Why haven’t the BBC played Melz’s election video?

Election videos and songs have become an increasingly important aspect of student union elections – and this is not something that the mainstream media have been able to ignore.

Every year BBC Radio 1 find and play the best election songs of the year – the most notable for us is arguably George Bradley’s from two years ago, which on the back of the Radio 1 play went viral.

However, this year this has been lacking – despite having the most widely viewed, shared, and most popular campaign video ever.

Melz’s first campaign video, the now famous Shut Up cover, got over 35,000 views on YouTube, 600k+ views on Facebook. She has been booked for a number of performances on the back of this, even supporting Section Boyz, an act who’s most recent album that made it to the UKs Official Top 40 charts.

Yet, there has been no acknowledgement of this video by Radio 1 – claiming that there haven’t been any good enough this year.

As the only person to be booked for performances based on their campaign video, this seems somewhat untrue.

The only difference between Melz’s video and the other campaign songs that have been played is that hers is grime. Despite the current resurgence of grime, it would appear that Radio 1 doesn’t want to play a Stormzy cover.

The double standards demonstrated are part of a wider trend of the whitewashing of the media – with Radio 1 being criticised by 1Xtra DJ Nihal.

Nihal argued that Radio 1 is “all white” and 1Xtra is “all black”. In fact, it was not until 2015 that Radio 1 got their first black woman on the daytime show.

While the BBC does have a working group aiming to tackle their diversity problem, little seems to be done – and when they are ignoring viral grime videos performed by a black woman, it is hard to see how things will change.

Nihal claims that the BBC needs a culture change where sanctions are applied for not meeting diversity targets.

How can Radio 1 expect to appeal to their young and diverse audience if the DJs and music played do not represent them?

Angry at the clear dismissal of Melz’s viral song, some fans and friends have taken things into their own hands asking her followers to tweet @Scott_Mills, @Chris_Stark, @BBCR1, and @Stormzy1 to highlight the inequality that exists, even at this level, with the hashtags #WheresMelz and #r1sowhite. To let them know that they are missing out one of the best SU campaign videos of all time, and to be accountable for their disregard for black culture and music.

Melz told us “To be honest at this point I’m used to getting overlooked by those kind of people for a number of reasons. But massive shout out to everyone that enjoyed my campaign and what I am trying to do.”

With sold-out events such as Akala and the huge and influential campaign Why is my Curriculum White? at Leeds, Melz is the right person to take on this challenge.

She is ready, she is pissed, and she is not going to shut up.