Remembering the time David Bowie called out MTV for not playing black artists. [UpWorthy.com]

Samantha Sangenito 1/14/164:00 AM

Early MTV had a major problem: It was almost exclusively white.

As it set out to revolutionize the music industry, MTV hit a few major bumps in the road, which included accusations of racism for the lack of diverse artists on the network in its early years.

"There was a shortage of Black videos by urban artists," MTV co-founder Les Garland told Jet Magazine in 2006. "The success of this AOR (album-oriented rock) format in radio certainly had its influence on MTV. But, there were no music videos. They weren't being made. We had nothing to pick from."

But that wasn't entirely true.

[For more of this story, written by Parker Molloy, go to http://www.upworthy.com/rememb...aying-black-artists1]

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