Republic Records has issued a statement that they will remove the term ‘urban’ from their verbiage, which was used to categorise music from Black artists.
The label is owned by Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record label company, and has artists like Drake, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd and Taylor Swift signed under them.
Republic posted the announcement on its official Instagram page, saying: “Republic Records will remove ‘Urban’ from out verbiage in describing departments, employee titles and music genres.”
It went on: “We encourage the rest of the music industry to follow suit as it is important to shape the future of what we want it to look like, and not adhere to the outdated structures of the past.”
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The term ‘urban’ has been used to describe music by Black artists in the corporate sector for years now, and after several protests and criticisms, Republic Records were one of the first labels to take the initiative to discard the term.
(Header Source: Instagram)