24/10/2020

Africa at Arnolfini: New Bristol Book

 A bit more about this project! 


African Art at the “Arnolfini”, Bristol

Arnolfi – Source: Hannah Atkinson

Since September 2019, I have had the pleasure to be the writer in residence at the Arnolfini art gallery, here in Bristol, writing mainly on feminism, women artists and themes around resistance, worldwide. The exhibitions I covered include the feminist show ‘Still I Rise’, Amak Mahmoodian’s ‘Zanjir’, Angelica Mesiti’s ‘Assembly’ and later on, after the lockdown, Hassan Hajjaj’s ‘The Path’.

During the lockdown, the gallery had the idea of assembling a little art book, more than commissioning other blog posts, so they asked me if I’d like to work on a text dedicated to all the African, Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean British artists, the ones they invited to exhibit over the years since their opening in 1961.

It sounded so very relevant to me, as I’ve spent most of my adult life as a reporter on African news, on or in Africa, and worked lengthily for a film production company stemming from Haiti. I started working on a book that is now to me a sort of short history of what could be designated as “Black Art” in the UK and beyond.

As we’re now in the middle of Black History Month in the UK, I feel it’s a good time to say a bit more about them and this book.

Focus on black artists who made history

These include British artists like Veronica Ryan, Keith Piper and Donald Rodney – two key members of the ‘Black Art Group’ in the 1980s, but also a history of Carnival festivities, artists who took part in the Harlem Renaissance in New York in the 20thcentury, and some brilliant filmmakers and video artists like John Akomfrah. Some were born in the UK, others in Trinidad, Jamaica, Morocco, Sudan or Ghana…

This project gives me room to try to weave together the different parts of the African continent and the “triangular” routes that binds it to America and Europe. These themes have haunted my own work as a journalist, researcher and writer since the mid-2000s as well.

One example: My favourite show at the Arnolfini was definitely ‘Vertigo Sea’ by Ghanaian British filmmaker John Akomfrah. His work with the Black Audio Film Collective and lately Smoking Dogs Film definitely challenged this recent history of cinema and political art. Another relevant show I’ll cover in this book ‘Trophies of Empire’, and I had a very insightful discussions about it with artists and curators such as Keith Piper, Nav Haq and Graeme Evelyn, notably on what ‘Black Art’ really means, how this notion constantly evolves between a political meaning to a more sociological perspective or even, more recently, a strictly racial views.

In the 1970s, the most radical ‘Black’ British artists was probably Rasheed Araeen, who born in 1935 in Karachi and is therefore Pakistani, not African. In the 1980s, Jamaican and other Caribbean/South American British artists like Sonia Boyce and Frank Bowling revolutionised the artistic landscape. Since then, African British artists took centre stage like John Akomfrah and Lubaina Himid, whom I interviewed a few months before she received the Turner Prize. More recently artists from Nigeria, Morocco or Algeria have also left their mark, and been invited to key British art centre like The Arnolfini and the Hayward Gallery in Londone. It is a fascinating journey, everything but one-sided.

Bristol: A bridge between England, the Caribbean and Africa

Before I came to Bristol to start my research on the ‘Bristol Sound’ in 2015, I had lived in Paris, Prague and Miami, travelling to Haiti before  settling in London. I then moved to Africa, living in Kenya, travelling to Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Central Africa and Liberia, which changed my view of the UK and the western world in general…

And in a way, after these experiences, Bristol too shifted my perception of the UK, because its history is so much more overtly linked to the triangular trade with the Americas and Africa, and therefore to displacements and slavery. I first came to Bristol to visit Massive Attack’s studio when the city was the European Green Capital. Quickly, Bristol became both an exciting territory to explore, and a familiar cosy second home. It’s quite a peculiar experience.

Since then, Brexit followed, making myself not a welcome guest but an immigrant potentially facing a loss of civic rights, or even departure. More recently, Edward Colston’s statue was torn down, a complete watershed moment for Black Bristolians, after years of campaigning from different organisations and artists. I had much earlier discussed Colston with Massive Attack, who had always demanded a change of name for the auditorium bearing his name.

Over the years, writing about artists like TrickyMad Professor (the genius of dub music) or even Banksy embodied a story that included the consequences of colonialism, here in Britain, in the Caribbean, in Africa but also in Palestine or Iraq. These are the issues that have pervaded throughout everything I do as a journalist, writer, or researcher because they define our modern civilisation.

