Ed Sheeran is the top "Black and urban" artist apparently

The results of who made BBC 1Xtra’s Power List came in a few days ago and no one seems to be happy. The urban, hip-hop radio station’s list ranks ‘the most important UK artists in the black and urban music scene’.

However backlash has come out over the top spot being given to guitar strumming, folk singing, white guy; Ed Sheeran. Even though just over half of the list is made up of black artists, criticism towards the list from the BBC doesn’t end there with many still angered that only one of the top four acts are black.

Tinie Tempah came in third behind Disclosure followed by Sam Smith. While the inclusion of the last two could still be partly justified despite the fact that clearly neither of them are black, the inclusion of many on the list is speculated by Spin to perhaps reflect the amount of airtime given to a handful of artists as well as the general taste in music of people in the UK. Spin notes that Sam Smith has been the artist given the most airtime so far in 2014, despite the fact that he doesn’t make hip-hop or urban music. UK rapper Wiley who came in at number 16 vented his anger on his twitter account (link) saying that ‘England music industry is backwards’.

Music manager for BBC 1 Xtra Austin Daboh defends the list saying that commitment to black music and specifically black British artists will always be the cornerstone of what we do, it’s part of our distinctiveness... we are a station that cares very deeply about black music’. Since these objections, the radio station’s website has also changed the agenda of the list to: ‘The Top 20 Most Important UK Artists In The Scene’ instead.

Article by Dani Zhang

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