Years after his death, David Bowie is still making an impact.
On Sunday, author Morgan Jenkins shared a clip of a 1983 interview Bowie did with MTV VJ Mark Goodman. In the video, which has been retweeted over 56,000 times since Sunday, Bowie asks why the network isn’t playing more Black artists.
In 1983, when David Bowie got MTV together and asked them why weren’t they playing Black artists >>>>> pic.twitter.com/rHavzF6kqA
— Morgan Jerkins (@MorganJerkins) January 4, 2021
“I’m just floored by the fact that there’s so few Black artists featured…why is that?” he asks at the clip’s start.
“I think that we’re trying to move in that direction,” Goodman responds. “We want to play artists that fit into what we want to play for MTV. The company is thinking in terms of narrowcasting.”
“That’s evident,” Bowie retorts. “It’s evident in the fact that the only few Black artists one does see are on about 2:30 in the morning to around 6. Very few are featured predominantly during the day. I’ll say that over the last couple weeks, things have been changing, but it’s a slow process.”
Bowie continued to press, adding, “There seem to be a lot of Black artists making very good videos that I’m surprised aren’t used on MTV.”
Many of today’s biggest stars were quick to praise Bowie’s allyship. Missy Elliot reshared the clip, writing, “It’s so Important to know the HISTORY of Our Black LEGENDS & All they endured…We must RESPECT them for the doors they had to kick down for us to walk through. Bigup David Bowie for addressing this. RIP.”=
Ice T wrote, “Never forget that David Bowie checked the F outta MTV for their racial BS.. THANKS Dave! Respect.”
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and husband to Serena Williams, tried to explain MTV’s impact to a younger audience, tweeting, “This clip is not going to make any sense to Gen Z, raised in a world without a single cultural authority like MTV was back then, decided by a room of white dudes trying to figure out what would be safe for white America to see/hear.”
Watch David Bowie’s full interview with MTV below.
David Bowie: Remembering A Music Icon
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