Moreover, my own family is from North Africa, which is a part of the continent that is underreported in the English-speaking world; North African people are almost never mentioned, let alone artists. The Arnolfini however did receive artists from Sudan, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt; so did the Watershed cinema with films. Elsewhere in Bristol, my experience is that Bristolians can be very vocal, quite territorial, and polarised on the relations between white English citizens and their Caribbean counterparts.

That leaves very little room to bring in voices from South Asia, South America, East Africa, the Middle East or North Africa – where other people of colour have a different but sometimes really relevant experience of colonialism, religions and racism. I even feel sometimes that it’s delusional to want to be part of such a city. This is compounded by Brexit and misrepresented debates on history, polarised divisions and also high inequalities.

So more than ever, writing about art opens a way to relate to a different community, beyond borders and beyond the ‘colour line’, around shared values of inclusivity, creativity and knowledge.

My book for the Arnolfini is still a work in progress. I’ve looked into catalogues and archives, reflected on the meaning of these artists’ works, on different levels. I’ve been in touch with some of the artists and curators involved: some have sent me some articles, links, video recordings about their art, from back then and now; others have had time for an interview.  

My own memories of some of the exhibitions, or encounters with these artists’ work in other places, as well as some of my research done from 2015 for my previous book, on Bristol’s music scene, also nourished this project.

What I know for sure is that writing about such socially aware and even sometimes politically engaged art allows much more depth. It enables – just like my work in fiction – one to dig into different sorts of subjectivities, recognised and accepted as such, to explain our very complex world with multiple shades of colours.

Ed: Melissa’s book will be out in March 2021, as part of the celebrations for the 60 years of Arnolfini. 
Arnolfini is Bristol’s International Centre for Contemporary Arts located on the harbourside in the heart of the city.


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Link to West England Bylines: https://westenglandbylines.co.uk/african-art-at-the-arnolfini-bristol/



23/10/2020

On White Privilege and Black History

 

Black History Month, White Privilege and Kemi Badenoch

 

 

 

In the middle of Black History Month, the UK government sent a black minister, Kemi Badenoch, to tell the House of Commons that 'Teaching white privilege as uncontested fact is illegal'.   

 

Yet past and present racism continue to run deep in the country, as well as in the entire world...

 

As a journalist, I've worked on African affairs since 2006, joining Velvet Film, a company set up between Haiti, New York and Paris to produce films on Haitan and African history. 


That gave films like 'Lumumba', 'Sometimes in April' on the Rwanda genocide, and more recently 'I Am Not Your Negro' on James Baldwin, winner of the BAFTA for best documentary film on 2018... 





 

In the meantimes, I joined the BBC African news section in 2009 and became a correspondent in East Africa a year later. I have since reported in 14 African countries, in the Caribbean and in Europe about racism and colonial history.

 

2020 has so far been a watershed year for minorities' rights and especially for Black Lives Matter, at the price of extreme suffering. 


Teaching the reality of 'black' history, of colonialism history, of displacement and slavery should not, and never, just like the criticism on extreme capitalism, be reduced to teaching secondary subjectivities or subjective points of views. 


These are facts, based on events documented by historians and to these days by sociologists, journalists and activists.

 

I've covered anti-racist protests since the toppling of the Colston Statue here in Bristol, spoken to activists like educator Aisha Thomas recently and filmmaker Michael Jenkins, listened to historians Olivette Otiele and David Olusoga, started writing a book on Black art and Caribbean / African artists living or invited in the UK. 


 Details here: https://arnolfini.org.uk/africa-at-arnolfini/?fbclid=IwAR3iuErzpTJiAzAIW4RTBzfelYCttiSHyoczsyMo2skmHQcWJy3WVH5a4-A 

 

I felt the country had made so much progress in the past few years, since my first book on Bristol's music scene, a scene deeply inspired by reggae and soul music, by artists from the Caribbean and Africa. 


 See details here: https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/music/massive-attack-the-birth-of-the-bristol-sound   

 

But this debate in Parliament, just like the attempt to forbid teachers to address critical thinking that came out last month, are dangerous paths to revisionism.

