In the last decade, Australia has experienced a literal explosion in the presence of sonic street technologies, as can be seen on the SST Sonic Map, with its current epicenter in the city of Melbourne. This cultural surge has drawn the attention of documentary filmmakers, cultural operators, and curators of various kinds, enabling a detailed […]
In this blog post, two members of the SST Canada research team, Kavone and Betel, reflect on the process of gathering materials necessary to form an archival collection of ephemera. These preliminary, or in process reflections capture what we are witnessing in the midst of our work, and more importantly what we are not seeing […]
Scoping out existing research and documentation on sonic street technologies is an essential starting point for any further investigation. For this reason, SST has committed to publishing annotated bibliographies on the various sound system scenes across the globe. These bibliographies are meticulously compiled by local researchers and include not only academic publications but also films, […]
One distinctive feature of Colombian picó culture is its strong visual identity. A previous blog provided insights into poster-making techniques and the various trends associated with the Caribbean cities that serve as strongholds of this culture. In this week’s blog, researcher Manuel Nieves delves into the art of painting sound systems, explaining the cultural significance […]
On Sunday, September the 15th, some of the SST research films were screened at the 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶 𝗙𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗹 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, UK. The event was organised by Let’s Go Yorkshire in collaboration with Sonic Street Technologies and with support from Zion Inna-Vision sound system. SST long-standing collaborator Gopal Dutta reports on this inspiring […]
SST is pleased to report on a ground-breaking exhibition at the British Library in London. In recent years Black music culture has received more curatorial attention than ever before. This exhibition is a welcome contribution to that trend. Though the show does not focus on sound systems in particular, it provides a uniquely valuable story […]
Sound System Outernational (SSO) in association with Sonic Street Technologies (SST) and the 8th Global Reggae Conference proudly presents: SSO#10 Frames and Frequencies: Films on Sound System Cultures Worldwide SSO#10 Frames and Frequencies is a one-day film festival premiering sound system films from six continents. Taking place on Thursday 15th February 2024, as a contribution to the […]
The Jah Shaka Memorial Event is scheduled for next Sunday the 22nd of October. It will provide one more chance to the UK and international sound system community to gather in honour of the late great Jah Shaka, who passed away on April 12, 2023, and whose Nine Night celebration was held at Goldsmiths. Part […]
El blog de esta semana continúa la exploración de los recursos SST de Colombia ahora disponibles en nuestro sitio web. Luego de habernos presentado los principales temas y corrientes de investigación existentes sobre los picós y sound system colombianos (ver blog anterior), los curadores de la bibliografía JJ Carbonell y Edgar Benítez nos brindan un comentario […]
This week’s blog continues the exploration of the Colombia SST Resources now available on our website. After having presented us with the main topics and streams of existing research on Colombian picós and sound systems (see previous blog), bibliography curators JJ Carbonell and Edgar Benitez provides us with a very useful commentary on the features, issues […]
Bringing the practitioners’ voice to the fore, acknowledging their own understanding of what they do, and giving value to their own lived experience are important ways to ensure that the research is respectful of the grassroots scenes within which the knowledge is originated. As part of the non-extractive research ethos, filming research interviews opens up […]
by Julian Henriques “For me Shaka was doing something different to the other DJ’s: his dancing and creative performance throughout the night. I was drawn to Shaka’s sound because of his individuality and that he didn’t isolate himself from his audience, always performing on the same floor level, as a part of the crowd. He […]
If the SST project is about just one thing, it is about bringing technology into life, as distinct from make technology more life-like or invasive. We believe that sonic street technologies are exemplary in enhancing the creative powers and potentials of off-the-shelf electronic components, as well as those lovingly repurposed and customised. In many different […]
Las SST bajo el volcán: la presentación en 4s El 08 de diciembre de este año tuve la oportunidad de acompañar al equipo de Sonic Street Technologies a la conferencia anual de 4s en Cholula, México. La ocasión sería especial no sólo porque sería la primera vez que presentaría los avances de mi trabajo de […]
Researching the dynamic living music scenes that surround SST presents certain challenges. Not least amongst these is that the material we gather is most often oral, or social media posts, rather formal written records, let alone statistics. With SST this is always with the consent and participation of the professionals and aficionados of these scenes. […]
At SST we always experiment with ways to make our research more accessible and wide-reaching. When doing fieldwork alongside sound systems and other sonic street technologies professionals we come in contact with an astonishing body of knowledge and practices embodied in the life stories of fiercely creative people who are virtually unknown out of their […]
One of the downsides of doing academic research on popular and street cultures is that it is quite difficult for the research outputs to reach out to those who have contributed to the research in the first place – those practitioners who have and continue to build the richness of the culture. As part of […]
Here at SST, we are always searching for the ways that sound system cultures and their impact becomes more noticed throughout the wider culture and other media platforms. For many of us, the SST project has been a portal into a whole world of musical expressions that were previously unfamiliar to us. As someone whose […]
The visual side of the popular music and sound system cultures has always been an interest of the SST project as able to capture subtle nuances and foster interrogations (see some previous blog posts here, here, and here). Best known for his iconic images of Bob Marley and the Sex Pistols, British photographer Dennis Morris […]
Huddersfield is a town in Yorkshire in the north of England where the Caribbean diaspora has a long-standing presence. For a brief period in the 1980s, it has unexpectedly developed into one of the key centres of sound system cultures in the UK. Our research agents in the area, Mandeep Samra and Gopal Dutta conducted […]
One of the Sonic Street Technologies project’s main goals and commitments is to produce a global map of sound systems, sonideros, picós, radiolas and other independent, mobile audio systems playing recorded music. To produce this map, a survey form aimed at SST practitioners has been drafted, not without some difficulty. In order to collect quantitative […]
There are so many ways in which legacies get overlooked in a world where the concept of the ‘archive’ is often read as static and lifeless. In this post, we seek to breathe life into the legacy of Hedley Jones whose contribution to Jamaican music has enabled not only technological shifts but collaborations to further […]
Intergenerational links in the SST scenes and the archiving of the culture by practitioners are two areas of pivotal interest for the SST research. Both themes reverberate strongly in the movie ‘In A Vanguard Style: A Documentary on Iration Steppas’, currently being premiered around the world before the official launch in February 2022. The story […]
As researchers deeply invested in the popular culture of sound systems and other SST, we are well-aware that these are ongoing scenes established long before we arrived. Each specific SST operates within an existing ecology, that has developed usually across decades and below the radar of official or academic recognition. The knowledge that is produced […]
