Dr Mykaell Riley, Senior Lecturer, Director for The Black Music Research Unit (BMRU) and Principal Investigator for Bass Culture Research at the University of Westminster, championed the contributions of reggae, ska, two-tone, dub, dancehall, and calypso in Britain in an interview with Times Radio this month.
On the longstanding roots of reggae music in the UK, Dr Riley surmised: “I think we’re underestimating [the impact], primarily because Jamaican popular music in the UK in various formats predates pop. So it’s here pre-1957 to early 60s…That approach to music has been a part of British popular pre-pop.
“Since the 40s…bluebeat, a Jamaican interpretation of blues, was here in the UK and influencing people so much so that by the 60s, we have a mod audience, a young British white public that was embracing this music...and [Jamaican popular music] has been here ever since…The Windrush generation would have arrived with calypso, with bluebeat.”
On what Jamaican music meant to Riley growing up in Handsworth, Birmingham, Riley explained: “It meant a connection to the mother island as we used to refer to it – or home as my parents used to refer to it. It was also a medium through which we found a new education, a new history, a new connection with our past and I think identity. It spoke to us in a political sense as to where we’re positioned in the world.”
The one-time member of Grammy-award winning British reggae band, Steel Pulse, added: “It gave us a history that was not a British history but an African history, and it also gave us I think a conduit through which we could connect to Jamaica – I mean, this was a period where we were told we’re not British, and we were being told by Jamaicans that we were not Jamaican because we were born in England, so the music gave us that sense of who we were, it was really, really important.”
Watch a summary of the interview on Times Radio’s Twitter page.
Find out more about The Black Music Research Unit at the University of Westminster.
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