Picture a UK artist who has played forty shows in eighteen months. A few were sold out and a couple were abroad. A promoter in Accra liked the set, and a festival booker in London asked for a one-sheet. Then a funder asks a simple question: what's your track record?
The answer is scattered across screenshots, old DMs, instagram posts, poorly recorded video footage, a half-finished spreadsheet and memory.
This isn't a talent problem. It's a record problem, and it hits Black and diasporic music especially hard. Afrobeats, Amapiano, UK Drill, Grime, Gospel, Jazz, Bashment and Dancehall shape rooms, playlists and the night-time economy. Yet the activity behind them is rarely counted in any structured, citable way. What isn't counted is easy to overlook, underfund and misread.
Proof belongs to whoever keeps it
Evidence decides a lot in this industry. It decides who gets shortlisted, who gets booked abroad, and who gets believed in a funding bid or a trade conversation.
Right now, much of the data about Black music is held about creators by other people, or not held at all. Creators are rarely the ones who own the record, shape it or choose who sees it.
We think that should change. Your career history shouldn't depend on someone else deciding it counts, half the time using metrics that discounts the nuances that apply to your genre and audience engagement.
Log it. Track it. Use it.
That's the thinking behind our campaign.
LOG IT. Record the last 18 months of live performance, song catalogue and your work as it happens: who you are creatively, the venues you have played in, evidencing what the room was like, ticketing and revenue. Done once and in a structured way, it becomes a record rather than a memory.
TRACK IT. One entry is a note. Many entries are a trajectory. Over time you can see your reach grow, develop touring patterns, which genres and markets respond to you, ‘tipping point’ and how close you are to being export-ready.
USE IT. Evidence only matters when it's put to work: backing a funding application, showing an international promoter, creative programmers, your performance history, spotting an opportunity before the deadline passes.
Why we built BX-CNX
BLACMEX Connex (BX-CNX) is our music mapping meets data intelligence answer to the missing record. It's built as the UK's first dedicated data infrastructure for African and Black diasporic music, and it's consent-led from the first entry.
Creators build a verified career archive and live performances portfolio. The International Opportunities Board getting in early with Open Calls and Funding Alerts Board help them see what's out there.
Organisations providing a direct outreach hub, make their footprint visible and support their work with evidence rather than anecdote.
Funders, export bodies and policymakers get anonymised, consented insight into where activity is happening, where capital isn't reaching through capturing cultural impact and recording economic outcomes.
Fans can "Rate the Night" through AudiFeed, so artists and venues hear directly from the room. COMING SOON!
Everything flows from the same principle: intentional data in, useful intelligence out. Creators stay in control of what they share and with whom.
A sector is only as strong as its evidence
With Black Music powering the UK music industry making a commercial contribution of 80% and £24.5billion out of a total £30billion UK market, across 30 years of recorded music. (UK Music BMMB Report). Every registered creator and every logged performance helps close that gap, for the individual and for the whole community.
Make your first entry
You don't need to be established, and you don't need to do it all at once. You just need to start.
Music Creators: register for free and log your next show. 👉 Join BX-CNX at https://mapping.blacmex.uk/register
Organisations: add your footprint to the map. 👉 Join BX-CNX at https://mapping.blacmex.uk/forms/organisation
Funders and partners: come and see what the evidence looks like. 👉 BX-CNX at mapping.blacmex.uk
Log it. Track it. Use it.