Welsh songstress Duffy has hit back at claims made by Estelle that suggested the British music industry isn’t willing to market black soul singers.

Speaking to BBC Newsbeat, Duffy said that “if the talent and the desire is there, I don’t really think it matters what colour you are."

In an interview with the Guardian recently, Estelle, who is currently on top of the UK singles charts, said she couldn’t understand why there wasn’t “a single black person in the press singing soul.”

"Adele ain't soul. She sounds like she heard some Aretha [Franklin] records once and she's got a deeper voice - that don't mean she's soul," she continued.

"They keep trying to tell me in the media what soul music is and I'm like, we know what soul music is."

Duffy, whose debut album ‘Rockferry’ held the number one spot in the Album Charts until last Sunday, accused Estelle of not looking hard enough for black talent.

"We don’t live in the 1950s any more, we're in a multicultural country,” she said.

"So no, I think that’s pretty far from the truth, look around and I think you'll see that it [Black Soul] really does exist."

(by Jason Gregory)