X-Factor Winner Alexandra Burke Reveals Awful Racist Experiences In The Music Industry

Alexandra Burke is opening up about a very disappointing and disturbing part of the music industry — and she’s not holding back at all.

The former X-Factor star, who won the fifth season of the reality TV singing competition show, published a 15-minute Instagram video this weekend in which she discussed some of the unsavory racist and sexist aspects of being in the music business. It’s tough to listen to at points, but it’s something we all need to hear, if only to understand how the industry preys on people of color.

“This isn’t a video to bash anyone,” she opened up with on her IGTV channel, clarifying she was only trying to relay her own personal experiences within the industry over the years. To begin, she recalled one of her most formative negative experiences in music, which occurred when she was just 16 years old (below):

“The first experience that comes to my mind was when I was 16. I went to the X-Factor twice, when I was 16 and when I was 19. And when I was 16 years old, I made it down to the judges’ houses and this person said to me, ‘You haven’t made it through, but give me a call in a couple of months and I’ll sign you.’ I remember calling this particular person and saying to him, ‘I’m in a position where I’m ready to start working, I’m eager, I’m good to go’ and the response that I got was, ‘I already have one Black artist. I don’t need another.’ I wasn’t sure how to take that, to be honest. I still have to really take that in, even now, many years later. It really, really sucked to hear those words.”

Wow… We can’t even imagine what it must be like to hear those words…

And though Alexandra never publicly accuses anyone by name, it’s clear she has had a lot of experiences with racist behavior and attitudes during her now 11 years in the business.

She went on to say later in the video:

“I love singing and I love what I do, but if it wasn’t for the love that I have with music, I definitely wouldn’t be in this industry. A few reasons are, I got told when I first won the X-Factor at 19… ‘Because you’re Black, you are gonna have to work 10 times harder than a white artist because of the color of your skin. You can’t have braids, you can’t have an Afro… you have to have hair, for example, that appeals to white people.’ I got told to bleach my skin, and that was something I refused to do. Because it’s just so absurd to me that somebody could even remotely say to someone, ‘Bleach your skin, so that you could look whiter.’ Still, until this moment, it breaks my heart that I was told that. I’m trying to hold back the tears, because it’s really heartbreaking, the s**t that went on. I was only 19 years old, there’s only so much you can understand when your life [has] completely changed overnight. That was quite hard to digest.”

No kidding!

The idea that somebody could tell a young woman to bleach her skin — in this day and age, no less?! Absolutely despicable! Ugh!!!

As we said, the whole video (below) is worth watching:

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I felt it was time to speak up… This is a scary moment for me. I didn’t always want to speak up.. but it is the right thing to do. So, here’s my truth, the positive and the emotional. ???? Side note: When I talk about ‘not seeing colour’ I’m not referring to the idea of being blind to skin colour, I’m talking about the notion within the music industry and institutionally that whiter is better. Why does an industry that should be focused on vocal ability spend so much time dictating an artists worth on their colour?

A post shared by Alexandra Burke (@alexandraburke) on Jun 19, 2020 at 4:22pm PDT