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Femi Kuti, Asa
Femi Kuti, right, son of Afrobeat music founder Fela Kuti, and Asa, left, perform at "Felabration," an annual event paying homage to Fela Kuti in Lagos, Nigeria. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP
Femi Kuti, right, son of Afrobeat music founder Fela Kuti, and Asa, left, perform at "Felabration," an annual event paying homage to Fela Kuti in Lagos, Nigeria. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP

Steady on Jeremy Paxman, Radio 1Xtra is music to my ears

This article is more than 9 years old
Kieran Yates
The BBC radio station is not aimed at you, Jeremy Paxman – and that doesn't make it bad

Oh, that's novel – a radio station specialising in black music being attacked by an older white male who doesn't listen to it. (The odd lift encounter aside!) In case you missed the headlines, Jeremy Paxman has been having a go at his employer, the BBC, describing it, among other things, as too big. Specifically, he portrayed his idea of "hell" as "standing in a lift that has Radio 1Xtra plumbed into it". He added that he didn't understand why the BBC "does" the station.

I started listening to 1Xtra as soon as it launched in 2002. Marketed as the home of "new black music" in the UK, it demonstrated a cultural shift. Despite the enduring problems of what exactly constitutes "black music", what was understood is that the station aimed to disorientate the mainstream.

1Xtra sought to champion music that you might never otherwise have heard of if you were a newcomer to the station or that you knew inside out if you weren't. Music trends such as grime, dubstep, trap and Afrobeats have all been celebrated. One of 1Xtra's smart moves was recruiting talent from within the scenes they now represent. DJs such as Monki, who made her name at pirate station Rinse FM, or DJ Target, who was a member of grime crew Roll Deep, bought with them an alternative world-view alongside their record bags.

The station existed to make the simple point that black music infiltrating the pop chart wasn't a one-hit-wonder trend or a commodity to be bought and sold to the listening public before they moved on to the next hot thing. Artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Tinie Tempah weren't representing the end point of young black artists getting number ones, they were the beginning.

Essentially, if your first-hand experience is a minority one, be it racially or musically, the simple fact is that you're more likely to identify with the need for more minority programming, which, sadly, might be one reason that Paxman doesn't see the point of the station.

The BBC might not just need 1xtra for the music, but also the range of minority voices it represents. It normalises the idea that minority experiences exist (from documentaries on black models and immigrant detainees, or theming a week around "New Africa"). Radio 1's slavish bowing to indie was the reason I, as a young Asian who grew up listening to hip-hop and garage, switched off.

Radio 1's often indulgent pandering to the idea that there is one kind of youth experience – a white mainstream one – is what makes it increasingly out of touch. For many suburbanites up and down the UK who have little opportunity to engage with difference outside their front door, radio offers a lifeline.

In-jokes about African parents, Jamaican guests bringing in yams for breakfast or nonchalant references to Ramadan on air... 1Xtra serves to educate rather than alienate.

It has created its own radio culture, and while diversity might fail in other areas of the BBC, here at least it stands up. "Black music", whatever that means, is pop music. But more than that, the station provides a space where minority culture is given room to breathe. That's why we need it.

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