The Sonic Street Technologies (SST) European Research Council project and the research group Sound System Outernational (SSO), both based at Goldsmiths, University of London, are delighted to be participating in the programming of the 8th Global Reggae Conference (GRC). This conference is one one of the fruits  of several years of the SST project’s international research collaboration with the Institute of Caribbean Studies and the Reggae Studies Unit. Given the SST focus on culture and technology, this year’s conference theme celebrating and investigating Jamaica’s most famous musical instrument – the sound system – is especially appropriate.

The contribution to the 8th Global Reggae Conference that SST would like to make is to truly outernationalise it. As with all previous GRC editions, this one has attracted reggae scholarship from around the world. With this one, SST aims especially to place Jamaica’s reggae sound system in a global context – with conference presentations on their spread around the world – Europe, Australia, UK, Canada, South Africa and India. Another SST contribution is to show how Jamaica’s pioneering street technology manifests itself in different versions – with similar but different sound systems, playing local music – in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. 

There is no better way to be informed and enjoy the global reach of sound system culture than with film. Hence SSO #10 contributes Frames and Frequencies: Films on Sound System Cultures Worldwide – a one day film festival within the GRC on Thursday 15th February. It showcases SST research documentaries and other short films made by some of the leading local types of sound systems across the globe. 

A huge thanks to the SST team Brian D’Aquino for the presentation programming and Siufan Adey for film curation.

Together with GRC, SST and SSO extend an especially warm welcome to sound system filmmakers, practitioners and researchers from around the world to what promises to be a historic gathering. 

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

“A Century of Sound: Technology, Culture and Performance” 

The 8th Global Reggae Conference 

+ Sound System Outernational #10

VENUE: Neville Hall Lecture Theatre

14 – 17th February 2024

 —

13th TUESDAY: RESEARCHERS’ MEETING 

 2:00pm SST GLOBAL RESEARCHERS’ MEETING – Faculty of Humanities Conference Room (By invitation only) 

 

14th WEDNESDAY: OPENING DAY

2:00pm – 4:00pm VICE CHANCELLOR’S FORUM – A Century of Jamaican Sound (UWI Tv & Neville Hall Lecture Theatre)

Chair: Sandrea Maynard, PVC Global Affairs

Remarks – Prof. Sir Hilary Beckles

Sonjah Stanley Niaah – “The Sonic Ecosystem: Culture, Performance and Technology in Jamaica”

Nadia Ellis – “Dancehall, Afrobeats, and the Sound of Buoyancy”  

Julian Henriques and Brian D’Aquino – “Global Sound System Research: the Sonic Street Technologies project”

Aleema Gray – “Beyond the Bassline: British Library and the Curation of Jamaican Music Heritage”

   

4:15pm – 5:30pm – Opportunities in the Digital Music Space (A VP Records Industry Roundtable) 

Chair: Dennis Howard

Panelists: Yared Lee, Carter Van Pelt, Richard Browne, Michelle Williams

EVENING ACTIVITIES (not associated with the GRC):

5:30pm World Premiere of the Bob Marley: One Love Film Premiere (Palace Amusement Cinemas) 

10:00pm Weddy Weddy Wednesdays (Stone Love Headquarters, 40 Burlington Avenue)

 

15th THURSDAY – SSO#10 – FRAME AND FREQUENCIES: SOUND SYSTEM FILMS WORLDWIDE 

09:30am – 10:00pm FILM SCREENINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

SSO#10 Frames and Frequencies is a one-day film festival premiering sound system films from six continents. SST-produced films from Jamaica explore the island’s rich sound system heritage – and its future. Those from India, South Africa and UK show the outernational diaspora of reggae sound systems. Films from Brazil, Colombia, and Dominican Republic feature sound system scenes unique to those countries that have grown up independently from Jamaican influence.  

More information and provisional schedule: https://sites.gold.ac.uk/sound-system-outernational/sso10-film-screening-programme/

 3:00pm Students’ Sound Clash at FHE Courtyard 

 

 16th FRIDAY – PANEL 1 TO 5 

 

 8:30am REGISTRATION

 9:00am – 10:10am Panel 1. ICONS, MAESTROS, IMPRESARIOS

#music industry #pioneers #legends #histories #herstories

Chair: Julian Henriques

Heather Augustyn – “Studio Sistren: Women at the Controls in Jamaica’s Early Era of Recording” (ONLINE)

Maxine Stowe – “A Comparative Overview of the Parallel Sound System careers of Kool Herc and Sugar Minott”

Sam Flynn – “Forward March: Ska, Independence, and Sound-System Economics”

