Where the Black Music Means Business Report and the BLACMEX Open Letter Converge

We published our Open Letter to the UK government on February 27th 2026. The Black Music Means Business Report launched on March 17th 2026. The following is a breakdown of each recommendation set out in the groundbreaking report and where there is synergy with the open letter.

BLacmex Recommendation by Recommendation

• Action One: Co-Design and Institutional Funding — and the Demand for Long-Term, Ring-Fenced Support

  Description text goes hereThe Black Music Means Business report's first recommendation calls for co-designed, institutionally backed funding for Black music infrastructure. The BLACMEX open letter makes this same demand its opening and most emphatic point. BLACMEX calls on the government to commit to long-term, ring-fenced funding for Black music export and infrastructure, stating explicitly that short-term project funding is insufficient to address decades of underinvestment — and that Black music requires sustained, strategic support that allows for planning, international relationship-building, and talent development over time.

  This is not, the letter insists, a charitable appeal. It is an investment argument backed by commercial data. As the open letter concludes, Black British music already delivers extraordinary returns for the UK; what it lacks is a system that matches its contribution with meaningful, long-term support — and failure to act risks not only continued inequality but the erosion of one of the country's most valuable cultural exports. The Black Music Means Business report gives this argument a thirty-year evidential spine.

• Action Two: Language and Genre Authenticity — and Recognising Black Music as Cultural Infrastructure

  The report's second recommendation calls for accurate genre terminology and definitions to be adopted across the industry. Language plays a significant role in how music is perceived, marketed and valued, and the shift away from the catch-all label 'Urban' — recommended in 2020 — demonstrates how updating language can honour culture, promote inclusion, and create new business opportunities.

  Our open letter elevates this idea from an industry standard to a matter of national policy. BLACMEX calls on the government to formally recognise Black British music as a core pillar of the UK's creative industries and export strategy, arguing that its global impact rivals that of film, television and fashion, yet it is rarely treated with the same seriousness in policy or funding decisions. Proper genre naming is a prerequisite for this recognition. Without accurate, agreed terminology — covering the full spectrum from Jazz, Reggae and Gospel to Grime, Drill, UK Rap, Drum & Bass and Afro-fusion — the sector cannot be properly measured, funded or represented in trade negotiations.

  For BLACMEX, which was created with the aim of decolonising how the music industry engages with Black music specialisms — which has led to under-representation and misrepresentation in commercial markets — language reform is not semantic. It directly affects whether a gospel artist from Birmingham or a drum and bass producer from Bristol can access export funding, apply for trade mission slots, or be categorised correctly by streaming platforms that report to government bodies.

• Action Three: Music Education Review — Building the Pipeline

  The report calls for Black music genres to be formally recognised within school and tertiary education curricula. This recommendation addresses the long-term health of the pipeline BLACMEX exists to serve. BLACMEX offers a Talent Pipeline Programme and Artist Growth Plans to put artists in the best position for exporting their work — but that pipeline begins long before artists arrive at an export-ready stage. If Black music genres are absent from music education, the confidence, craft and business literacy of emerging artists is impaired from the outset.

  The open letter reinforces this implicitly through its call for equitable access across the board. Government-backed trade missions, showcase platforms, touring support and export finance must be accessible to independent Black artists and talent development organisations — not only to major labels or legacy institutions — because without equitable access, global success remains concentrated and exclusionary. Equitable access in the industry starts with equitable education in schools.

• Action Four: Growth Investment — and the Creative Industries Sector Plan

  The report recommends that growth investment be strategically directed toward Black-led organisations and enterprises, particularly through government music funding mechanisms. The open letter addresses the government's existing strategy head-on. BLACMEX states that the UK's Creative Industries Sector Plan was encouraging and yet missed a real opportunity to build upon the cultural impact and economic power Black music genres have generated globally and continue to contribute to the UK's global footprint.

  This is a pointed critique. The Creative Industries Sector Plan is the government's principal framework for growing the UK's creative economy over the next decade. By BLACMEX's assessment, it failed to properly embed Black music as a strategic asset. The Black Music Means Business report — particularly its finding that Black music genres account for over 80% of recorded music market revenue over 30 years — makes the omission even harder to justify. BLACMEX and UK Music are, in effect, presenting the government with an evidence base it cannot reasonably ignore when the Sector Plan is reviewed or updated.

