Sounds of a Global Black Analysis: The Berlin Sessions II

In 1985 Loose Ends performed on Soul Train and just like all other performers who graced the stage, Don Cornelius strolled up with a mic and a series of music journalistic questions. When guitarist Carl McIntosh opened his mouth to discuss how the band met, I experienced my first ever encounter with Black Britain. With a precious amount of naiveté my nine-year old mind asked, “So Black people exist outside of America and outside of Africa?” As far as I knew we were between those two places and those two places only.
Prior to discovering their British voices my family had Loose Ends “Hanging on a String (Contemplating)” on repeat. It was a new soul classic, #1 on the US R&B charts, and I couldn't get enough. After their Soul Train appearance, I went through my sister's tapes to conduct a proper review of their discography, which at the time consisted of two albums (1984’s A Little Spice and 1985’s So Where are You?). I did everything I could to find out what their experiences were with love, joy, soul and pain. I read liner notes in search of clues and discovered that a few members of the band were responsible for arranging and producing material for the group Five Star, who I had no idea was Black and British as well.
Amused by my obsession, my mom said with little fanfare, 'yeah, Sade is from over there too.' What? Now you playing! Pretty ass, heartbroken ass, emotionally brilliant ass Sade is Black British too? I'm sold and possibly down for life. And now that I think about it, I’ve been digging in the crates for three decades strong.
My digging is what led me to 'Keep on Movin' by Soul II Soul and shortly following that single the group hit us with the monstrous 'Back to Life' track in 1989. They, too, appeared on Soul Train and at the end of the performance I heard the same British accent falling from their lips of African descent.
By this time my questions were more refined. How did the Black British community come to be formed? What is their parent’s history? What do they eat? I knew that most of my family was from Louisiana, Texas and Missouri and landed in Cali by way of migration. Were there places where people travelled from to be in the UK? A hostile home they escaped by the thousands to feel ‘The Warmth of Other Suns?’ Isabel Wilkerson I see you. Grandma and them were part of the 1950s crew who packed cold fried chicken and biscuits for the train from Mississippi heading west to the left coast.
Inherent to DJ culture is research and my travels today can be traced back to questions I began to ask in the late eighties. I kept my ear to the streets of Black British music and by the mid-nineties I was knee deep in UK Soul and Acid Jazz. The Brand New Heavies, D'Influence, The Rebirth of Cool series, Massive Attack, and Omar were but a few of the folks who put me on to new parts of myself. See that's the thing, these people were me, but at the same time not, and while the similarities between our music and theirs, our social lives and theirs were in some ways parallel, there was a wealth of information to be found in the distinction of our experiences. That said I committed to learning what makes communities of the African Diaspora unique; that feels like the respectful thing to do. White supremacy teaches us to shun difference, as opposed to use it as a tool to cultivate humanizing curiosity. Checking for the lives of Black folks around the planet matters because it's an extension of self-love and a way to strengthen voices of resistance.
In 1998, I left the country for the first time to travel to Brixton and Bristol. This was my first experience with a Black global community and it was electronic music that pulled me in. When in grad school, I learned of an opportunity to attend a summer program at the University of Liverpool to study the influence of Black American Blues on the Beatles sound. I jumped on it and from there took my ass to a San Francisco post office to gets, and I do mean gets! My passport.
I arrived in the UK with what I thought would buy me the world. Here is where I was introduced to the powerful pound. Damn, it was true the sun never sets on her empire. All I knew was that I couldn’t leave without books about Black British culture and history (Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall stand up) and a commitment to Manchester record shopping (Joan Armatrading on vinyl, I love you). I also found it important to find the people and build community with artist folks who could show me around town. This is the beginning of what I call “International Localism.” My developing transnational lens and love for Black folks earned me valuable cultural capital, and I was often times welcomed into places and spaces where the making of culture happened. I, DJ lynnée denise am an International Local.
International Localism took me to Ghana where I discovered Highlife and kenkey, to South Africa where I investigated kwaito while eating braai, to Montreal to spin with Haitian ...