Four black British female artists— Nadia Rose, Ray BLK, Alexandra Burke and Misha B—have spoken out about experiencing unequal opportunity, racist remarks and mistreatment in the music industry in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement protests.
Rose—who was once signed to Sony label Relentless and has since launched her own imprint—said that as a black artist, she has felt marginalized. Speaking on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch program last week, Rose said: “My situation at Sony wasn’t the best. I feel like we were constantly bumping heads. I didn’t feel very understood in that infrastructure.
“I feel like my white, especially male, counterparts were favored a lot of the time in that building. There were hardly any black employees there and it’s like if they see you’re a black artist, they are going to put you with the black A&R. But if [that A&R] is already dealing with two other black artists, they are just going to be like, ‘Oh the workload is too much for me,’ but they don’t want to give you to anyone else. To me, it felt very poisonous. It wasn’t good for my mental health. I wasn’t releasing the music I wanted to release and it was just a very uncomfortable time.”
