‘I’m told my songs aren’t Welsh due to my race’

Singer Aleighcia Scott has described how people have told her that her Welsh-language songs “are not Welsh” – which she believes is due to her race.

Scott, a BBC Radio Wales DJ from Rumney, Cardiff, said she was “ecstatic” after her song Dod o’r Galon became the first Welsh-language song to hit number one on the iTunes Reggae chart earlier this month.

Speaking to Lucy Owen on her Radio Wales show, she said “90% of people are always positive” but “you always get that small percentage of people who are just quite ignorant”.

“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 said.

“I almost had to laugh because how can a whole song fluent in the Welsh language, not be Welsh,” she added.

“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.”

The Welsh-Jamaican artist said it was “so important” for her to represent both of her cultures – Jamaican and Welsh.

“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.

“So for me, it was important to basically incorporate both of my cultures together in my first Welsh track,” she said.

Scott added that the online abuse she receives drives her to make a change.

“For me, I didn’t really see a lot of Welsh media and British media that looked like me as a child growing up.

“If I can be like that for some of the children, they’ll never feel like they don’t belong somewhere.”