, like Rebeka Burden, felt similarly disenfranchised. There weren’t enough women not only onstage, but not throwing or emceeing shows either.
“We were like, OK, we want to change that,” Robinson said during an interview at Golden Dinosaurs in Gulfport on New Year’s Eve.
It was also important to create safe, inclusive environments that welcomed not only women, but anyone who identifies as female — or simply supports them.
Their first show was at The Bends in St. Petersburg in 2022, for the bar’s 10th anniversary party. It featured local bands They Hate Change, Spoiled Rat, Charlie and Fesssi K — Robinson’s solo project.
As musicians and DJs, music is the collective’s through line. Since 2022, they’ve consistently thrown shows with local bands and their own DJ sets at The Bends, Crowbar, the VFW 39 in St. Pete and the American Legion 111 in Tampa.
Arts All Around!
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In 2024, they began a monthly DJ set party, Girls to the Front, which happens the last Friday of every month at The Bends. They play a variety of genres, whatever they’re feeling at the time, but it’s always dance music. For example, at the last Girls to the Front party the set was ’90s hip hop and R&B.
Being sweet is truly at the heart of the collective. Here is a photo of guests at a Girls to the Front event in June 2024. Photo by Rebeka Burden
The collective has grown with more members over time, but the philosophy is that if you come to a Sweet Girls show, “you’re a sweet girl,” Robinson and Burden said in unison, meaning the audience becomes part of it.
Robinson describes the events as open exchanges of Tampa Bay-area talent sharing their equipment preferences and techniques. She said they want to get to know the people who come to the shows. In turn, Burden said the amount of support and gratitude from them is “mind-blowing.”
We’re Sweet Girls opened for Dorian Electra at an event in 2024. We’re Sweet Girls events are open exchanges of Tampa Bay-area talent.Photo by Jen Bodine
We’re Sweet Girls: The Zine
We’re Sweet Girls also make zines — Girlyfesto is one, and one entirely made of photos from throughout the year was given out to all the bands at their end-of-the-year event at Bananas Records. (Burden is a “very sick photographer,” Robinson said.) They invite people whose writing or photography they admire to submit to the zines.
Being sweet is truly at the heart of the collective. After the hurricanes, they held shows called Sweet Relief to benefit victims, because they believe in mutual aid, they said.
Another goal of the collective is to unite St. Pete and Tampa through the events. Robinson lives in St. Pete and Burden lives in Tampa, so they didn’t want there to be a separation, as so often happens.
While they still both have full-time jobs, the long-term plan is to be able to fully commit to We’re Sweet Girls. They hope to expand the umbrella’s reach to Los Angeles, New York, Georgia and beyond.
“What We’re Sweet Girls is really about is community building through music,” Burden said.
“Yesss, Beka,” said Robinson.
For more information on We’re Sweet Girls, follow them on Instagram.
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