Jamal Edwards

Kanya King. Photograph: Tom Nicholson/Reuters. Kanya King, Mobo awards founder I met Jamal in the early days when SBTV was just starting. He would be on the ...

He was one of the first people to give us a platform – and give us a party. He was one of the people – if not the person – who started what a lot of us are running on now. He always helped his people and was forever breaking down barriers and helping the kids have a better future by funding and opening up youth centres and partnering with the Department for Education to encourage young people to undertake apprenticeships. He was the opposite – always giving back to his community. That’s something that he would let everybody know and explore to the best of their abilities with his help and his platform and his channel. As much as I was learning about the artefacts, I was learning about Jamal. He was cracking so many jokes that day, he was always so charismatic and had great energy to be around. He was there to make sure that all the dreamers – and all those that are motivated to do something different from what they might be stuck in in their environments – know they’re capable of pushing. He never let anybody’s colour get in the way of whatever he was doing. For me, it was inspiring and motivating because it allowed me to know that even though I come from a background similar to those that are on this channel, or to the person that ran and owned the channel, I could still achieve anything that I wanted to achieve in life. People like Devlin, the times Ed [Sheeran] was on there, Krept and Konan – there were a lot of people in the scene that I recognised through it. He was a cultural architect, a powerhouse. We all had to overcome so many obstacles but we had a camaraderie through a common goal of trying to push the next generation to continue elevating Black news and culture.

The music entrepreneur gained fame from setting up new music platform SBTV – helping to launch a string of UK music careers.

He was also 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. I can’t believe this is real. Edwards was a teenager when he launched the youth broadcasting and production film channel SBTV to upload clips he had recorded of his friends performing on the estate where he lived in Acton. Your laugh. Your ideas. Crowds of fans have gathered at a candlelit vigil in west London to pay tribute to SBTV founder Jamal Edwards following his sudden death at the age of 31.