UK music industry highlights need for black talent in executive roles

Leading figures in the UK music industry are calling for more work to be done to support black talent in executive roles as a report finds that 80% of UK music revenue has been generated by black music in the past 30 years.
A recent report by UK Music states that black music has made £24.5bn out of the £30bn generated by the UK music industry in the past 30 years. However, industry figures have highlighted that black people are still kept out of top executive roles.
At senior levels, 22% of the music industry workforce identify as Black, Asian or minority ethnic, compared with 46% of London’s population, according to the 2024 UK Music Diversity Report. A 2021 report by Black Lives in Music found a racial pay gap in the music industry with black artists and professionals earning less on average compared with white peers.
In June 2025, the government announced investment of up to £30m in the music industry as part of its Music Growth Package. Eunice Obianagha, the head of diversity at UK Music, said: “What we would be hoping for is that, having recognised that black music is a driver and a route for our industry, some of that would be redirected or put aside to build the innovation that is around black music that then powers everything else.”
Obianagha said this involved investing in genres that were homegrown such as “grime, garage and lovers rock”.
“We need to invest in that a little bit more, which means supporting the recording studios and the archives, and making sure that we’re really protecting the hub or the kitchen of how the music is created,” she said.
Charisse Beaumont, the chief executive of Black Lives in Music, said the report was “a huge win for smaller organisations who are doing this work on the ground; we’ve got larger organisations saying: ‘This is real, now we have to do something’”.
Beaumont said racial pay gaps and barriers to career progression were preventing black professionals from gaining executive roles. “We’ve got this massive influence in genre, massive influence in sales. Where are we in the hierarchy of the management of the business, of the music industry? That’s something that has to change,” she said.
Zeon Richards, the director of Renowned Group and a former A&R consultant at Polydor, has witnessed the gap. “There’s a number of people in the last few years that are just no longer working in the business because there aren’t jobs for them. The first people to go are the executives whose main focus is to work within that remit of black music,” he said.
He added that ensuring black people secured higher industry positions mattered because it “drives the nuance and understanding in acquiring talent and the driving of culture in different spheres because there’s so many intricacies that exist”.
“If you’ve birthed, lived and you’re passionate about that culture, you can only help it get as big as possible,” he said.
Jasmine Dotiwala, a former MTV News presenter, said the disparities highlighted in the report had been visible for a long time. “I have been privy to conversations in the industry where black executives were not always viewed as viable for senior roles, and were unfairly characterised or underestimated. The reality is that many of them were, and are, the most natural and effective partners for the talent, with a deep understanding of the culture and the audience.”
The report defines black music as “music that has its roots and inspiration derived from the culture, beliefs, traditions and history of Black people and the African diaspora. Encompassing a diverse range of musical styles and practices that originated within the African diaspora, regardless of the ethnicity of the musicians creating and performing them.”
“Black music is popular music. It’s not that the report has discovered that; it’s that it’s backing up and underpinning what people already know in the industry with hard data,” said Mykaell Riley, professor of black music at the University of Westminster, who was a consultant to the report.
“What makes the report special is recognising that the DNA of black music is not just who’s creating it, but it’s the long tail of influence,” said Riley, who is a former member of the reggae band Steel Pulse.
The report identified 138 different genres that are categorised as having roots in black musical traditions – including genres such as K-pop and techno. The report used data from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Chartmetric to measure the sales figures of recorded music sold in the UK, including British and international musicians.
“I was beautifully shocked at how many subgenres are influenced by black music,” said Ammo Talwar, the chair of the UK Music Diversity Taskforce and former owner of the music development agency Punch in Birmingham, who helped instigate the report.
“Most people don’t understand that techno and house music comes from black people, black culture, whether it’s Chicago or Detroit. It is interesting how genres get rewritten, especially from a sort of semi-white European perspective,” he said.
Riley said the report showed that black music needed to be taught in schools. “We’re recognising that the subject is only a subject if we can back it up with these kinds of stats. We need to support music in education, a change in the psychology, the perceptions of what is popular music in Britain.”