The British music industry is in mourning following the death of SBTV founder Jamal Edwards at the age of 31.
The entrepreneur gained fame from setting up the new music platform, which helped to launch a string of UK music careers including Dave and Jessie J.
He was an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, a charity headed by the Prince of Wales, and in 2014 he was awarded an MBE for his services to music.
His manager told the PA news agency that Edwards died on Sunday morning.
Tributes to Edwards have flooded social media with many expressing their condolences to his mother, the Loose Women panellist Brenda Edwards who finished fourth in the second series of the X Factor in 2005.
Speaking to PA after being made an MBE, he said he started SBTV to give his friends a platform.
He added: “It was a frustration of going to school and everyone talking about ‘how do we get our videos on MTV’.
“YouTube was like a year old. I was like ‘I’ve got a camera for Christmas, I’m going to start filming people and uploading it’.
“Everyone was looking at me like ‘what are you doing, like you can compete with these major corporations’, but I think I was early enough to believe that I could make a change.”
In the same interview, he described his working relationship with musicians as “symbiotic”.
“50% is the talent and 50% is the platform,” he said.
“I try to focus on people that haven’t got the platform. As well as getting a really well-known artist, I want to get the up-and-coming ones as well.”
