Slothrop said:It bothers me a bit when black / white and indie / urban [...]
Sure thing. I mean, I think Naomi Klein is on to something when she says that the whole 'urban' tag was coined to sell 'black' music to white kids in middle America.
But I think the real problem - and what the Guardian article studiously avoided for reasons too myriad to mention all over again here - is not the relative absence of black faces in the charts. It's the fact that the indie thing is so fucking boring. Talk about a misnomer. Half of it's released or distributed by majors, and described as 'indie' simply because it sounds like stuff that came out on indie labels 15, 20 years ago. You might as well buy a Shakin' Stevens record, if you ask me
Blackdown started a great thread that led to discussion of the whys and the wherefores right here.