After launching amid last year’s Black Lives Matter protests and a worldwide lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic, community-based music platform Black Bandcamp has officially rebranded as Black Artist Database.
The crowdsourced community platform is an international database of Black-owned record labels, artists, producers and bands. What started as a simple spreadsheet has now evolved into something much greater: an accessible resource to help further leverage and support Black artists, labels, and producers in the music industry, and subvert the systematic mistreatment of Black industry figures that’s taken place for years.
Black Bandcamp’s evolution into the Black Artist Database will build on the 3,500-profile-strong list even further. It will now incorporate professionals outside the music industry, including publishers, visual and digital artists, curators, media producers, and more. The platform has launched just before this month’s Bandcamp Friday, and it continue to provide direct links to all of its artists’ Bandcamp pages, as well as their social media and professional profiles.
Users can now search by location, field, genre, and name through Black Artist Database’s new functionalities after the shift, opening them up to Black industry figures in the ever-growing globally inclusive list. The database is accepting submissions from creatives around the world to be included. Those interested can apply at this link.
