Written by Sara Sharma
For a business that is worth around 130 BILLION dollars we know shockingly little about what the music industry actually is. Through out history the industry has changed and morphed into various versions of itself and will likely continue to do so. One thing that has stayed uniform however, is the racist undertone and very clear favouring of white artists over those of colour.
Recent examples of this include artists like The Weeknd and Zayn being completely blacklisted from the 2020 Grammy Awards. Both artists took to Twitter to express their disappointment. The Weeknd said in a tweet dated 11/24/20 “The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency…”, after his critically acclaimed album “After Hours” with one of the biggest hit singles in the last decade “Blinding Lights” were completely snubbed. Zayn took to Twitter saying “F*** the Grammys and everyone associated. Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination consideration. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionary”, further implying that the Grammys are corrupt.
A prime example when looking at racism in the music industry and specifically xenophobia in the western music industry is the world renowned k-pop group BTS. The group that consists of 7 members, RM, Jin, J-Hope, Suga, Jimin, V and Jungkook, has taken the industry and the world by storm so it came as a shock to fans and locals alike when their acclaimed album “BE” and #1 single “Dynamite” were almost completely blacklisted from all western award shows. But award shows is not where it ends.
The music industry is a wide spectrum that one could explore and research about for hours and hours. Award shows are just a tiny sliver of what it consists of. Will we ever know where it starts and ends? Will it ever have perfect edges? Will it ever be an unprejudiced industry? Answers to these questions, we may never know, but for now, once the problem is acknowledged it doesn’t take as long to work towards fixing it, so the question is; Is the industry ready to admit its faults
and work on becoming a better, more equal and accepting version of itself?
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