Alexandria Miller – “We are the Nurturers”: Female Icons in the Business of Jamaican Music” 

 

10:15am – 10:30am Coffee Break (15’)

 

10:30am – 11:55am Panel 2. SONIC MEDIA AND RECORDING TECHNOLOGIES 

#recording #studio #media #technology #aesthetics 

Chair: Stephen Bruel

Stephen Bruel – “Remastering Bob Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff”

Melville Cooke – “The Sound System and Radio: Establishment of Parallel Electronic Communication Networks in Jamaica”

Scott Currie “ ‘Straight to the Dance Hall and Watch the Reaction’: Sound Aesthetics of Bass Culture”

Owen Chapman, Angus Tarnawsky, Tiana McLaughlan and Thea Chapman – “Unheard Frequencies: Direct-to-disc recording, Messaging the Future and the Very Low Frequency Dub Collective”

Dr. Mike Hajimichael – “Vinyl Thursdays as a Reflection of Generation Y: A Case Study of a ‘Scene of Sound’ and Hybrid Streaming Event”

 

 12:00am – 1:00pm Lunch Break – WORKSHOP

 

Clare Cooper – Visualising a Century of Sound: Listening 50 Years Back and 50 Years Ahead 

 

1:00pm – 2:10pm Panel 3. LEGACIES AND FUTURES: ARCHIVES, EVENTS AND PRACTICES 

#archive #legacy #futures #practice #visual #events·    

 Chair: Dennis Howard 

Tracey Thorne – “The Disappearing art of Jamaican Dancehall Signs”

Nicole Plummer – “Sound System Representation in Popular Jamaican Films”

 Jean-Christophe Sevin – “Dub Camp: a European festival dedicated to sound systems”

Dennis Howard and Beienetch Watson – “Sonic Streets and Cultural Beats: Exploring the Role of Sound System in the Accompong Maroon Festival and Community-Based Tourism”

 

2:15pm – 3:40pm Panel 4. RHYTHMIC DIALOGUES: IDENTITIES ACROSS BORDERS 

#music #identity #culture #reggae-influenced #global #exchange #hybrid

Chair: Dave Gosse (TBC)

Perminus Matiure and Clive M. Mukundu “Tracing the Remnants of Bob Marley’s Reggae Music in Zimbabwe: The birth of Chigiyo Genre by Zig Zag band”

James Barber – “‘Kool Herc and KRS’ Flipped It’: The Circularity of Jamaican and African+/American Cultural Practice and Reggae’s Resonance in New York Hip-Hop (1965-1995)”

Brent Clough – “Rebels, Skwads and Sounds: Reggae Lives in Vanuatu” (ONLINE)

Marcelo Yokoi – “Drawing Lines: Spaces of Contact on the Reggae Circuit in São Paulo, Brazil” 

Hugh Simmonds – “Little Jamaica: An Exploration of Movement, Music, Identity and a Sense of Place”

 

3:45pm – 4:00pm Coffee Break (15’)

 

4:00pm – 5:25pm Panel 5. SOUND SYSTEM CULTURES WORLDWIDE PT.1: 

#soundsystems #sonicstreettechnologies #picós #sonideros #radiolas #diaspora

Chair: Brian D’Aquino

JJ Carbonell – “Picós, the Sound System from the Southern Caribbean Seaboard”

César Rebolledo González – “Puebla-York: Diaspora, Memory, and Heritage of the Sonidero Culture”

Paulina Lanz and Fernanda Soria Cruz – “The Invisible Labor Supporting Sonidero Scenes: A Gendered Perspective” 

Marcus Ramusyo de Almeida Brasil – “Natty Nayfson, the Prince of Freedom” (ONLINE)

Leonardo Vidigal –“Radiola Films as Sound System Films: Inna Maranhão Stylee”

 

5:30pm END 

 

6:00pm  27th BOB MARLEY LECTURE ‘My Friend Bob Marley’ by Barbara Blake Hannah, Neville Hall Lecture Theatre (Rm. N1)

 

17th SATURDAY – PANEL 6 TO 10

8:30am REGISTRATION

 

 9:00am – 10:25pm Panel 6. BLACK SONIC EPISTEMOLOGIES 

#knowledge #blackness #identity #resistance #ways-of-knowing

Chair: Michael Bucknor

Carolina Maria Bruzaca Pinto and Carolina Maria dos Santos – “Afro-Atlantic Maranhese Reggae: A Case Study from the Island of São Luís do Maranhão”

Am Ubhi, David Ventura – “Dub, Heritage and Collective Music Memories”

