Across the Atlantic: Caribbean Music and Diaspora in the UK

Across the Atlantic: Caribbean Music and Diaspora in the UK

Across the Atlantic: Caribbean Music and Diaspora in the UK

According to Professor Deonte Harris, many of us here in the U.S. have a fascination with Black music. But at the same time, we tend not to realize that it’s. . . well, Black music.

Harris, an International Comparative Studies professor at Duke, holds a freshly minted Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA. At the moment, his research focuses especially on the practice and influence of Afro-Caribbean music and diaspora in London.

He chose to conduct his research in the UK because of its large overseas Caribbean population and because he found that not much scholarship was dedicated to Black Europe. “It’s such a rich space to think about different historical entanglements that affect the lives and trajectories of Black people,” he explained.

Those entanglements include the legacies of colonialism, the Slave Trade, empire, and much more. The racialization of such historical processes is necessary to note.

For example, Harris found that a major shift in Black British music occurred in the 1950s due to anti-Black racism in England. Black individuals were not allowed to socialize in white spaces, so they formed community in their own way: through soundsystems.

Notting Hill Carnival
Notting Hill Carnival, London: An annual celebration of Black British culture.
Photo by Dominic Alves.

These soundsystem originated in Jamaica and debuted in the UK in the postwar years. A soundsystem was the organization of Black individuals, music, and machines, typically in basements and warehouses, for the enjoyment of Black music and company. It became a medium through which a Black community could form in a racialized nation.

Today, Black British music has greatly expanded, but still remains rooted in sound systems.

While the formation of community has been positive, Harris explains that much of his research is a highly complex and often disheartening commentary on Blackness.

Blackness has been created as a category by dominant society: the white community, mostly colonizers. Black music became a thing only because of the push to otherize Black Britons; in many ways, Black culture exists only as an “other” in relation to whiteness. This raises a question of identity that Harris continues to examine: Who has the power to represent self?

In the U.S. especially, Black music is a crucial foundation to American popular music. But as in the UK, it finds its origins in community, folk traditions, and struggle. The industrial nature of the U.S. allows that struggle to be commercialized and disseminated across the globe, creating a sort of paradox. According to Harris, Black individuals must reconcile “being recognized and loved globally, but understanding that people still despise who you are.”

To conduct his research, Harris mostly engages in fieldwork. He spends a significant amount of time in London, engaging with Black communities and listening to live music. His analysis typically involves both sonic and situational elements.

But the most valuable part of Harris’ fieldwork, perhaps, is the community that he himself finds. “Ethnomusicology has for me been a very transformative experience,” he said. “It has helped me to create new global relationships with people ⁠— I consider myself now to have homes in several different places.”