Execs used as bait and interns cast aside – the British music industry must do better on race | Komali Scott-Jones

Black music has reshaped British culture, but now that its artists and songwriters are finally being credited, those behind the scenes also need nurture

Black musical creativity has bled like dye through the fabric of the UK, painting it in colours it never knew before. It has reverberated through jungle raves in the 90s, draped itself in designer prints and champagne at garage dances, partied hard to funky house in the mid-00s and weaved English with patois and Yoruba on Afrobeats. Colloquialisms and fragments of Black dialects flow seamlessly out of the mouths of every British teenager, often via music, with phrases like “wagwan” and “peng” peppering British slang, changing the sound of the country without a full understanding of the origins.

Our music has told the story of the times, from Steel Pulse’s Handsworth Revolution to Dizzee Rascal’s Boy in Da Corner, and Black music can impart the language of resistance, sorrow and joy for others to become fluent in: Lethal B’s Pow! (Forward), released in 2004, became the unofficial anthem as young people took to the streets of Westminster in 2011 to protest tuition fee rises. Black people have become experts at expressing ourselves through a medium that could never be totally stolen from us even if it was later appropriated and monetised by white musicians and corporations.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/Vz0t3TZ