Michael A. Bucknor – “Psycho-Sonic Healing & the ‘Silent Shade[s] of Power’: Lillian Allen’s Dub Poetics in Psychic Unrest”

Audrey Allwood – “Sound System: My Life Changer”

Rashana Vikara Lydner – “Discourses on Territory and The Nation: The Case of Rude Empire”

10:30am – 10:45pm COFFEE BREAK (15’)

 

10:45am – 12:10am Panel 7. THE AUDIOPOLITICS OF RESISTANCE 

#sound #politics #justice #activism #noise #war

Chair: Donna Hope

Arthur Lizie – “The Development of a ‘Reggae Culture and Social Jus in Jamaica’ Travel Course” 

Jessica Winterson – “The Strangeways Riot: Sound System and the Voice of the Prisoner” 

Jessica Edwards and Nik Nowak – “A War of Decibels: The Entanglement of the Reggae Sound System in the Geopolitical Crisis of the Cold War”

Sourav Saha – “Sounding Resistance and Audio Bodies in 21st Century Bengal: A Study of Noise, Distortion and Loudspeakers in India and Bangladesh”

Jahlani Niaah –  “‘I Want to Disturb My Neighbour’: The Ras’s Sound System”

 

 12:15am – 1:15pm LUNCH BREAK  

 

– LISTENING SESSION (TBC)

Stephen Riviere – (Kikongo Sound System) 20’ 

 

– BOOK PRESENTATION

JJ Carbonell “La isla del tesoro. Historia de la música jamaicana del siglo XX” (Caligrama Ediciones, Spain, 2023) 30’

 

1:15pm – 2:25pm Panel 8. REGGAE SOUND SYSTEMS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

#reggae #soundsystemculture #diaspora #globalreggae

Chair: David Bousquet

Tré Ventour-Griffiths – “Beyond London’s Borders: Northampton’s Alt. Histories of Reggae, 1973-1982”

David Bousquet – “The French Sound System Boom in the 21st century, between Authenticity and Innovation”

Dimitri Corraze – “The French Reggae/Dub Diaspora: Linguistic Practices and Identity Construction”

Joshua Chamberlain and Melville Cooke – “Bass Odyssey’s Civic Engagement”

 

2:30pm – 3:40pm Panel 9. DOCUMENTING CANADIAN SOUND SYSTEMS, POSSIBILITIES AND NUANCES. AN INTRODUCTION TO SST CANADA 

#reggae #soundsystemculture #diaspora #globalreggae

Chair: Mark Campbell

Betel Tesfamariam – “The Intersection of Academia and Soundsystem Culture”

Kavone Manning – “Planting Reggae Roots: from Jamaica to Little Jamaica (Canada)” 

Safia Siad – “Opaque Realness: Toronto’s Afrosonic Archive” 

Pablo D. Herrera Veitia x Alanna Stuart  – “Rewind/Forward: Stories from Toronto’s Sound System Culture, from Pre-Jamaican Independence to Queer Rave Futures” 

Mark V. Campbell – “The Sound System as Infrastructure, Researching Reggae Music in Canada”

 

 3:45pm – 5:10pm Panel 10. DUB ECHOES: FROM THE DANCE HALL TO THE RECORDING STUDIO 

#dub #edm #digital #musicproduction #sonicmaterialities #bassmusic

Chair: Pablo D. Herrera Veitia

 

Ondřej Daniel – “Bass Vectors: 40 years of Transfers of Czech Dub Music”

Lorenzo Montefinese – “From Dub to Drum’n’Bass, Dub Techno and Dubstep: Transnational Dub Virology and Electronic Dance Music”

Ameet Ubhi – “The New Cross 13” 

Cheraine Donalea Scott – “Select Sonic Traditions: The Influence of Sound System Culture on Black British Music’s Artistic Landscape and Sociopolitical Narrative”

 

5:15pm – 5:30pm Coffee Break (15’)

 

 5:30pm – 6:40pm Panel 11. DANCEHALL ROUTES 

#dancehall #jamaica #caribbean #performance #aesthetics

Chair: Joseph T. Farquharson

Kai-Ann D. Skeete – “The Movement of Dancehall Artists within the Caribbean post-206: a Successful Story?”

Dilesha Williams Stelmach – “Dancehall Social Identification. The Commercialization of Freedom and Expression”

Byron M. Jones Jr., Nickesha Dawkins and Joseph T. Farquharson – “Pul op!: An Exploration of Directives in the Live Performances of Jamaican Artistes”

Tonia A. Brown – “The Gendered Dimensions of Sound Systems” 

 

6:45pm END 

 

EVENING: Guinness Sound System Night