Dub Aesthetics

08/31/23 • 73 min

In the season finale of the Black Studies podcast, Gavin "Gavsborg" Blair and Isis Semaj-Hall join us to talk about dub aesthetics and the rhythms, sounds, and music that help them to find new forms of belonging with time, space, and each other.

Gavin “Gavsborg” Blair is co-founder of Equiknoxx Music, a Kingston-based production and performance collective, with Bobby Blackbird. With roots in Reggae, Hip Hop, Jazz, Dancehall & Ska, the group operates across multiple genres while staying Jamaican to the core. Equiknoxx has released music for Aidonia, Busy Signal, Beenie Man, Ky-Mani Marley, Krayzie Bone, Masicka, J.O.E, Shanique Marie among others. While collaborating with Illum Sphere, Swing Ting, Mark Ernestus, Poirier, Arcade Fire and The Dirty Projectors among others, Equiknoxx continues to be revered for sharing new Jamaican expressions with the world and “making dancehall weird again” (Pitchfork magazine).

Dr. Isis Semaj-Hall is the Riddim Writer. She is a literary scholar, decolonial feminist, and cultural analyst with a creative practice that is nurtured by sound. As the Riddim Writer, she creates sound art and hosts the podcast “For Posterity” where she interviews Caribbean writers, musicians, visual artists, and inspiring citizens. As a Caribbean storytelling advocate, she has dubbed poetry and published non-fiction and fiction works. She is also co-founder and editor of the online literary magazine PREE: Caribbean Writing. With a commitment to opening-up access, her cultural analysis and critical scholarship have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, in non-academic outlets, and can be heard on the 2022 Carnegie Hall produced Afrofuturism podcast. She is currently completing her monograph “On the B-Side: Storytelling Meets Caribbean Futurism in Infinite Dub,” a critical exploration of word-sound-power, deep listening, environmental wisdom, and Caribbean identities. Dr. Semaj-Hall is the Caribbean literature and popular culture specialist in the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica.

Episode Transcript

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Episode Transcript

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Cinemas of the Black Diaspora

This week we are thrilled to be joined by Zélie Asava and Tambay A. Obenson to discuss cinemas of the Black diaspora. This conversation explores historically informed and forward-looking approaches to African film; the complexities of global Black communities; writing against the grain of histories and business models that revolve around Hollywood and American cinema; and much, much more!

Dr Zélie Asava is a specialist in questions of race, gender, screen studies, and visual culture. She is the author of The Black Irish Onscreen and Mixed Race Cinemas, and co-edited a Special Issue of the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema on black and ethnic minority representation. She sits on the Boards of Screen Ireland, the Irish Film Institute, the journal French Screen Studies, Catalyst International Film Festival and the arts magazine Unapologetic, and is a member of the European Commission’s ‘Capital of Culture’ panel of experts.

With over 15 years of experience, Tambay A. Obenson has emerged as a trusted voice in African and diaspora cinema. He founded Shadow and Act in 2009, building what would become the leading online platform for Black film coverage with a global perspective, and spent four years at IndieWire as a Staff Writer. Currently, Tambay is building Akoroko, a new platform focused on mainstreaming coverage of and access to films telling African stories globally.

Episode Transcript

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Next Episode

"How can I love enough to wake up and find another day?"

In this episode, Daniel McNeil and Toleen Touq host a conversation with Sherene Seikaly and Ebony Coletu about the joint struggle of Black and Palestinian liberation movements. They discuss the significance of archiving as a practice of love and resilience, the revolutionary power of curiosity, and the importance of political friendship and collective action. The conversation highlights the need for humility and resilience in approaching archives and asking difficult questions. It also explores the transformational power of archives, the shifting nature of archives when they change location, and the role of friendship in political solidarity. The guests discuss the liberation that comes from shredding archives as a form of resistance against control and how archives can be destroyed or repurposed. They also reflect on the importance of joint struggle rather than mere solidarity and the need to challenge and critique each other in political friendships. The conversation ends with a discussion on grief, the immobility of the current moment, and the practice of sustaining oneself and others in the fight for justice.

Chapters

01:27 Archiving as a Practice of Love and Resilience

03:45 The Revolutionary Power of Curiosity

07:04 Political Friendship and Collective Action

13:00 Navigating Complex Historical and Political Contexts

45:42 Shredding Archives: Liberation from Control

47:09 The Shifting Nature of Archives

54:26 Solidarity as Joint Struggle

59:38 Challenging Dominant Narratives

01:13:23 The Power of Creative Works and Music

*The conversation was recorded on Zoom over 3 time zones. We experienced some challenges with the sound quality (especially from 25-28 minutes).

Guests: Sherene Seikaly and Ebony Coletu