 

 

 

'A Countervailing Theory'

My favourite art exhibition of this autumn in London:

A narrated walk through Toyin Ojih Odutola's 'A Countervailing Theory'

Nigerian-American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola takes us through her exhibition 'A Countervailing Theory', highlighting key moments in the story unfolding before our eyes on the artworks





Toyin Ojih Odutola: A Countervailing Theory is on in the Curve until 24 Jan 2021: https://bit.ly/37AAyM6 Show your support for the Barbican by making a donation and help inspire more people to discover and love the arts. https://www.barbican.org.uk/donate Pushing the boundaries of theatre, dance, film, music and visual art, the Barbican is a world-class arts and learning centre. Subscribe: http://ow.ly/O44tx Like: http://www.facebook.com/barbicancentre Follow: http://www.twitter.com/barbicancentre Discover: http://www.instagram.com/barbicancentre Explore: https://www.barbican.org.uk/read-watc... What’s on? http://www.barbican.org.uk Welcome to the Barbican Centre's YouTube channel. From exclusive trailers and specially commissioned interviews to concert recordings, behind the scenes tours and insights into the unseen areas of the Barbican, subscribe to our channel for all the latest Barbican videos.



21/10/2020

Black History Month: With Bristol artists and activists making a major difference

 

Busy week, busy month, busy year...

Here is my first article for the wonderful and deeply needed independent publication Byline Times for Black History Month: 


‘We Want the Ability, Space & Time to Retell Our Own History’



21 October 2020



Melissa Chemam speaks to campaigners and creatives taking part in Black History Month in Bristol, where the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was brought down in June and discussions about past and present racism continue to run deep



Michael Jenkins is a film-maker and activist. Since 2015, he has been working on a film about his city’s relationship with the “myth of Edward Colston” for his own Bristol-based production company, Blak Wave.

For him, 2020 has been a game-changing year. For Black History Month, he has been invited to share the first trailer of his film Colston: A Bristol Story at the Bristol Old Vic theatre, one of the oldest in the UK, as part of five events curated by the award-winning Bristol playwright Chinonyerem Odimba.

“My father is mixed-race, his father is from Jamaica and his mother from Swindon; and my mother is from Domenica so, for me, retelling the history of Caribbean people is a passion and a duty,” Michael says. “With this film, I hope to help people get a better understanding of people like Edward Colston.” 

For over a century, the slave trader has been celebrated in Bristol as a philanthropist and a benefactor. “Do we really want to celebrate people like that?” Michael asks. 

In June, Colston’s statue in Bristol city centre was torn down during a Black Lives Matter protest. Since that day, Bristolians have been fiercely debating the consequences of the watershed moment.

Michael Jenkins

Before the statue fell, a group known as Countering Colston had been campaigning for its peaceful removal by the city council for years. The former Lord Mayor and current Green City Councillor Cleo Lake had managed to remove his painting from the city hall a couple of years before. American British historian Madge Dresser and film-maker and Professor Dr Shawn Sobers had worked on a plaque to rebalance Colston’s history, but it was not approved by the current mayor Marvin Rees, himself half-Jamaican.

“For long, I thought I would conclude my film with the pose of this plaque,” Michael adds, “but the democratic process was not allowed to go through. So it was only natural the statue would eventually go in some other way.”

Michael was born in Southmeads, Bristol. His parents had moved to Bath to avoid constant racism. When he learned about American and Caribbean history as a 12-year-old, mainly through films such as Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, he started developing a keen interest in history and a passion for cinema. “I grew up followed by the police just because I was black, so I had to educate myself to understand the deeper reasons,” he explains. 

“At 12 or 13, when in Bristol, I couldn’t care less about the statue. But then I heard that the band Massive Attack refused to play in the city’s auditorium, because of its name, Colston Hall. And, in 2007, an exhibition also retraced that part of the city’s history. Then I looked around and saw that Colston and his organisation, the Merchant Venturers, were still celebrated everywhere in Bristol, almost like a cult.” 

Colston Hall recently changed its name to the Bristol Beacon, while the Colston Girls School also announced that it would be changing its name. A pub has changed names too, but Colston still seems to haunt the area.

At some point, white people will have to give up their seat to others, for a while, so that we can properly live together.

Aisha Thomas

For Michael, the discussions being had around Bristol’s history are positive in that the issues they are raising are now less hidden, compared to neighbouring cities such as Bath or Oxford.

“All we want now is the ability, space and time to retell our own history, and our own stories,” he says. “That’s my mission and my goal.”

His film, a passion project for which he had no funding, is now complete and will be shown by the end of the year in local cinemas such as the Watershed and the Cube.


COVID and Racism

Aisha Thomas, an educator, TEDx speaker and activist, is also a guest at the Bristol Old Vic’s series of events for Black History Month. She is the founder of Representation Matters and was invited to talk at the weekend about education as a tool of resistance and how the National Curriculum can be made fairer and more explanatory for all British children.  

