Jamal Edwards

Jamal Edwards MBE (24 August 1990 – 20 February 2022) was a British music entrepreneur, DJ, and founder of the online R&B/Hip-Hop platform SB.TV. Edwards was an ambassador for the Prince's Trust, a youth charity that helps young people set up their own businesses. In 2021, Edwards set up Jamal Edwards Delve, a project aimed at refurbishing and reopening youth centers.

Jamal Edwards was born on 24 August 1990 in Luton, England. He spent his early years there before moving to Acton, West London, where he lived with his mother, Brenda Edwards, his stepfather, Patrick, and his younger sister, Tanisha. Edwards' family originate from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. As a child, he was introduced to stage school by his mother, who came fourth in the second series of The X Factor in 2005. 

She wanted him to pursue acting and drama; however, he aspired to be successful in the music industry. He attended Acton High School and enjoyed the subjects of ICT and music. However, he struggled to attain the grades he needed for college and, as a result, had to study for an extra year. He then attended Ealing Green College, part of West London College, where he received a BTEC diploma in Media Moving Image.

During his school years, he started rapping and would film videos with his friends that would then be posted on YouTube. These videos would eventually become his business and the beginning of SBTV. Edwards worked for the retail chain Topman for four years to support himself financially while he ran SBTV.

Edwards was the founder of SBTV – an online media platform to discover emerging artists. It launched in 2006 and has helped to launch the careers of many artists, including Ed Sheeran, Jessie J, Stormzy, and Emeli Sandé. As of 2019, the SBTV YouTube channel had more than one million subscribers. When Edwards was 15, he was given a video camera, filmed friends rapping and performing, and uploaded them to his YouTube channel. 

Then, he created the channel SBTV for his videos, taking the initials from "SmokeyBarz," the name he had briefly used as a rapper. After he left school, he worked for the clothing company Topman while continuing to make videos. His videos became more popular, with hundreds of thousands of views. He was able to leave Topman to concentrate on SBTV. Initially, the channel's content was grime dance music, but he then began to explore other musical genres.

Edwards filmed some artists before they became well-known, such as Jessie J's first acoustic video (apart from videos on her personal YouTube channel). He also filmed others such as Stormzy, Ed Sheeran, Dave, Emeli Sandé, Rita Ora, Krept & Konan, Yungen, Mic Righteous, Nines, Tori Kelly, Bugzy Malone, Mist, English Frank, Aaron Unknown, and Cadet.

In 2011, SBTV was featured in a Google Chrome advert. The ad caused the SBTV site to crash due to the traffic, and it became the second-most popular UK YouTube video of the year. As a result, this attracted the attention of the rapper Dr. Dre, who invited Edwards to film him on a tour of Asia.

In 2016, SBTV worked with the youth-focused news service Press Association to expand into more of a mainstream multichannel video. Over the years, Edwards constructed collaborations with some of the world's biggest stars, conducting the first online UK-based interviews with Drake, Nicki Minaj, and Wiz Khalifa.