disso part 1

Part 1 of my degree disseration. Taking part: 30 people including execs at major labels, underground artists, DJ's, promoters.


- Racism & The Music Industry : Attitudes & The Media


In the late 1960’s Stokely Carmichael, an activist in the American Civil Rights Movement was credited with coining the phrase ‘institutional racism’.
He described it as "the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their color, culture or ethnic origin”. Unlike individual racism which involves the attitudes and actions of individuals that perpetuate racism, institutional racism takes the form of systematic policies controlled by organisations and governments that disadvantage people because of their race.
Taking this description into hand and reflecting it on today’s music industry, some may argue that this form of racism is prevalent at all levels within the industry.
Existing knowledge suggests that in the United States, black personnel have been systematically excluded from positions of power within the industry, therefore the starting point to fill knowledge gaps in regards to the UK, was to ask personnel from all levels in the British music industry if they felt that policies or practices existed which could be seen as disadvantageous to a person from a minority ethnic group. Co-Manager of independent label Illastate Records (Akala, Ms Dynamite) Rez Safina said:
“Yes it does exist, but it’s complicated. Unfortunately the business reflects attitudes in society, because the business caters to its audience, the British public, and there is so much unspoken racism there. So if the businesses want to make money they have to spend their most money marketing to large demographics, and smaller budgets to smaller demographics. The only way the music business could operate in a totally racially equal way would be if society did”.

A&R Manager Joe Kentish from major label Universal/Def Jam said that every decision or action taken is to do with business, and assuming that there is an element of discrimination was to overestimate the industry’s goals. He went on to say:
“The goals of this major record company is to make money full stop, end of story, and you are just giving it attributes that it doesn’t have, its doesn’t have any other motivations other then that. If it can make money of white music, black music, pink, brown, blue music it will do it, that’s the nature of the beast. If you make a million from an album and it’s a black person singing, they (label heads) will much prefer that then if a white person album made £999,999”.

The statements made by Safina and Kentish are in disagreement, while Kentish disregards that there is an element of racism, Safina believes that that institutional racism does exist, however he does not solely point the finger at institutions themselves, suggesting that there is unspoken racism amongst the British public and ultimately businesses have to cater to the majority who tend to hold these attitudes. Alex Ackon, producer of Mayhem TV suggests that there is a much simpler way of looking at it, highlighting the Brit Awards as an example;
“Because we’ve got the MOBO’s, they are trying to segregate us. We should be as recognised but instead they removed the Urban category”.

This lead to question if and where these attitudes existed amongst the British public, what had shaped them and if they actually impact on the how the music industry runs its operations in particular markets.
Literature pointed towards the media and its ability to shape public opinion and in particular the manner in which negative news concerning members of the black community often compares unfavourable with whites, which in the end attaches stigma, reduces sympathy, promotes fear and eventually breeds racism.
On an industry level and focusing on Hip Hop, labels have a job to market the genre’s authentic counter-cultural style and to achieve that on a mass scale is a difficult task as in theory the labels are trying to package what the public perceive and fear straight back to them. The question put forward was does negative media portrayal of black people in Britain shape stereotypes making it difficult to market the artist authentically? DJ FX from Pyroradio/SK Vibemakers felt that the media pick up on isolated stories and run with them, adding:
“Because they are so powerful, if they say something about black youth or a particular music scene it will damage them so the record labels will listen and end up sharing the same views”.

What FX suggests is that the media tend to generalise, as they did with groups like So Solid, and portray anyone who fits the stereotype as a possible criminal and everyone else a potential victim rather then individualising the defendants and victims.
Tendai Tyson, a Virgin Records artist from group Unklejam had a completely different take, pointing out artists such as 50 Cent who have been successfully marketed as counter-cultural artists, believing that blame for low sales is put on bad coverage in the media as a cover up and it’s really down to labels not knowing how to deal with black music that’s at the root of the problem. Tyson controversially added when black artists do become successful in the UK and build power they get:
“Shut down so they don’t become too big because England doesn’t want what’s in America; successful black owned businesses”.