EXCLUSIVE: Global Radio have suspended network presenter Steve Sutherland, following a number of complaints about offensive lyrics in a new Busta Rhymes song broadcast on his Saturday night show this weekend.
The track, called 'Arab Money', was aired at 9.58pm on Saturday 29 November and has prompted listeners to get in touch with Galaxy stations. The show is networked on Global's urban music stations in Birmingham, Manchester, Yorkshire, Scotland, the North East and on the South Coast.
Global Radio have suspended Sutherland as well as his producer.
A spokesman for the UK's biggest commercial radio group told RadioToday.co.uk: "Global Radio, owners of the Galaxy Radio network confirms that the song Arab Money by Busta Rhymes was broadcast on the station over the weekend. A number of complaints have been received, and having reviewed the lyrics, both the DJ and Producer have been suspended pending a full inquiry. Meanwhile Galaxy apologises for any offence caused."
Sutherland has twice been named Best DJ at the MOBO Awards. He's also a world famous club DJ and has put his name to 11 urban music compilation albums, attaining platinum and gold status.
The Galaxy FM websites are currently running a public apology on their front pages.
'Arab Money' has already attracted a lot of criticism on blog sites. One quotes Busta Rhymes in defence of the track: "Sometimes, people like to twist things. We ain’t mockin’ the culture. we ain’t tryin’ to be disrespectful. Ain’t no racism going on right here. If you listen to the song, you see that we are actually acknowledging the fact that the Arabian culture, a middle East culture is one of the few cultures that value passing down hard work riches that’s been built amongst the family. It would be nice if a lot of other cultures did the same thing. I would like for it to be like that in my culture where we could build things to the point where we got so much that we don’t need to rely on other cultures to contribute majorly in a financial way, or in whatever other way, to societies, communities or whatever governments we might live in. So, we are actually biggin’ up the culture. At the end of the day, I want to be like that. I think a lot of us want to be like that.”
[b]The Galaxy Apology[/b]
[i]On the evening of Saturday 29th November at Nine fifty eight pm Galaxy broadcast a song that has caused offence to some of its listeners.
Galaxy would like to apologise to all our listeners for the airing of this song, it was never Galaxy’s intent to offend its listeners and never will be.
A full internal investigation has now commenced.
Galaxy would like to apologise for any offence however unintentionally caused.[/i]
