MTV’s Racial Bias: The Truth Behind Black Artists in the ’80s Revealed!

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As a history enthusiast, I’ve often pondered about the influence of music icons on television. To put it in my own words, legends say that before Michael Jackson, MTV primarily featured white artists during the Second British Invasion era. However, following Michael Jackson’s rise to stardom, particularly with his album “Thriller,” MTV underwent a remarkable transformation. It evolved from being perceived as an exclusive platform for rock music to a more diverse channel that showcased a wider range of American record collections.

However, the idea that MTV didn’t play Black performers before Michael Jackson is somewhat of a misconception. The truth can be traced back to a 1983 interview between David Bowie and MTV VJ Mark Goodman. In this interview, Bowie flipped the script, challenging Goodman to explain why MTV had a narrow focus on rock music at that time.

So, while it’s true that Michael Jackson played a significant role in diversifying MTV’s playlist, it wasn’t an overnight transformation as the legend suggests. The change was more of a gradual process, influenced by various artists and factors over time.

In contrast to the popular belief that MTV, which debuted in mid-1981, aimed to suppress Black artists, it actually struggled to find its place in the industry initially. The notion that MTV maintained a “blacklist” for ignoring Black musicians is mostly untrue. To clarify some misconceptions and provide vital background on this significant pop culture controversy, let’s examine the real story behind MTV’s early years.

David Bowie Kicks the Hornet’s Nest

Initially, when MTV first debuted, it avoided playing disco music, a genre that was highly favored by African Americans during the previous ten years. Moreover, punk music, which had already lost its appeal by the early 80s, wasn’t given any attention either. Jazz and country were scarcely featured as well. This included artists like Rick James who criticized MTV for not playing his music, deeming it too funky and not rock and roll enough.

MTV found itself in a predicament due to their choice for a common title, “Music Television.” Regrettably, this move led to complications. The content they sought, primarily rock and roll, just happened to be predominantly British.

Les Garland, one of the co-creators of MTV, dismissed accusations of racial bias in an interview with Jet magazine in 2006, asserting that the high volume of British content was not a deliberate choice but a reflection of the available rock and roll material at the time.

In the beginning, there were no music videos being produced. We were limited in our choices. About half of my time during MTV’s early days was dedicated to persuading artists to create music videos and persuading record labels to invest money into their production. This was a novel expense that they hadn’t encountered before.

In the early years, British acts were creating promotional videos, while music videos weren’t yet popular in the US. This is according to writer Rob Tannenbaum who spoke to NPR in 2011. Even lesser-known British bands had their videos circulating around. Many of these groups consisted of filmmaking enthusiasts from art schools, as detailed in the “Encyclopedia of Punk Rock and New Wave”.

To David Bowie, who had been producing videos for more than a decade, it likely seemed unusual that in 1981-82, MTV adhered to a traditional radio station format, primarily playing rock music. This wasn’t particularly contentious on its own, but rather a business strategy, potentially influenced by the fact that the BET network was focusing on R&B and soul music on cable TV around the same time, promoting their channel less than a year before, as detailed in “Inside MTV”.

It’s accurate that Garland points out that airworthy videos were expensive back then. Based on our findings, a simple music video around 1986 would have cost approximately £75,000, which is equivalent to $330,000 today. Videos like the “Thriller” directed by John Landis were even more costly, amounting to twice that figure. This high cost was one of the reasons why networks started moving away from music videos, a topic we’ll delve into momentarily.

The Forgotten Black Music Pioneers Left Out of the Story

As a movie buff, I’ve got to set the record straight about the Thriller myth. Sure, Michael Jackson’s Thriller was a massive hit, but we can’t forget the impact of Prince’s 1982 videos that were equally popular during that time. The Purple One’s music videos were as iconic as Thriller, and it feels like the narrative overlooks this fact.

Moreover, the English Beat, a bi-racial band, was also making waves in the early ’80s. In fact, they managed to secure a spot in MTV’s Christmas Eve snippet of 1982. So, if we want to have an accurate portrayal of the music scene during that era, we can’t just focus on Thriller; we need to acknowledge the contributions of other talented artists as well.

In essence, when it comes to debating finer points, if we solely focus on “regular rotation” music videos on MTV, American Songwriter credits Musical Youth (the group behind “Pass the Dutchie”) as the first Black singing collective to attain that somewhat unclear milestone. It’s worth noting that the phenomenal success of Michael Jackson’s album “Thriller” likely encouraged record labels to invest more in eye-catching music videos for tracks like Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long.

Video Didn’t Kill the Radio Star After All

It didn’t take long for MTV to run out of excuses. Interestingly, they broke their own rule about only playing rock music. The fact that Blondie, not a Black artist, was the first to perform a rap song on MTV is one reason why Black entertainers felt overlooked. In the early days, rap was rarely played on MTV, showing how outdated the network was; it wasn’t until 1988, with the debut of Yo! MTV Raps, that they started to show more rap music. However, it wasn’t until the genre became popular and started making money that MTV began to take rap seriously.

Back in the day, MTV used to be all about music videos. However, as record labels stopped offering them for free and started demanding payment or royalties instead, it turned out to be a financial burden for the channel. This shift, unfortunately, led MTV to move away from music videos, which paradoxically fueled the need for higher-budget, movie-quality music videos that were becoming increasingly unaffordable. Even big names like Tupac and Will Smith in the hip-hop genre thrived during this era. Fast forward to today, it’s quite challenging to find any music on MTV at all.

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2025-05-25 05:10