https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg

no rick james, cameo, parliament/ funkadelic, etc... Black Entertainment Television was created . because black artist were not getting airplay. The few exceptions were Prince & Micheal Jackson. Both Prince & MJ benefitted greatly by being the first & only non white artist to air on MTV

No one thanks black 1980s hip hop artists for becoming the new MTV "cool". Rap kicked the doors down because what people didn't want was soft R&B.

I remember in the early summer of 1983,I was watching MTV and I was shocked when Shalamar's "Dead Giveaway" video came on.By this point,Michael and Prince had broken the barriers and were shown on MTV all the time,but I was still shocked to see an R&B act like Shalamar getting MTV exposure.

To this day, I still never give props to MTV for the so-called video movement. Same old rotated tired-ass pop videos over and over. Thankfully alot of local cities had their own version of music video television, and was pretty generous and fair with the playlist.

In Phoenix, around 1982-83 we had TV 61. You saw a much wider selection of videos. Of course you had the Duran Durans, the Culture Clubs, Michael, but you also got to see The Gap Band, George Clinton, Rick James, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and some really rare gems from Nolan Thomas, Haysee Fantaysee, and Elbow Bones and the Racketeers.

And yes, there was never a shortage of those low-budget pre-Purple Rain Prince videos my sisters and I were always thrilled to see.

Rarely did MTV "break" any song that compelled me to wanna go to Sam Goody and buy, outside of hearing it on the top 40 hit station on my FM dial.

Early MTV was strange. There weren't many videos out there, so they played a lot of stuff that wasn't getting through on radio, and a lot of genres mixed together. The first time I ever heard Duran Duran, Men At Work, Culture Club was on MTV. But it was definitely aimed at at a white audience.

.

It's often pointed out that MTV was "racist" for excluding black artists... I think that may have been the effect but you have to realize radio was even MORE segregated, even the white artists were segregated agsinst each other. You didn't have Stevie Nicks and Adam Ant on the same radio station in 1982.

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I think they were trying to figure out what was the best formula to keep people tuned in. At the beginning it seemed like the formula was gonna be, keep the whites on this channel and give the black artists BET and let them live seperately. The success of MJ made it clear that wasn't the way anymore.

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They didn't embrace rap for a long time, but I do remember seeing a Run-DMC concert on a Saturday night when they were still pretty new. Early 85 maybe.

[Edited 3/23/18 15:44pm]

But for what it's worth... I don't think I ever did see Rick James, Cameo or Parliament on MTV! Maybe the GTap Band once or twice.

bobzilla77 said:

bobzilla77 said:

But for what it's worth... I don't think I ever did see Rick James, Cameo or Parliament on MTV! Maybe the Gap Band once or twice.

MTV did show Word Up, probably because it got pop radio airplay. MTV did put these acts in regular rotation:

Billy Ocean
Lionel Richie

Kool & The Gang

Tina Turner

Run-DMC

Janet Jackson

Jody Watley

Living Colour

Jon Butcher Axis

Bowie confronting MTV...

https://www.washingtonpos...9a0c605a5e

Neversin.

Cinny said:

[Edited 3/24/18 15:02pm]

000000 said:

The Cosby Show (Bill Cosby)

Angie & Jesse on All My Children was mainstream popular before The Cosby Show. Anyway you could say Cosby on I Spy in the 1960s paved the way for that and maybe Julia with Diahann Carroll and Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek after that. I don't think Mike & Prince had anything to do with The Cosby Show being really popular. The Jeffersons was big before that and was still on the air when Cosby Show debuted. The Jeffersons was on 10 or 11 years, longer than Cosby Show lasted.

Michael and Prince with Billie Jean, Beat It, Little Red Corvette, and 1999 proved that black artists were marketable. While MTV played black artists from time to time (Eddy Grant, Tina Turner, Prince), it was "light rotation", which meant you would only see them once a day (or week)

It wasn't just MTV doing the BS, it was radio.

from Billboard- April 9, 1983 (this is after Billie Jean and Beat It began playing on MTV)

from Cashbox- 1983

when MTV was first accused of being racist,their initial response was that they only played videos that were rock.They said that were focusing on rock and New Wave and not R&B and funk.However,on the first day that they aired in August 1981,one of the videos that they showed was "Is It You?" by Lee Ritenour.That song is pure R&B Our local R&B radio station played that song regularly.

