So you heard that Republic Records has cancelled the word Urban.  It will “remove ‘urban’ from the label’s verbiage in describing departments, employee titles and music genres. Oddly, Latin categories including the term were excluded from reconsideration.

Gail Mitchell, executive director of R&B and hip-hop at Billboard says she’s on the fence about losing “urban” as an umbrella term, because it may erase the historical legacy of Black music.

Also, top black executives at parent company Universal Music said the move was taken without their endorsement. Senior Universal executives Jeff Harleston and Ethiopia Habtemariam who lead an internal task force on diversity, took issue with the decision.
Will Warner Music cancel Urban? According to sources they are talking with employees who hold a wide range of views and no decision has been made.

Removing the urban departments from labels carry a cost. Urban departments are funded and stacked with employees that find and develop their own artists. What happens to these departments?
Mr Harleston chief executive of Def Jam says, “If you’re a group of people at an urban department, and you sign and develop an artist that goes on to be one of the biggest . . . you’re proud. That’s something the urban department did. There is ownership that goes with it.”

Ms Habtemariam, president of Motown records, said: “People kind of jumped the gun in throwing it out there, more as a headline in my opinion, and not really understanding the real implications.”
In 2018, Mark Pitts President of RCA Urban Music Department and who managed the The Notorious B.I.G. defended the use and said, “I put on urban as a badge of honor”.

Watch out for Frida Sundemo  and her new post breakup uptempo track Backbone. The track comes off the EP Sounds In My Head. Keeping it real as possible the Swedish synth pop artist says “I refuse to create and release just song after song and focus on getting them into the biggest playlist possible”.  Can I get an amen? Give the track a listen on Indie Invaders playlist.

Popular fashion and beauty influencer Mia Sayoko turns to music and drops the track Apologies. Her latest track is birthed from pain. She notes, “Apologies” is about overcoming a controlling, manipulative, and abusive relationship. The 25 year old YouTuber was born in Okinawa, Japan, and started releasing singles in 2019. If you like the pop genre right now I can’t find a reason why you couldn’t get into some of her several single releases.

Good is good and bad is bad. The track Friend by Tyler Shamy is good. It seems like the Los Angeles singer-songwriter writes lots of songs and to land good ones you need to write hundreds if not thousands. He co-wrote the song Space Between for Disney’s Descendants 2 sung by Dove Cameron and Sofia Carson as well songs for J-Pop and K-Pop. Sometimes you gotta keep the best yourself – give it a stream on Indie Invaders Playlist.

It’s hard to find a good indie rock act these days but Manchester UK act Pacific solves that problem with their new track Last Life. So I went on Spotify and also heard their kickoff 2020 track Idol which I really like as well. Huw Stephens, XS Manchester and Jack FM are big fans.  Give it a listen especially if you like big sounding indie rock anthems like Coldplay and Keane use to give us.