Soweto Kinch and UK black music acts get no love...

I admit I slept on the talents of Soweto Kinch and his fusion of Jazz and Hip-Hop. His album A Day In The Life needs to be checked out but you would be forgiven for not hearing of this album or his name any sooner than now. The album and artist has been pickin up acclaim from Giles Peterson, Ras Kwame et al but despite this, Soweto has been having trouble getting his product out to reach people. Now this sounds nothing new, artists are always talking about not having their product marketed right and plenty of copies being left on the shelf, but this story is important as it raises the age old topic of UK black music acts being neglected for american Hip-Hop/R'n'B by numbers acts backed by big record companies.

Earlier in the year the always outspoken, but always valid Ty raised some important points on this topic and it's worth checking out what Soweto has to say on his myspace blog on being blackballed by music retailers who want to pigeon hole his music to the Jazz section and not double rack his CD. This has stalled his second album Basement Fables. He goes onto mention his thoughts on:

The spin the music industry puts on things that make it sound like it's all rosey.

The term 'urban music'

The youth market

The term intelligent Hip-Hop

It makes for angry and at times depressing reading when he shares an opinion of many, yet the big people in their record label offices don't have a clue. Record labels, TV and Radio stations seem to use the excuse that UK Hip-Hop and Grime is not something that they want to be associated with, yet they pump millions into making 50 Cent household names with 5 year olds. Yet it's hard even if these record companies listened to what these artists had to say and had the time to understand more about the UK scene when they can point to spreadsheets of money made recycling tried and tested types of artists. Young kids are now brainwashed into excepting acts like 50 Cent and T.I represent all that Hip-Hop is and don't want to know about a Ty or Soweto Kinch. Will we ever see a change?