UK hip hop DJ Semtex recently sent out a tweet encouraging his followers to support urban artists over others in the scene because, “all we have is us.”

Though Semtex’s support of the scene should be rated, this tweet is an example of how we should support all good music not just artists from the urban scene. It’s a sad reflection of UK music if one of the top DJs is telling followers to “keep those guitar bands out of the charts.”

Today is a pretty groundbreaking day for UK music, as SB.TV favourite, Ed Sheeran independently got his new EP, No 5 Collaborations Project, in the top two of the iTunes album chart. This isn’t independent in the way that Dizzee has independently stormed the charts. Ed has produced his EP’s on his own and gained this huge following on his own, without the support of any corporate robots. He’s gained his following over the last year through superb live shows, opening up for Example on his UK tour, featuring videos on SB.TV and the release of consistently superb EP’s.

Just because Ed’s latest release features the cream of UK ‘urban’ talent, this isn’t to say we should only support this album. Let’s not forget he released a folk EP earlier in the year too, and that his instrument of choice is the guitar. Let’s not forget Devlin playing Bruce Springsteen whilst filling in on Semtex’s 1xtra show earlier this year. Let’s not forget the samples from King Crimson and Bon Iver amongst other ‘guitar artists’ on Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Let’s not forget Maverick Sabre, an artist who is breaking through using his guitar skills in addition to his soulful voice. Let’s not forget that we shouldn’t side with a style of music purely out of principle, we should support music.

Congratulations to Ed Sheeran on breaking through an industry that mostly judges you on the strength of your co-sign. SB.TV would also like to reinforce our love for Semtex and his support of UK music. We hope he appreciates us simply using this as an example of the music industry’s state of mind.

Check out one of Ed’s exclusives for SB.TV from last year.

Text by Dan Kemp

Edited by Lily Mercer