A teacher and associate principal, the mother-of-two is constantly engaging with her community on these issues, with 2020 being a very unusual year for her profession.

“COVID completely knocked us down and then there was the issue of racism,” she says. “For instance, I was screamed at in the street. A woman refused to let me be in the same queue as her at the local supermarket, saying black people brought everyone COVID. So, on top of suffering, we have to explain that, if people of colour are more affected by pandemics, it’s not about genetics, but about having jobs in the frontline, or less access to healthcare.”


Aisha Thomas


Following the killing of George Floyd in America, she says that some of her pupils came to her crying, saying “Miss, it’s so hard being black”. She wrote an open letter to the school “to explain how we live through this”.

As a result, Aisha managed to introduce some books to discuss in her classroom, such as Akala’s Natives. She believes it is necessary to start educating children about prejudice as early as possible.   


Living History

Other Black History Month events in Bristol discussed women in creativity, considered how to decolonise universities, and celebrated the tradition of the Caribbean carnival in Britain – embodied by St Paul’s Carnival in Bristol and Notting Hill in London. 

Speakers also addressed the need to celebrate the positive part of black history. University of the West of England Bristol lecturer, broadcaster and activist Roger Griffith gave a talk about the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott, which saw black activists protest against the local transport company refusing to employ people of colour. The movement contributed to bringing about the first Race Relations Act in 1965. 

Meanwhile, the historian Roger Ball discussed the impact of the 1980 St Pauls riots in a Caribbean neighbourhood n Bristol, which saw young black boys protest police brutality.   

“Segregation pays and it still continues,” says Aisha. “Marginalised people want change but we need allyship. At some point, white people will have to give up their seat to others, for a while, so that we can properly live together.”

We’re definitely not there yet. 



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A podcast episode with NHS workers and the Migration Museum's exhibition on healthcare

This episode is really dear to my heart! 

Have a listen: https://the-quarantini.captivate.fm/episode/a-quarantini-with-the-nhs


A Quarantini with the NHS





In the final episode of season 3 we celebrate the NHS.

At a NHS Workers Say No protest march in Bristol, we hear from NHS nurses including Alex Oldham and Shannon O’Sullivan.

From the Migration Museum, Robyn Kasozi (pictured) talks about the brand new free online exhibition - Heart of the Nation: Migration and Making of the NHS.

And we have poetry from NHS staff, from the book These Are The Hands, Poems from the Heart of the NHS, Foreword by Michael Rosen, Fair Acre Press. (You can buy it here).

PLUS - our usual round up of positive responses to the virus from around the world....

Music: 

The NHS Song (parody SOS, ABBA)

Hot Flu, Seb Gutiez, The Old Bones Collective - opening music


Hosts: Melissa Chemam and Pommy Harmar

Producer: Pommy Harmar


A Quarantini with the NHS







AFRICA AT ARNOLFINI: Upcoming art book

 

Dear friends,

I hope this finds you all well. 

For those of you who worked with me on this, thank you so much for your time, and here is more about the book.

For everyone, a little insight.

With my best wishes,
melissa 



 Africa at Arnolfini | Interview 

We're creating a little art book with some lovely people !! 

This is the final result of my residence at Arnolfini this unordinary year… 
A book on the African and Caribbean artists the gallery invited to exhibit over 60 years!

I've been working on it since April and it'll be out next spring. More soon… 

 


Africa at Arnolfini | Interview with Arnolfini’s Writer in Residence, Melissa Chemam

Posted Tuesday 20 October 2020


To coincide with Black History Month, our writer in residence Melissa Chemam talks to us about her new project


What are you writing about, Melissa?
After about six months as the writer-in-residence at the Arnolfini, writing short pieces on women artists, feminism and resistance worldwide, we had the idea of assembling a little art book. A text dedicated to all the African, Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean British artists who Arnolfini has invited to exhibit over the years since 1961… That was in April and it sounded very relevant to me, as I’ve spent most of my adult life as a reporter on African news, in and out of Africa; I’ve worked for a film production company from Haiti; and as the daughter of Algerian immigrants to Paris, I’m a member of the African diaspora myself.

I started working on this book that is now to me a sort of short history of “Black Art” in the UK. Some of the artists are from the UK, others were born in Trinidad, Jamaica, Morocco, Sudan or Ghana, so it gives me room to try to weave together the different parts of the African continent, as well as the “triangular” routes that bind it with the Americas and Europe. These are themes that have haunted my work as a journalist, researcher and writer since the mid-2000s as well.

