disso part 2 of Music Industry & Racism

--- Power and Under-Representation ---

Leading on from part 1… What Tyson suggests in this last statement is that Britain is concerns itself over who is in control and who ultimately has power.
In democratic nations like Britain, the majority rules; strength lies in numbers. Minority ethnic groups make up 7.9% of the UK’s population.

The majority of people interviewed felt that there was an underrepresentation of black executives and managers working in the industry. The statistics may explain why, as industry numbers arguably reflect total population numbers
However what Tyson touched on was that the UK has a conscious or subconscious belief about where power and ownership should lie. He provides an example highlighting his own A&R Manager Lincoln Elias (then working for Sony) who sold over 80 million records and who Sony held in high regard but axed once his imprint label ‘S2’ became powerful and began bringing more black artists through like Terence Trent Darby and Des’ree.

Negus in his Corporate Cultures book details a similar scenario where EMI closed its urban divisions during the 90’s to “concentrate on its stars”, despite urban music accounting for 21% of total sales in the US at the time.

Former Radio 1xtra DJ Nesha Welch commented that because of this imbalance of power at high levels across the industry (meaning labels, venues and media), separation is occurring which she believes could lead to black music being excluded completely. Mercury A&R Manager Joe Kentish commented that under-representation of black staff could be to do with how a person enters the industry suggesting that there is a bias towards middle class people who can afford to work for free for a while or know the right people to get them in.