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This article titled “Jamal Edwards: YouTube’s grime reaper” was written by Matt Munday, for The Observer on Sunday 26th February 2017 08.05 UTC<\/a><\/p>\nA lot has changed for Jamal Edwards<\/a> in the decade since he began his YouTube music channel, SBTV<\/a>. He started it when he was still at school and within four years he was a celebrity \u2013 one of the faces of the YouTube generation, a new breed of do-it-yourself broadcasters who had built huge global audiences seemingly out of thin air.<\/p>\n I first met him around the time he became famous, in 2011 \u2013 he and his fledgling team were squished into a modest shared workspace scattered with brightly coloured beanbags in Camden. Today we meet in the pristine white boardroom of a swanky Fitzrovia office, which SBTV shares with a private equity firm. The contrast between then and now could not be more telling. Edwards is no longer the new kid on the block, he\u2019s a mogul, a veteran, the CEO. He is 26 years old.<\/p>\n His look is still more high street than Bond Street. He sports his signature baseball cap, but is otherwise dressed casually all in black, with silver skull rings on his fingers (another Edwards trademark). In person he is an intriguing mix of laser-sharp digital pioneer and endlessly distracted millennial with a constantly buzzing iPhone. \u201cMate, two seconds\u2026\u201d he says, checking its screen and I plead with him to turn it off, which he does. When he engages, his mien is businesslike and direct \u2013 like many time-poor CEOs he doesn\u2019t tend to regale or embellish unless coaxed; though he rarely ducks a question.<\/p>\n When we met in 2011, Edwards had recently shot to fame after starring in a buzzy TV ad for Google Chrome, which brought him to the attention of the wider public. The ad showed how he had set up SBTV with just a camcorder and a laptop (though he actually started it \u201con a \u00a320 phone\u201d when he was still at school) to create an internet channel dedicated mostly to grime music \u2013 though its scope expanded to include hip-hop, R&B, pop and singer-songwriters. The ad co-starred Ed Sheeran<\/a>, who was a huge hit on SBTV before he had even signed a record deal: \u201cWe\u2019re good friends, but we were also good for each other\u2019s careers,\u201d Edwards says. \u201cViewers loved him, they didn\u2019t care where he was from. They could just see he had talent.\u201d<\/p>\n SBTV became the place for grime acts to be seen online thanks to some clever formats which pushed the music beyond its self-imposed boundaries. After growing tired of \u201chearing the same MCs repeat the same bars over and over again\u201d, from pirate radio to raves and then on their tracks, Edwards devised a format in 2009 called F64<\/a> \u2013 the F stood for \u201cfresh\u201d, meaning that MCs had to spit new and original lyrics, in precisely 64 bars: everyone wanted to compete, from scene leaders, such as Wiley<\/a>, Chipmunk<\/a>, Lady Leshurr<\/a> and Wretch 32,<\/a> to complete unknowns, whom Jamal would film acapella on their estates all over the UK, transmitting some of the most raw and viscerally compelling invective since punk rock became a mouthpiece for Broken Britain in the 1970s. \u201cI always looked on grime like the punk movement, in terms of lyrics and rebellious attitude,\u201d says Edwards, his eyes glinting.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you feel about grime\u2019s revival\u2026\u201d I begin, but he interrupts. \u201cI don\u2019t think it ever went anywhere,\u201d he says sharply. This is true. But it might also be fair to say, with Skepta winning the Mercury Prize in 2016 and getting props at this year\u2019s Brit Awards alongside Kano and Stormzy (after no grime artists were even nominated last time around), that the music is receiving more mainstream recognition than it has for years?<\/p>\n \u201cAnd for better reasons as well,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople always used to look at grime and say\u2026 I don\u2019t even want to go into this, really, but it felt like the media tried to damage its reputation a little bit. It was never really celebrating how grime actually is. It does now, though.\u201d<\/p>\n So what\u2019s changed? \u201cI don\u2019t think the people making the music have changed. There\u2019s just been an acceptance\u2026 People are waking up to it at last. It probably did have some teething problems in the early days because it\u2019s such a young genre compared to, say, R&B or rock. Anyway, I don\u2019t want to dwell on the past, I\u2019d rather look to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n You get the impression there is more he could say on the subject, and that his feelings run deep, but Edwards is a positive person by nature \u2013 it says a lot about his generous spirit that when I ask what his personal highlights have been from the past decade, he says he is proud his staff have extended their careers beyond SBTV as well as inside it. \u201cA lot of people get overlooked [by employers], but I always gave people a chance regardless of their grades,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was all about their passion.\u201d He later emails me a list of former employees who have gone on to work for organisations including ITN, Apple, Save the Children, Vice, Channel 5, Vevo and Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n![\"Close](\"https:\/\/media.guim.co.uk\/cfa6b9e3e151ca77e3ac7b03708a4692057032d0\/0_2277_6200_3719\/1000.jpg\")
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