How have you been researching it?
I’ve started by trying to get in touch with some of the artists and curators. Some sent me articles, links, video recordings about their art, from back then and from now. Others have had the time for an interview. Then I’ve looked into catalogues, at Arnolfini, and also at Bristol Archives (which was a great chance to visit this wonderful place, despite the current Covid restrictions). Writing about art is one of my favourite endeavours as a writer, because it allows so much depth, and to dig into all different sorts of subjectivities. And the rest is about my own memories of some of the exhibitions, or some of these artists’ work in other places, as well as things I was researching from 2015 for my previous book, on Bristol’s music and graffiti scene Out of the Comfort Zone (Tangent Books, 2019).

Could you tell us a bit about your relationship with Bristol?
Before I came to Bristol, I had lived in London for years and thought I knew and loved England… But Bristol revolutionised my vision of the UK. I came after years reporting mainly in Africa, to write more about art and music than about immigration and politics. I came precisely because it has links with both the Americas and Africa. Links with the consequences of colonial conquests, from the 1500s up to recently.

The city was then the European Green capital. I immediately fell in love with Bristol people and their energy. I felt a strong sense of community here, and an interest in climate justice, so I came again and stayed for weeks. I met so many people – artists, writers, historians, curators, charity workers, etc. I walked mostly, from the Arnolfini and Watershed to St. Andrews and Gloucester Road, or Trinity in Easton and artists’ homes in Clifton, in Hotwells and Bedminster, in St. Paul’s and St. Werburgh’s. I stayed in these different neighbourhoods with different people of different ages and origins and always found commonalities. Bristol became both an exciting territory to explore and a familiar second home. It’s been quite a unique experience for me.

I moved here finally a year ago, and since we have been through a lot… First there was Brexit! Then the Covid crisis, with the quasi-impossibility to travel… For a nomad like myself, it took a special place to not feel desperate. I walked almost daily along the Harbourside or in one of Bristol’s parks. And of course Edward Colston’s statue was torn down! A statue which I had discussed with a member of Massive Attack very early on…

Bristol and I, it’s a weird relationship, in a way. I’m from a North African background, lived in warm climate for years, and always thought I would one day settle somewhere like Italy… And sometimes some Bristolians can be a bit territorial, so I can feel like it’s delusional to want to be part of such a city, with complex history, divisions. I regularly wonder: where do I fit? But I’m still here and there is mostly joy, learning and friendship on a daily basis!

Are there any spoilers or favourite stories you’d like to share?
My favourite show at the Arnolfini was definitely ‘Vertigo Sea’ by Ghanaian British filmmaker John Akomfrah, in 2016! His work with the Black Audio Film Collective and lately Smoking Dogs Film has had a huge influence on my tastes in art and reflections on our post-modern world… The other show on the top list is ‘Trophies of Empire’; my discussion with Keith Piper was very insightful, notably on what ‘Black Art’ really means, between a political meaning to a more sociological perspective, not even strictly racial. In the 1970s, the most radical British ‘Black’ artist in the UK was probably Rasheed Araeen, born in 1935 in Karachi. Then Jamaican and other Caribbean British artists like Sonia Boyce and Frank Bowling revolutionised the artistic landscape. And more recently, African artists born on the African continent have left their mark, etc. It is a fascinating journey, and everything but one-sided.

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Melissa’s book will be launched in March 2021, as part of the celebrations to mark Arnolfini’s 60th anniversary. More information to follow. 

Frank Bowling will be exhibiting at Arnolfini in Summer 2021.


 

Read on Arnolfini's website: 

https://arnolfini.org.uk/africa-at-arnolfini/?fbclid=IwAR3iuErzpTJiAzAIW4RTBzfelYCttiSHyoczsyMo2skmHQcWJy3WVH5a4-A

 


Daydreaming, still...


Latest piece on music history... For the Reader's Digest

Massive Attack & the birth of the "Bristol Sound"

Melissa Chemam


Thirty years ago, on October 15, 1990, the song “Daydreaming” by Massive Attack came out, six months before their debut album, Blue Lines. The song opened so many directions for Black British music. While writing a book about the “BristolSound”, I met many of these musicians and their collaborators, to retell this story.

