Forgotten Black British Musical Histories

W

worrior

Well-known member
An interest kickstarted by hearing Eden and Meme’s fantastic fast chat special:
http://dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=3690&highlight=fast+chat
I’d heard Smiley Culture before but never realised quite how much similar good influential stuff there was out there from mid80s Britain. It seems reggae reissues are very much focused on Jamaica.

What other examples are there, the older the better, of Black musicians in the UK whose role has been unfairly forgotten?

I’ve already been reading about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, son of a Sierra Leonean father, who was a popular composer at the end of the 19th century but whose legacy seems to have been marginalised. Born and raised in Croydon, he was making musical waves long before any dubstep….
 
STN

STN

sou'wester
Not exactly old or that forgotten, but I think Dennis Bovell gets approximately 2% of the respect he actually deserves from everyone.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
^if you're playing that game:

plus all the other 'london is the place to be' comps on honest jons (4 volumes up to now?)
 
D

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Joe Harriot was a prime mover in British jazz from the early 50s onwards. His albums Freeform and Abstract are landmark avant-jazz recordings. This era of British jazz is quite underrated.
 
D

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Oh, and I was playing a Meme and Eden's Lyric Maker mix while on a long drive a few months ago, which has loads of Smiley Culture and Asher Senator stuff. SIMPLY INCREDIBLE it was. I was into it so much I kept turning the car heater up and down, as if I was a selector pushing the buttons.

mms provided some terrific links to some reggae Youtube clips, and the wonderful video to "Cockney Translation" is on there. Check it!
 
D

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Reggae is a whole different thing, I guess. Lots of quality there if you know where to look. The first releases from UB40 and Aswad were sublime.
 
W

worrior

Well-known member
Thanks for all these. Joe Harriot sounds intriguing, will definitely try to track down some of his work.
I didn't see the BBC series on Soul Britannia but was reading about a band they featured called Cymande from the early 70s who also sound like they've also been overlooked in the scheme of things.
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
this post is pretty hard to pin down. theres a massive spread of black british music that spans across lots of genres. the real 'black british music' lineage id say is the unique synthesis type stuff that you cant really get anywhere else, you know the thing that people write about as 'not able to have come from anywhere else'. so things like janet kays silly games, london posse, soul II soul, caron wheeler, jungle, uk garage, etc. but then maybe thats unfair, and excludes the stuff like steel pulse, loose ends, etc that didnt sound uniquely uk-ish but was so good you didnt really care anyway lol.
i wanna see some uk hip hop mentioned in this post!
 
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M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
To my mind the original proto-grime track was by MC Untouchable from the Peckham Untouchables, who were a horrible little gang lol but the third track on an EP from about 88 is called 'Cold House'. Produced by The Dynamic Guvnors. It's just him yelling over an acid beat, totally fucking raw.
 
E

Edward

+
I suppose the question is "forgotten by who(m)?"
British hip hop isn't forgotten in my brain.... I played a Hijack record in Sweden last year and everyone went mental, turns out they were really popular over there.
Gunshot were wicked as well.
On the other hand Overlord X was wack.
 
P

petergunn

plywood violin
polz said:
basement 5: dreads making some kind of doom/hardcore reggae produced by martin hannett (of joy division) and later remixed by adrian sherwood. they where there befor bad brains. Listen to their album 1965-80 from 1980, the cd has the sherwood remixes attached to it

as for british hiphop: i quite liked silver bullet at the time, "20 seconds to comply" from '89 almost sounds like grime 15 years befor that was invented (with some imagination) that speedrappin in overdrive over fast hiphouse/breakbeats
Click to expand...

a) bad brains formed in 79...

b) 20 seconds to comply is a great song...
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Edward said:
I suppose the question is "forgotten by who(m)?"
British hip hop isn't forgotten in my brain.... I played a Hijack record in Sweden last year and everyone went mental, turns out they were really popular over there.
Gunshot were wicked as well.
On the other hand Overlord X was wack.
Click to expand...

kold sweat aren't mentioned much- son of noise, katch 22, krispy 3 etc

cymande are well loved by the funk/soulboy massive- certainly not forgotten
 
bruno

bruno

est malade
polz said:
as for british hiphop: i quite liked silver bullet at the time, "20 seconds to comply" from '89 almost sounds like grime 15 years befor that was invented (with some imagination) that speedrappin in overdrive over fast hiphouse/breakbeats
Click to expand...
criminally forgotten! the legions of the damned was the one i liked, brilliant stuff.
 
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