Caribbean-American songwriter Benjamin Carter has released the title track from his upcoming EP, Black Boys on the Radio: Part I, out June 21st. The new song focuses on how our culture perceives black Americans outside celebrities, athletes, and musicians. Listen to it now below.
Of the song, Benjamin Carter explained, “American culture seems to praise the athlete and artist and actor who is black and in entertainment, yet many who look just like them are being stereotyped, marginalized, and face various prejudices that don’t allow them to progress as people. It’s not enough to pay the actor, rapper, or athlete and say ‘look we aren’t racist’ we must each – black, white, latin, asian, etc – be vulnerable and willing to own up to our mistakes and look for ways to grow. This is why the chorus sings ‘and I know if I cry it’ll make you stay, so please don’t, please don’t run away.'”
Benjamin Carter is a musician and entrepreneur who uses his music now to tell stories – heartache and love, addiction and gentrification, even tapping into the years of racial oppression he’s faced – in hopes of developing artists of the next generation to do the same. His desire in all his songwriting is tap into his exposure of varying genres encouraging the next generation of artists and songwriters to write songs not based on genre – but based on which instruments, melodies, vocal performance techniques, sonically help to best capture the message of the song they are delivering.
Benjamin describes his journey with songwriting and performing as what it looks like to be a “first generation child of the internet,” or more specifically, on YouTube. As a kid living in the Cayman Islands, he recalls vividly what it felt like to finally log onto YouTube at its start and watching Japanese Anime with English subtitles, while watching compilation soccer videos and Anime videos introducing him to bands like Three Days Grace, Linkin Park,Crossfade, and others. Benjamin lived on an 8 mile long Island, where his father was a choir director, youth pastor, and band teacher. He has called Washington, DC home ever since he moved there at 12 years old.