News: Racism In Music?

Police are unfairly discriminating against the urban music scene, according to industry insiders and MPs.

Speaking anonymously, one booking agent told The Guardian that a recent event was forced to have airport-style security as artists and volunteers were searched for weapons based on police “intelligence”.

“Of course we complied, we can’t afford to rock the boat, but it is definitely racist, it is definitely not fair,” the agent said. “The problem is that it reverberates through young people […] they see that at indie events they are not treated like this. It just antagonises them.”

The controversial form 696 is used by the Metropolitan Police for events risk assessment, and requires promoters to state whether DJs or MCs are the main performers at a gig. It must be submitted 14 days ahead of the event and contain full contact details of all performers and promoters.

The Met can then insist on extra security for the gig, or pull the performance altogether.

Industry insiders say that the Met’s risk assessment of urban music events is based on ethnicity of performers and the expected audience.

Sarah McKinley, of urban booking agency Xtreme Talent, told The Guardian: “I’ve never known a club to have to do a 696 for a normal, non-black event.”

“It’s a waste of time and clubs are more wary of putting on urban artists which makes my job more difficult.”

John Whittingdale, the Tory MP for Maldon and chair of the House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport committee, repeated the committee’s 2009 call for form 696 to be scrapped.

“We looked at it and were of the view that form 696 was discriminatory and completely unnecessary. It appears that problem still exists and it is still being used by the Met to target particular types of music.”

A police spokeswoman responded to the accusations of heavy-handed tactics by saying: “To date shootings linked to licensed premises have been significantly reduced and we believe the risk assessment process has contributed to this.”

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