Privately held | |
Industry | Entertainment, music |
Genre | Grime, British hip hop, acoustic |
Founded | 2 November 2006 (active from 25 August 2010 onwards) |
Founder | Jamal Edwards MBE |
Headquarters | 145-157 St John Street, London, United Kingdom |
Area served
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United Kingdom, United States |
Website | sbtv.co.uk |
SB.TV Global Ltd, also known as SB.TV or SmokeyBarz, is a multi-faceted company founded by Jamal Edwards and run by a small team of young people who work on web-based content, generally with a new music angle. The media platform has its origins and roots in urban music. Most of the content can be seen on its own YouTube channel, which was created on 2 November 2006, or on the official SB.TV website and includes unprofessional footage, or "street-shot" freestyle raps and music videos. However, even though its earlier uploaded videos contained entirely amateur footage, the channel's latest uploads contain professional recordings and a less is more approach is taken. SB.TV have diversified into events and have curated stages at Bestival, Wireless, Outlook and other internationally renowned festivals. SB.TV were also invited to film interviews with a host of leading politicians at 10 Downing Street, including the Prime Minister David Cameron. Edwards has also built a relationship with the Royal Family and first interviewed HRH Prince Charles in 2013.
The reasonable popularity of the channel among London's underground scene has led to features in RWD, The Observer, Time, Forbes, The Guardian, The Independent, Dazed & Confused, the Sunday Times Style magazine, Vanity Fair, Vogue and GQ while founder Jamal Edwards has been on the front cover of Wired, Intelligent Life and the Emirates In-flight magazine. SB.TV also has assistant production credits from when Edwards was working as a junior runner for the BBC, and Tiger Aspect Productions as well as joining the young persons panel at The Guardian's new technology conference activate summit alongside Martha Lane Fox and others. Today, the YouTube channel has gained many millions of views and thousands of subscribers, as well as Facebook fans and Twitter followers. SB.TV has been credited with 'discovering' Ed Sheeran whose music was aired exclusively on the channel in February 2010 - a full year before he achieved worldwide fame. SB.TV has been said to attract higher audiences of young people than ITV.