David Bowie challenged MTV for its discrimination against black musicians

In the early 1980s, MTV was heavily criticized for neglecting black artists. In one case, MTV didn’t air Rick James’s “Super Freak,” leading James to complain to Rolling Stone: “Me and every one of my peers — Earth, Wind, and Fire, Stevie Wonder, the Gap Band, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson — have great videos. Why doesn’t MTV show them?”

Bowie, however, was a white artist who was getting a lot of attention from MTV. So in an interview with the network, he confronted MTV VJ Mark Goodman about discrimination against black artists.

Even though it could threaten his reputation with a network that could make or break careers, Bowie wasn’t afraid to stand up for racial justice — a cause that unfortunately remains, more than 30 years later, very much necessary. #Love it!