Welcome to our all new and improved website. All your favourite BritishBlackMusic.com and Black Music Congress content from the original BBM site will soon be back on-line here.
We have a new members registration system which should be quick and easy to use - sign up for free to submit content to the BBM site, enter our competitions and join in the BBM debate in our discussion boards.
Please click the logo below to find out what we’ve got lined up for British Black Music Month (BMMM) 2009. We launch BBMM2009 on Sunday May 31 at Swing Baby, the showcase for the musically open-minded - do get involved and also spread the word! BBMM has extended into July, with a networking session (3), concert (5) and a wrap-up club nght, where you can hear yourself talk whilst enjoying home-grown tracks played by Kwaku BBM, Prezedent and KMT.
"I think the music is in a interesting state right now. Things are changing, some say for the good and some say for the bad. But we’ve never had a system where we the people control our music and have direct contact with the audience. Perhaps there has been too much reliance on corporate culture to define our reality and our success. Maybe this is the time to make our own radio stations, online, whatever, make our own distribution and make our own profits. This is the best time to be in the music business. We define our future by shaping it ourselves or allowing others to shape it for us."
Rapper/spoken word artist and UK rap veteran HKB Finn
You can't help but notice that one of the world's most iconic and influential record companies Island Records is commemorating its 50th anniversary. They've done the concerts, there's still the exhibition in London, and there's the tome entitled 'Keep On Running: The Story Of Island Records' (Chris Salewicz, ed. Island Records/The Island Trading Co. £25).
So much has been written about Island Records. However, this large format hardback is just the lick. In that it brings the Island story right up to date by including newer signings such as Amy Winehouse and VV Brown, and right back to the Jamaican artists who kick started the label from the late 1950s and the British R&B, folk and acts that gave the label its cool catchet from the early to mid-1960s. The large format also mean that the artist photos and album covers reproduces well.
Talking about photographs, the executives of Island aren't reproduced in the book. So if you want to see what Island-Universal Records UK vice-president Darcus Beese looks like, his photo is among a dozen displayed in the NARM Role Model Photographic Exhibition, currently on at the Community Gallery @ Brent Museum, Willesden Green Library Centre, 95 High Road, London NW10 2SF.