• Action Five: Export Development — and the Demand for Equitable Access

  This is the recommendation most directly related to BLACMEX's existence. The Black Music Means Business report urges the Department for Business and Trade to back Black music as a key export asset and to invest in Black-led export organisations. The BLACMEX open letter takes this further, identifying specific structural failures in the existing export architecture. Government-backed trade missions, showcase platforms, touring support and export finance must be accessible to independent Black artists, artists working within Black music genres and also talent development organisations — not just to major labels or legacy institutions.

  BLACMEX was established to level the playing field around international touring and showcase opportunities for UK Black music creators and organisations, already under threat from crippling touring costs, with the aim of widening the market and affirming the UK music industry as a global leader in the creative economy. The Black Music Means Business report gives BLACMEX the strongest possible institutional justification for this mission: thirty years of data demonstrating that the artists BLACMEX supports have been generating the majority of the UK's recorded music revenues, while receiving a disproportionately small share of export infrastructure and support.

• Action Six: Inclusive Community Access — and the Priority Markets GapNew Item

  The report calls for Black music communities and creative hubs to be integrated into city regeneration strategies across all four nations. BLACMEX's remit already encompasses this multi-nation, multi-community scope — representing Black music genres across the four devolved nations, enhancing opportunities for live music performers, advocating genre diversity and working with organisations globally (BLACMEX currently enjoys international support from Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia, France, Eswatini, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Iceland, Canada, Trinidad & Tobago,Uganda, Zimbabwe, USA) 

  However, the open letter goes further by identifying a critical geographical blind spot in government policy. BLACMEX calls on the government to review the priority markets listed under the Creative Industries Sector Plan, stating that the current list of countries is not expansive enough and has shocking omissions across the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa — huge blocs which contribute to and collaborate with diasporic communities in the UK — and that expanding these markets can build towards greater diversity of trade missions and the discovery of new global markets with strong music portfolios.

  This is a concrete, actionable critique that the Black Music Means Business report's export recommendation directly supports. If Black British genres have shaped global culture and continue to drive streaming revenues and touring interest across Africa, the Caribbean and beyond, then the absence of those territories from the government's priority export list is not a minor oversight — it is a structural failure that limits the very markets where UK Black music has its deepest cultural resonance and greatest commercial potential.

• Action Seven: Robust Data Collection — Mapping the Sector

  The report calls for improved, disaggregated data collection on Black music's contributions. UK Music recognises the power of data, research, and evidence in shaping national policy and driving meaningful change, and the goal is for the report to be a catalyst for ongoing research into the impact and contributions of Black music, both in the UK and globally. BLACMEX has operationalised this recommendation directly, having launched an industry mapping initiative to track UK Black music talent and industry development — making it one of the first organisations to translate the report's data imperative into practical action.

  Robust data underpins every other recommendation. The open letter's calls for ring-fenced funding, revised priority markets and recognition as cultural infrastructure all depend on a credible, up-to-date evidence base that can be presented to ministers, trade bodies and international partners (who BLACMEX has defined as intentional buyers/sellers). The Black Music Means Business report has provided that base for the first time at a European level; BLACMEX's mapping work ensures it remains current.

• Action Eight: Equitable Partnerships — and Soft Power

  The report's eighth recommendation calls for fairer, more equitable partnerships between the industry and Black music practitioners. The BLACMEX open letter frames this principle on a geopolitical as well as an industry scale. BLACMEX urges the government to use Black British music as a pillar of international cultural diplomacy, arguing that in a post-Brexit landscape, Black British music offers unparalleled soft power — particularly across Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and North America — and that strategic, intentional support would strengthen trade relationships, enhance cultural exchange, and boost the UK's global standing.

  "Black music genres have the undeniable flexibility to penetrate beyond traditional anglophone markets, presenting new touring opportunities for UK music talent." — BLACMEX Open Letter, 2026

  For a post-Brexit Britain seeking to renew and diversify its international trade and cultural relationships, this is a strategic opportunity that is currently going largely unexploited. The equitable partnerships recommendation, amplified by BLACMEX's soft power argument, reframes Black music not as a beneficiary of government generosity but as an instrument of British foreign policy and economic diplomacy.