Blog Article
Looking back on his time heading the BBC radio programme Black London in the early 1990s, Dr David Dunkley Gyimah considers how the lack of archives affects the understanding of black culture and experiences.
When the taxi door opens, a lithe man, shorter than I鈥檇 imagined, wearing tight trousers, an unbuttoned brightly coloured shirt and a purple faux fur collar cape neck warmer, bounds out. I look to his feet. 鈥楬e鈥檚 wearing Charlie Wote,鈥� I murmur, 鈥榓nd it鈥檚 London weather, chilly!鈥�
鈥楬ello Fela.鈥� His reply is ebullient in his gravelly voice: 鈥榃here are we going man?鈥� I lead the way. We鈥檙e due to go on air in Studio 2 when Nigeria鈥檚 most famous and inspiring artist proceeds to light up. It鈥檚 not a cigarette and it鈥檚 almost the length of my forearm. Pleading, I coax him not to otherwise I鈥檒l get the sack.
On air Fela Kuti is electric. Max Bankole Jarrett, a Liberian-born BBC World Service for Africa producer and presenter, is with me in the studio. Max and I look out for each other, passing on interviews. We鈥檙e all howling with laughter in what is a no-holds-barred conversation. Fela talks about taking over a house in Ghana with his 27 wives when he was broke and how each tenant fled because of his antics. He debunks a story that he belittled Nigeria鈥檚 government by defacing his Mercedes-Benz, the preferred car for ministers. 鈥業 never owned and refused to buy one,鈥� he says. And then this from the maestro, a bombshell: 鈥極h Afrobeat. It was a gimmick, a gimmick, man! At that time I was fighting wars, man. There was soul music in Nigeria and I had to fight so I give my own music a name too, Afrobeat. Just a gimmick! And now I鈥檝e passed that stage and am playing deeper music, more into Africa. It鈥檚 Africa music.鈥�
We record the best part of an hour with Fela but, because of the programme鈥檚 format, can only broadcast five minutes. At the end of the show, one of the world鈥檚 most revered performers asks firstly when we can get something to eat and secondly where we鈥檙e going clubbing.
Imagine that! Imagine that happening with Jay-Z. Imagine getting to the doors of Gossips and quietly convincing the bouncer that the man in the brightly-coloured garments is Fela Kuti, a world superstar. Jarrett, who would go on to work with Kofi Annan as a director of the African Progress Panel, reminds me we all hopped into my Honda Prelude. He vividly recalls the evening鈥檚 events with Fela.听
The story mainly comes from the archive of Black London, a radio show on BBC Greater London Radio (GLR) serving London鈥檚 black listeners. It was 1991, John Major had succeeded Thatcher, a recession was about to take hold of the UK and Britain would soon leave the ERM. The UK鈥檚 creative media, particularly youth, had been going through a purple patch: The Big Breakfast, The Word, Def II Reportage, and pirate radio in Kiss, LWR and Horizon were the zeitgeist. Rap, Acid Jazz, and Soul were carving the airwaves.
At GLR, new management was seeking a younger audience which valued a pacy speech and current affairs format with less music. Hence Rough Guides to the World journalist Sheryl Simms and I, a former BBC Reportage reporter, were invited to a meeting to launch a new show. This new slot replaced the brilliant Syde Burke 鈥� a stalwart in radio 鈥� and his show, Rice and Peas.听
My partnership with Sheryl worked well and the programme flourished. Celebrity guests such as singer and actress Eartha Kitt, film-maker Melvin Van Peebles, and novelist Alice Walker were all too happy to come onto the programme. We interviewed young fashion designer Ozwald Boateng who had just featured in the Independent newspaper for staging an extraordinary fashion shoot in the Ukraine; a former music researcher by the name of Kanya King, who spoke passionately about an her plans to set up the Music of Black Origin (Mobo) awards; journalists turned publishers Steve Pope and Dotun Adebayo of X Press, who had just brought out a book called Yardies that a senior Met officer was requesting all police read; and a versatile acting/comedy team consisting of Brian Bovell, Eddie Nestor, Robbie Gee, Roger Griffiths and Gary McDonald 鈥� the Posse 鈥� who took over Studio 2 with skits and their trademark sign off ,鈥楴o Justice, No Peace鈥�.
