The son of Loose Women star Brenda Edwards, Jamal Edwards, has died at the age of 31.
The founder of the online music platform SB.TV was a pioneer in the music industry with many of his celebrity friends paying tribute following his death.
Tributes have poured in on social media since the announcement of his death. Jamal was awarded an MBE in 2014 for his work in music and business.
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TV star Denise Welch posted online: "My heart aches for my friend Brenda. I can’t bear it. Jamal Edwards was a wonderful son and brother", the Mirror reports.
A fan added: "A pioneer in taking Black British music and culture digital via SBTV. Thank you for being the helm of visual content and a home for artists that didn’t feel seen in the mainstream. The impact is felt and will be for generations to come. An eternal talent. RIP Jamal Edwards."
Earlier this month he attended the BRIT awards and posed on the red carpet dressed in an eye-catching mustard yellow coloured suit.
He shared posts on social media following the biggest night in music business calendar.
Jamal - who grew up on an estate in Acton, West London - was destined for success after his mum gave him a £200 video camera for Christmas when he was 15.
YouTube had just been launched and Jamal decided to upload some footage of foxes in his back garden and soon was astounded to see the clip got 1,000 views.
Understanding that the platform could be his way to success he went to film his friend on the estate he lived on performing grime music.
"Back then, there was no place to showcase our sort of spitting and rapping, so I thought, OK, I want to create that platform," he told MailOnline in 2013.
It took a while for Jamal's idea to take off and in the meantime his mum made him get a job at Topman.
In his free time away from the shop floor he started hanging out at the BBC, sneaking into raves and messaging record labels to beg for interview time with their artists.
Three years later when he secured his first non-grime interview with Kelly Rowland - which kickstarted his career as he went on to interview big names including Bruno Mars, Nicki Minaj, Trey Songz.
Jamal accomplished a lot in his life including being featured in the ES Power 1000 – London's most influential people 2013 as well as being chosen to be the ambassador for the youth charity, The Prince's Trust in 2013.
The following year was listed as number 2 in The Guardian's The top 30 young people in digital media and TIME Magazine named Edwards as one of their 'Next Generation Leaders.
In 2015 he was awarded the Best New StartUp from Virgin Media and Virgin StartUp as well as being named in Debrett's list of the 500 most influential people in Britain in the New Media section.
2016 saw the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) inducted Edwards into its Hall of Fame and GQ Magazine's 100 Most Connected Men of All Time as well as
In 2021 Jamal was appointed Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Sussex in September 2021 and the same year the University of West London gave him an honorary degree.
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