Released with a slick black and white video, with a hot climate fusing England and the Caribbean, “Daydreaming” reached number #81 in the UK Singles Chart, a first for a Bristol band.

The single featured Tricky, 3D and Shara Nelson on vocals, mixing rap, dub and reggae influences with a pinch of soul and funk, and opened a new era.

From reggae and punk to hip-hop and electro, came the “Bristol Sound”

Before forming Massive Attack in 1988, Daddy G, Mushroom and 3D hung out in a club called The Dug Out. They were part of The Wild Bunch, a loose collective created by DJ Milo and Nellee Hopper in 1980. Milo, G and Mushroom are of Caribbean origins, and grew up to the sound of reggae and soul. 3D, born in an Italian-English family, and Nellee were as obsessed with Black music.

Reggae has indeed had a major influence on Bristol since the 1970s. The music helped immigrants to understand their post-colonial situation at a time of hostility. Bands like Black Roots and Talisman, DJs like Tarzan the High Priest and DJ Derek popularised the style in pubs and at St Paul’s Carnival. Soon, younger DJs started organising “blues parties” and events in warehouses or clubs like the Dug Out, described as Bristol’s little Studio 54 of the 1980s.

"Graffiti and rap came out of the cultural void left by punk"

“Graffiti and rap came out of the cultural void left by punk,” 3D told me. “I started writing vocals for Wednesdays at The Dug Out. It was very selective; The Wild Bunch wouldn’t let many on the mic. Daddy G did some reggae-style toasting. Willy Wee had a more New-York-style MC thing. And then there was me.”

Also part of the scene were young rappers from the same humble immigrant origins, like Tricky. Born of English, African and Jamaican parentage, Adrian Thaws aka Tricky infused his music with Bristolian and Caribbean references. He met The Wild Bunch in 1987. “It was a great time for us all,” he says, “we didn’t care about money, only about making the best music possible. I slept at friends’ or in squats. It was a life of total freedom.”


Tricky

In 1989, the collective dissolved though, and Nellee Hooper joined Soul II Soul in London, producing their second album, Vol. II: 1990—A New Decade, which peaked at number 1 on the UK Albums Chart.

3D and Mushroom started working with the Swedish singer based in London, Neneh Cherry, producing songs for her first album, Raw Like Sushi, released in 1989. Her partner and manager, Cameron McVey, saw a potential in the unconventional group and encouraged them to record… That’s how of Massive Attack came about and the songs that formed Blue Lines.

“Daydreaming” 30 years on

This mix of soul vocals and hip-hop started with a track, “Daydreaming”.

The band sampled the song “Mambo” by West-African French musician Willy Badarou, from his album Echoes (1984), adding their raps and soulful lyrics. 

Tricky was then 20 years old, was not part of the band but collaborated with 3D on lyrics. “It’s the first track I worked ever,” he told me. “I was so young at the time; I had no clue of how to release a track alone. 3D was my mate; we were always together in the clubs, in the underground scene. I was not at all interested in keeping a track for myself back then. I still hear people telling me how much they love it.”

The song, in a very Massive Attack way, was “reworked dozens of times”, 3D told me, with many producers like himself, Cameron Mc Vey and Johnny Dollar.

Massive Sound, Massive Influence

Since the release of Blue Lines in 1991, the song as well as “Unfinished Sympathy” and “Safe From Harm” have become some sort of national anthems.

Massive Attack has released four other albums, Tricky—14, and bands like Portishead have emerged from the city. The Bristol sound produced a new chapter for the history Black British Music, Massive working Horace Andy and the Mad Professor (who remixed their albums in dub versions), Nigerian Scottish singer Nicolette, Bristol stars Martina Topley-Bird and Yola, also inviting Black artists from the US such as Mos Def and Snoop Doggy Dog. Their influence is heard in the sound of London Grammar as much as Lana Del Rey.


Massive Attack live

More recently, they featured Young Fathers, Roots Manuva, Saul Williams and James Massiah, who read one of his poems on “Dear Friend” in 2016. “It was an incredible opportunity,” James told me. “An A&R at a record label sent one of my poems to their producer and we had two sessions before locking it in.”

In 1991, John McCready wrote in The Face magazine: “Hip hop heroes or Bristol’s answer to Pink Floyd? Either way, Massive Attack are the sound of 1991.” A sound that still resonates.

 

20/10/2020

Bristol Students’ want a Rent Strike to complain about their lockdown conditions

 

Latest article: for West England Bylines

Bristol Students’ Rent Strike


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