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David Bowie Criticizes MTV for Not Playing Videos by Black Artists | MTV News

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A 1983 interview clip in which David Bowie questions MTV VJ Mark Goodman about why the channel played so few videos by black artists.

Cited as a famous, pointed example of Bowie challenging MTV's exclusion of black music, in threads on media gatekeeping.

4 comments from Hacker News

@throwaway20372021-08 · in “Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people”

You wrote: <<<MTV hardly played black artists.>>> I saw this interview recently: <<<David Bowie Criticizes MTV for Not Playing Videos by Black Artists | MTV News>> ▶ this video It blew me away. He is so on point!

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@donohoe2021-08 · in “The first two hours of MTV (1981) [video]”

No black singers or bands you'll notice... Worth watching: "David Bowie Criticizes MTV for Not Playing Videos by Black Artists | MTV News" ▶ this video

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@brudgers2025-05 · in “When Americana doesn't mean American”

You can see MTV’s “string of black faces” rationalizing in the Bowie interview: ▶ this video Wikipedia’s article whitewashes the actual history. We were watching MTV and smoking weed in those Reagan’s America days. — In fairness the US music industry had the race music chart which became the R&B chart to keep black musicians off the pop chart and Elvis’s controversy was singing black music…and consequently being played on white radio stations to white kids.

@a_bonobo2022-05 · in “Pop culture has become an oligopoly”

>Be very wary of survivor bias when looking back in time, especially when there is a risk of nostalgia. Case in point: MTV of the 80s would play little to no black music. There's a famous 1983 interview bit of David Bowie where he asked the MTV VJ why they play no black music, and the VJ waffles a bit on the white suburban market. That does not sound very subversive to me. Here's the excerpt: ▶ this video