According to singer Aleighcia Scott, she feels that people’s comments that her songs in Welsh “are not Welsh” are because of her race. Later this month, Scott, a DJ for BBC Radio Wales from Rumney, Cardiff, declared herself “ecstatic” when her song “Dod o’r Galon” became the first Welsh-language song to reach the top of the iTunes Reggae list.
During her Radio Wales show, she spoke to Lucy Owen and stated that while “90% of people are always positive,” “you always get that small percentage of people who are just quite ignorant.”
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Scott explained, “I know the undertone is that the reason they are saying it’s not Welsh is because there is a brown lady singing the song.”
She further noted, “I almost had to laugh because how can a whole song fluent in the Welsh language, not be Welsh.”
“For me, part of the reason why I’m doing this is because of that, so we can stop this happening and people can see a normal Wales and what Wales looks like.”
According to Aleighcia Scott, Wales has a “massive” Jamaican past. Representing both her Welsh and Jamaican traditions was “so important” to the Welsh-Jamaican artist.
“I feel like everywhere I go outside of Wales, they are also shocked that there are Jamaicans in Wales. But our history here is massive,” she shared.
Adding, “So for me, it was important to basically incorporate both of my cultures together in my first Welsh track.”
Scott went on to say that she is motivated to improve because of the harassment she encounters online.
“For me, I didn’t really see a lot of Welsh media and British media that looked like me as a child growing up.”
Scott concluded, “If I can be like that for some of the children, they’ll never feel like they don’t belong somewhere.”