I also recall in 1983,MTV was showing Robert Palmer's "You Are In My System" video.It's a remake of the System's 1982 R&B hit and it bascially has the same music,but the System's video never got played

MickyDolenz said:

000000 said:

The Cosby Show (Bill Cosby)

Angie & Jesse on All My Children was mainstream popular before The Cosby Show. Anyway you could say Cosby on I Spy in the 1960s paved the way for that and maybe Julia with Diahann Carroll and Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek after that. I don't think Mike & Prince had anything to do with The Cosby Show being really popular. The Jeffersons was big before that and was still on the air when Cosby Show debuted. The Jeffersons was on 10 or 11 years, longer than Cosby Show lasted.

that's not what i was saying... Every good thing paves the way for something.

change cannot happen without opportunity

The first black artist I ever saw on MTV (when it hit our area) in 1982 was Jimi Hendrix ("Purple Haze")....

Posted on their youtube channel no less.

Hamad said:

Posted on their youtube channel no less.

Bowie basically exposed their asses.

MotownSubdivision said:

Now that I think about it, Rick was screwed by MTV. Apparently the person who rejected the video for "Super Freak" was a black woman and her reason was because she didn't want us to be represented that way. Even with that logic, what about the many other black artists at the time who didn't have that risque image? Why weren't they shown? I just hope she fought for those black artists even though as we know Now, it amounted to nothing. If only she knew about the boom of gangsta rap arriving in the next several years. The content of the "Super Freak" video was tame even back in 1981 and that woman blew what could've been a great opportunity for a very talented artist. The network not even playing his vids after black artists were appearing was effed up to but then again, Rick was an R&B/funk artist; his music had little to no pop.

Thank goodness for VH1 because that is where I saw the Rick James videos actually being played

Apparently the guys running the channel had come from radio which was always (and usually still is) formatted by genre. It didn't occur to them later that they were THE station and could format programs for certain types of music.

Even the white metal guys got squished over to an hour of "Headbangers" videos eventually.

Cinny said:

No one thanks black 1980s hip hop artists for becoming the new MTV "cool". Rap kicked the doors down because what people didn't want was soft R&B.

but black crossover artists were getting air time on MTV before hip-hop went into rotation. Micheal, Prince, Chaka, Tina, The Pointers and Lionel were all in regular MTV rotation in 1984. I can't remember the rapper's name but on a hip hop documentary, he mentioned pop/rock audiences didn't feel comfortable with hip-hop until Chaka's "I Feel For You" became a huge Pop hit.

MotownSubdivision said:

Now that I think about it, Rick was screwed by MTV. Apparently the person who rejected the video for "Super Freak" was a black woman and her reason was because she didn't want us to be represented that way. Even with that logic, what about the many other black artists at the time who didn't have that risque image? Why weren't they shown? I just hope she fought for those black artists even though as we know Now, it amounted to nothing. If only she knew about the boom of gangsta rap arriving in the next several years. The content of the "Super Freak" video was tame even back in 1981 and that woman blew what could've been a great opportunity for a very talented artist. The network not even playing his vids after black artists were appearing was effed up to but then again, Rick was an R&B/funk artist; his music had little to no pop.

Ron Weisner who was MJ's manager from 1978 to 1983, tried to use the excuse that black artists and labels weren't investing in music videos so there was lack of videos to be aired

BS

Earth, Wind, and Fire, Stevie Wonder, The Jacksons, Michael Jackson, Prince, Rick James, Cameo, The Gap Band, The Brothers Johnson, Sylvester, and others all videos. While Motown and other labels were skeptical of the impact or need for videos, videos by black acts DID exist so that excuse is void

kitbradley said:

Cinny said:

No one thanks black 1980s hip hop artists for becoming the new MTV "cool". Rap kicked the doors down because what people didn't want was soft R&B.

but black crossover artists were getting air time on MTV before hip-hop went into rotation. Micheal, Prince, Chaka, Tina, The Pointers and Lionel were all in regular MTV rotation in 1984. I can't remember the rapper's name but on a hip hop documentary, he mentioned pop/rock audiences didn't feel comfortable with hip-hop until Chaka's "I Feel For You" became a huge Pop hit.

You're absolutely right. Your post rings true even though I was in Canada watching Much Music.