The Voice newspaper called the programme 鈥榠nformative, interesting and lively鈥� as it set out to attract a broad audience both black and white. A rapper, Me Phi Me, who was riding at the height of his fame, wowed us by creating a jingle on the spot using our names. He called the show 鈥榚xcellent鈥�. 鈥楨r, thank you,鈥� we spluttered on air. And then, that was it! Our time with the show lasted 18 months, before new talent on a rotating chair was brought in, which included David Upshal and Dotun Adebayo. There鈥檚 no indexing of those 18 months on the net. No mention, that I can find, in popular academic texts or media programming literature. For the only speech-based programme on the BBC catering for black people, it鈥檚 as if it did not exist.
Why archive?
That was until last month when, during lockdown, I rediscovered in my garage recordings of the programme on cassette and quarter-inch reel. One reads 鈥楤ernie Grant election debate鈥�. As I鈥檓 writing this, I鈥檓 two hours away from a presentation with an archive specialist to the F茅d茅ration Internationale des Archives de T茅l茅vision and Save our Archive 鈥� organisations involved in retrieving archive . At their online Conference 2020 we鈥檙e pitching against Albania Media, Zimbabwe and RTI (Radio et T茅l茅vision Ivoirienne). We鈥檙e hopeful, but win or lose the obvious question needs answering: So what? Who cares about a programme from 30 years ago?聽
Celebrated cultural theorist Stuart Hall provides a tangible framework. 鈥楾he most important thing an archive can do,鈥� he says, 鈥榠s to ask or allow us to interrogate those moments of transition because they are often also the moment of high creativity. We cannot see from our privileged position where those ruptures are most likely to occur or in what direction they are likely to lead.鈥�
It鈥檚 long acknowledged how media shapes people鈥檚 view of the world yet Ayesha Taylor-Camara, currently a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, says that her research has shown how mainstream media has paid scant regard to publicly available black archives, treating them and their audiences as 鈥榠nsignificant鈥�. Alongside her PhD research, she鈥檚 launched the online exhibition which features Black Radio pioneers from the 1920s to the present. 鈥業 wanted this project to highlight and celebrate the contributions black people have made to the media and creative industries in Britain, while simultaneously commenting on how their work gets left out of this history,鈥� she says.
Taylor-Camara features a broad swathe of pioneers and she鈥檚 turned out a three-part podcast, the first of which includes historian of black Britons Stephen Bourne and oboist and music educator Uchenna Ngwe speaking on musical heritage. Taylor-Camara asks me about Black London and reflects on my response that, although we had an editor, we generally had carte blanche in what we produced and presented on the show. As a medium, radio in Britain is particularly interesting, she says, 鈥榖ecause the BBC had a complete monopoly over the airwaves for 50 years鈥�. The onset of commercial and pirate radio ended that, which has provided new contextual layers to be explored. 鈥楾here is also something about listening to 鈥渙ld鈥� audio that almost allows you to time travel,鈥� she says. 鈥楽omething that newspapers, TV and other forms of media don鈥檛 do as well.鈥�
鈥業t鈥檚 a socio-political issue,鈥� says Professor David Hendy, a former BBC journalist and widely respected media historian and authority on the BBC, whose critical work includes the book . Hendy says the lack of archive for programmes like Black London is 鈥榩art of a historic bias towards attention to centres of power in BBC, rather than places (wrongly!) seen as marginal鈥�.
Black London circa 1991-93 is by no means alone in this archive anomaly. On Radio 4鈥檚 flagship Today programme on 28 October 2020, presenter Martha Kearney cued in a report saying: 鈥極f all the interesting people that have worked at the BBC one deserves wider recognition, Una Marson 鈥� the first black woman broadcaster at the BBC.鈥� The ensuing profile by Radio 1 and 6 Music鈥檚 Gemma Cairney featured rare archive extracts of Marson鈥檚 voice. The little you hear, coupled with Cairney鈥檚 narrative, paints an extraordinarily vivid picture of this pioneer.
