Nile Rodgers backs ban of the term Urban in music – STLtoday.com

The likes of the Grammys and labels, including Republic Records, have recently promised to ditch the phrase to describe performers and releases by black artists following the mass Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the death of unarmed African American, George Floyd.

And now the Chic legend has opened up about his own experience of being weighed down by “boundaries” “no matter how successful” his records were when he started out, and insisted it’s a “really productive” decision to remove the word Urban from the music industry’s vocabulary to stop artists feeling confined by categorization due to the color of their skin.

Speaking to Metro.co.uk, the ‘Le Freak’ hitmaker – who has just been announced as a mentor to Ivor Novello Award-nominee Amahla, who is up for the all-new Rising Star Award with Apple Music – said: “When I grew up there was always a mountain to climb, no matter how successful your record was in your own community, what you really wanted it to do is to cross over into the other community.

“I remember when George Michael made a big deal out of being number one on the R&B chart and that’s because society puts up these boundaries and these gates that we have to get through.

“When we’re artists we just want the world to hear our music. When someone has a big record, that’s the reason why they call it pop because it’s popular. You go to a concert, and I don’t care who the artist is. If it’s a really really big record, you’re gonna see a fairly disparate crowd.

“I mean sure, when Madonna was big the majority of her audience were girls and they were Madonna-type wannabes. But because you have such a big record, you will still have a diverse audience. It just goes along with the territory.”

When the Grammys return in 2021, the Recording Academy will replace the Best Urban Contemporary Album category with the title Best Progressive R&B Album.

A spokesperson said: “This change includes a more accurate definition to describe the merit or characteristics of music compositions or performances themselves within the genre of R&B.”