‘The hardest music to sell in the UK’: why is British R&B being ignored?

Ella Mai, who supported Mary J Blige last year, became the first UK star to top the US R&B singles charts since 1992. Photograph: Daniel DeSlover/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Trevor Nelson, the veteran DJ and broadcaster, has said R&B remains the hardest music to sell in the UK, with artists still struggling to make their mark, and some turning to the US for chart success.

Nelson remembers jumping up and down every time a British R&B act made it into the charts during his pioneering BBC Radio 1 show in the 90s and 00s. “I was sort of saying to myself: ‘I know this is a one off’,” Nelson said. “That’s the music [R&B] I love the most, and it’s probably the hardest music to sell in this country. It just is. It’s always been.”