Mykaell Riley, Senior Lecturer and Director for the Black Music Research Unit, featured on an episode of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Archive on 4’ programme about the search for a common culture.
Mykaell Riley discussed how common culture became challenged in the 1970s and 80s and how, for the post-Windrush generation of Black British Youth, the idea of a common culture was wrapped around the British flag and severely policed.
Talking about what common culture means to him, Mykaell Riley said: “There is a subtext to that ‘common’ and for me, common means it is for everyone, it is accessible in a way that everyone can be part of it and it is something that I have grown up with – this idea that you’re all part of something, when the reality is, I am not part of that larger group or I am identified as something separate/different/other, so to me it is a lie in a way.”
Listen to the full show on BBC Sounds.
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