Republic Records Bans the Term 'Urban' Within Label: 'We Encourage the Music Industry to Follow Suit'
Ariana Grande, The Weeknd and Taylor Swift, said on Instagram today that it will remove the word from department names, employee titles and music genres, clarifying in a press release that this will not lead to any structural changes at the company."We encourage the rest of the music industry to follow suit as it is important to shape the future of what we want it to look like, and not adhere to the outdated structures of the past," the Instagram post reads.The term dates back to the mid-1970s, when black New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker coined the phrase "urban contemporary," which was later shortened to "urban." While the term didn't carry negative connotations at the time, many argue that it has evolved to symbolize the music industry's