David Bowie Criticizes MTV for Not Playing Videos by Black Artists | MTV News - eviltoast
  • Thrillhouse@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    …. You know that modern rock music as we know it was directly copying the work of black artists like Little Richard, right?

    Maybe “bands play different genres in some proportions” (that you know of) due to the disproportionate marketing and airplay they received at the time Bowie was speaking about this issue.

    Channels selected bands based on what they thought they could sell. And they weren’t interested in platforming black artists. Maybe they weren’t selling black music because the white music execs didn’t want to give it a chance (racism). This is exactly what people talk about when they say racism is a systemic issue.

    There’s also a little bit of history to know that when Bowie was talking about this MTV was the biggest thing that could skyrocket an artist or a band to popularity. Multiple “channels” didn’t exist.