David Bowie was apparently miles ahead of many of his peers when it came to social equality as early as the 1980s. This is shown in a video first uploaded to YouTube in 2016, in the course of which the musician, who has since died, suddenly turns from interviewee to interviewer and asks his counterpart a few uncomfortable questions about MTV’s programming policy.
You can read the interview excerpt here in the stream see:
During an interview in 1983, Bowie addressed VJ Mark Goodman with an interesting observation. He noticed that MTV almost exclusively played videos by white performers. The few music videos by black artists, on the other hand, are mostly included in the night program.
“We don’t want to scare Midwestern viewers with someone like Prince”
When Bowie asked why the music channel offered so few black musicians a platform, Goodman unsurprisingly replied: “MTV is trying to move in this direction, but it is currently focusing on a specific target group”. Furthermore, the station’s audience included not only tolerant big cities, but also “small towns in the Midwest” who “would be scared with someone like Prince.”
Bowie was amused by Goodman’s response and finally demanded, “I think we should all be concerned about making the media more inclusive, especially in a musical sense.” The VJ responded that this development is already underway, yes simply “because white musicians are just beginning to play more music that black artists also enjoy.” This would “hopefully blur the boundaries soon.”
“Changing the program can only be done step by step”
To Goodman’s assertion that you can’t force black musicians’ music on your white audience overnight, but have to do it “step by step” so as not to alienate anyone right from the start, Bowie only responded with a smug smile. When Goodman asked him if he was satisfied with this explanation, he replied: “I understand your point of view.”
Triggered by numerous deaths of black Americans through disproportionate police violence, “Black Lives Matter” demonstrations have been taking place again and again for several years. The protesters are supported by numerous musicians who, in addition to stricter regulations for and controls by police officers, are demanding the abolition of racist monuments.
David Bowie would have been 75 on January 8, 2022. He passed away in New York on January 10, 2016.