Jamal Edwards

Jamal Edwards, 20 year old founder of SBTV, an online music channel involving promos, video interviews and live performances.
"I'm a rebel when it comes to filming. I'll film everywhere, without permits or anything. This is a guerrilla operation."

the channel began in 2007 when Jamal was only 16. He got a video camera for Christmas and began playing around with it filming on his estate. 
Back then you wouldn't find grime music, an ubiquitous hybrid of hip-hop and UK garage, on any mainstream TV channels so the artist had to resort to YouTube of DVDs. There was a large gap for a channel specifically for this genre of music.

He began filming live free styling on the streets of London, backstage at a gig or even in the back seat of a car. He would post the videos straight online without any high tech editing within days, so the performances were original and raw.

He has now began to branch out and film other artist such as Ellie Goulding, Nicki Minaj, Bruno Mars and even Justin Bieber because he didn't want to be restricted in his filming.
His channel makes its money from all the advertisement, and has now reached up to 50,000 subscribers and 39 million video views.
The downsides Jamal has found of being his own boss are how he is the youngest person on his team so he finds it "daunting telling people what to do."
The piece of advice he gives to other young people with similar dreams is to "chase your dream, not the competition, because looking at the competition will cloud your vision and mess you up in the long run."
The next move he wants to make is to go to New York and "work my way from the ground to the top, doing what i did here over there.' The competition with be tougher but he's not worrying about that like what he says in his advice quote. 
The Guardian followed him which he was doing some of his raw filming in an underground car park of a supermarket filming a rapper called English Frank rhyming from a beat pumping form his car radio. by passing shoppers seem very bemused  by the scene. the next artist is called Azonga also rapping with his car radio, who gives a quick shout out to the SBTV channel before beginning, in a few days the video will be viewed by thousands.






http://sbtv.co.uk/