鈥業 came across her three or four years ago鈥�, Cairney tells me. 鈥業t was her poetry that struck me really because when you hear her she doesn鈥檛 necessarily sound like all the things she is on paper. When you hear her she doesn鈥檛 necessarily sound like a black woman with her RP accent. But it鈥檚 her poetry where the truth really speaks, with her sense of ostracisation, and at the same time her yearning and belief of nature and love that I see as very Jamaican.鈥�
Cairney is writing a book about exemplary women such as Marson. I ask her what impact Marson and archive has on her and the media as a whole. 鈥業t鈥檚 a clich茅 saying but it鈥檚 a good saying: You can鈥檛 be what you don鈥檛 see. I become alarmed when I see how the modern media sets the narrative for people of colour when there鈥檚 so much more from what I see. It鈥檚 really important that we see ourselves and other people of colour who have trod the path before us. It鈥檚 a truth seeking.鈥�
Before Black London
Alex Pascall arrived in Britain from Grenada in 1959. His early career was as a musician, and he went on to manage the Notting Hill carnival. In 1974 he created the BBC radio show Black Londoners. In a September 2020 profile for the Guardian titled 鈥�鈥�, Pascall told interviewer Joseph Harker that BBC bosses didn鈥檛 believe there was an audience for the programme, so at first it only aired once a month. Four years later it was on every day. Pascall, a versatile performer, interviewed A-listers such as Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali and captured race relations at the time in his 1976 reports from the Notting Hill Carnival. There are that give you a sense of Pascall鈥檚 velvety smooth presenting style and a show he says he largely spent his own money funding. He鈥檚 currently seeking redress from the BBC.
鈥榃e trust as much as we hear as we do what we see,鈥� says Bernard P Achampong, founder of the innovative indie Unedited and a board member of Audio UK. Achampong, citing the concept of 鈥楽ankofa鈥� which in the Twi language of Ghana equates to 鈥楪o and retrieve from the past鈥�, sees radio鈥檚 heritage as emblematic of the oral traditions of how black communities learn about news and storytelling. 鈥楾here鈥檚 something in our ownership of that oral tradition and what we鈥檝e reinvented,鈥� he says, 鈥榯hat has a lot more premium, a higher premium than maybe for other communities.鈥�
Achampong sees a link between the dearth of what he refers to as the 鈥榠ntelligent black voices of the past鈥�, such as Darcus Howe, raising suspicion among the wider populace, and as a result those conversations invariably happen through the inertness in comedy. 鈥業t鈥檚 important to reclaim this space,鈥� he says. Importantly too, he adds that archive provides a situatedness to re-create stories from the past and also provide a sense of providence for talent now successful. 鈥極nce we have these stories, we鈥檙e able to link them back to things that have gone on before and how they鈥檒l happen again. If we鈥檙e aware of what happened before, we鈥檙e more empowered.鈥�
My conversation with Achampong inspires an experiment. Kwame Kwaten and his band are on the retrieved archives from my garage 鈥� and he is now one of the UK鈥檚 most innovative musicians and music executives, managing Shola Ama and Laura Mvula with writing and production credits including Jay-Z, Mick Jagger, Tom Jones and Seal. With the help of a friend, we鈥檙e brought together on a phone call on a Sunday morning and I play him the segment of his interview down the phone. 鈥楿nbelievable! Wow, wow, wow! It鈥檚 amazing!鈥� is all Kwaten can say for the first few seconds after the playback.
He finds it illuminating how UK artists had to 鈥榦verprove鈥� themselves back then to get recognition. Kwaten鈥檚 band D-Influence was one of a handful of acts signed to US major East West Records in which the band were given full creative license. 鈥榃e were so confident, in the face of craziness too,鈥� he chuckles. The band held out for months for the right record deal. Then they got the call, which shocks him even now.
鈥榃e were supporting Michael Jackson, whatever we thought of the guy. We were playing in front of 100,000 people every day and then coming back and doing a show at WKD which held 200 people. That鈥檚 quite interesting as well, the determination.鈥�
Kwaten cites another reason for the impact the recordings have on him. Band member Steve Marston, who鈥檚 on the tape, passed away a decade ago and there are no recordings of this type of interaction with him and band members.
And what about value generally for listeners I delicately ask. 鈥楾remendous value,鈥� Kwaten reflects. The broadcast takes him back to club culture of the 90s, such as Fresh and Funky and playing on Kiss FM. That鈥檚 鈥榩roper UK black memory鈥�, he says, assured that there鈥檚 relatively little documentation of the 90s, compared with the 80s and 70s. 鈥榃e were all in the moment. The ethics at the time was, 鈥減ut your camera away man, just dance at a rave鈥�.鈥� Kwaten has requested the audio which he intends to reproduce with photos from that time.
A week after my evening with Fela, I was at Brixton Academy. One of many highlights, saw the tiny suited figure of Seun Kuti (Fela鈥檚 young son) take to the stage and, to a call and response, energise the crowd. Today Afrobeat鈥檚 creativity has transitioned into a mega industry and a new crop of artists, not least Seun and his older brother Femi, who continue to push its form, all gimmicks aside. Archive in a sense is living history. It revitalises a sense of the past, while we live in the present.