 Welcome to this online event from the British Library. We're absolutely delighted tonight to be celebrating the publication or the recent publication of Geoffrey Warche's Musical Truth, A Musical History of Modern Black Britain in 28 Songs, recently published by Faber. So it's a refreshing and fantastically readable journey into modern British society, ideas and the music that soundtrack the last eight decades. I urge you to pick it up and book by the book through the tab at the top of the screen where it says books if you get a chance. The reason we're doing this at the British Library is you may not know, but you may. It's the home of the National Sound Archive of six and a half million sound recordings. And amongst those recordings, of course, there are music from every genre and every culture, a kind of every format you can possibly imagine. So we like to talk about music as much as we possibly can and we present talks and we present performances on our stages. And over the last few years, you could have caught everybody from reggae legends, Lloyd Coxown, Dennis Al Capone, or Dawn Penn, through to Jazzy Bee, to Jocelyn Brown or Akala. So all these things going on, please do check out our website for more information. And then tonight, our event is hosted by Janessa Williams, who is a journalist based in Leeds, who is the enemy, the guardian for Galdem and many other places. And she's also an academic whose work is focusing on the intersections between music and the socio-political and personal identity. So it's going to be a fantastic conversation and I will now hand you over to Janessa. Hello, hi everyone. Welcome, albeit virtually, to the British Library. My name is Janessa Williams and I am thrilled, absolutely thrilled to be playing a host tonight to Jeffrey Boce to discuss a little bit more about his latest book, Musical Truth. As we've already mentioned, I couldn't recommend purchasing your own copy more. It's available via the Books tab at the top of the screen, where there are also tabs to give you your feedback on the event and to donate if you would like to support the works of the British Library. So for those who do not know, Jeffrey is an author, broadcaster, commentator, journalist, trainer, English teacher, all manner of things whose work often centres on issues surrounding race, masculinity, education and popular culture. Originally raised in Brixton, but now living and working in Yorkshire, generally not dissimilar to my own. I first discovered Jeffrey's work in 2017 with Hold Tight, an incredible history of grime music, which he then followed up in 2019 with Blacklisted, an exploration of the many labels that are aimed towards members of the Black diaspora, always knowing when to balance a complex challenge of derogatory labels and segregation with some much needed humor and self-reignition. In 2019, Jeffrey co-authored What is Masculinity with Darren Chetty, applauded by the Schools Library Association Information Book Awards as a means for young readers to, and I quote, find hope beyond the negative rhetoric. All of this brings us up to today to celebrate the release of Jeffrey's fourth book, Musical Truth, released by Faber on the 3rd of June and beautifully illustrated by the award-winning visual artists and going smart. It's a wonderful, accessible book that can be enjoyed by young people and adults alike. A history lesson you can dance to, I've heard it described as, which I love. In 2022, Jeffrey will take this conversation even further with his next book, I Heard What You Said, which will be an in-depth look at racism in British schools, so timely and necessary in its research that it actually created a six-way bidding war amongst potential publishers. So as I'm sure you're understanding, Jeffrey's work asks fascinating and important questions about what it means to be Black and British. And I, like so many of you, I'm sure, I'm fascinated to hear more about its genesis. So that's enough from me. Jeffrey, thank you for being with us today. How are you? Well, Janessa, I'm feeling great. Thank you for hosting and for that great introduction. I've been busy, haven't I? You've been very busy. I've been busy. Extremely. I don't know how you do it. We'll get to that, I'm sure. Let's start, tell us a little bit more about Musical Truth as a book. Where did the initial idea come from? What does it kind of set out to achieve? It's quite simple, really. I mean, as you said, a lot of my work centres around race and popular culture and education, right? And those three lanes, I'm constantly switching between in my thinking, in my writing. I'm a teacher, so I spend all day looking to the next generation, right? And I realised that the big conversations surrounding race and identity, that I'm just having the whole time with peers, with academics, with other artists, it's a conversation that wasn't been unlocked in schools at all. Because the curriculum basically doesn't go there, right? Completely. Yeah, and I've lived that curriculum because I was at school in this country in the 80s and 90s, then I grew out of it and I went back into education to become a teacher. So I've seen how the education system, as it stands, doesn't really enable people to get into the conversation. So I figured, look, at some point, I'm going to have to do something to try to speak to people at school and also speak to educators as well because you can't tackle a problem unless you see it and you can't really see it unless it's shown to you. So musical truth at the very core of it, that was the idea that led me to, well, that motivated me to want to write something like this. And then it became a question of, well, how do you get into that conversation? Do you write a history book? Okay, fair enough. I could do that. Do you write something personal? Do you write a novel? And I just circled right back to what I love, which is music. And it felt like a no-brainer at that point to think about the way that music intersects with history and narrative. Thus, musical truth. If that's not too long-winded an answer, we're working. No, that's great to hear. And I mean, I completely agree the fact that music just feels like such a perfect vessel to have some conversations that might feel difficult or some conversations that carry a lot of very emotional burden often. And I think the thing that struck me most as a reader of the book was how successfully it manages to kind of deal with those potentially very difficult and quite upsetting stories in a way that does still feel suitable for young people. Because I think so often, we dampen things down for young people or we explain them in ways that feel a bit patronizing. But it's a book that tackles Windrush, Stephen Lawrence, all of these things. How do you personally strike that balance between kind of being age-appropriate, but also obviously giving the real musical truth of the matter? That is so important to me as a writer, right? Because essentially, when I start getting to that space of how do I say this, how do I say that? What's the right way of saying this? Am I gonna say too much? I just think, well, actually, hang on a second. What's just true? Don't we just say, tell the truth? Rather than try to be right, I just try to be true. And I don't wanna patronize people. I've seen what happens when you patronize kids like young people aren't stupid. No one's stupid, but kids are not stupid. They know exactly when they've been spoken down to. They know exactly when they've been lied to or when things have been held from them. So what I do is I just go with honesty. I try to break the fourth wall. If something is cool to talk about, rather than not talk about it or try to manage it into something that is easier to talk about, I'll just say this is really difficult to talk about. But to be said, if I don't have the answers, like, whoa, imagine that an adult not having the answers. You just say that. Like there are no easy answers here, but this is what happened. And I feel like that allows the conversation to be more honest because then you want, you aren't trying to control the conversation. I'll put truth in the title for a reason because I just want to show people what actually happened. And then from that starting point, then you can get to working at how you feel about it before you even think about changing it. So I think in a way that allows me to be freer in my writing because I'm not doing a spin job. I'm not leading with a persona. You know how when you're at school, you get textbooks and you don't even know who writes them. It's just like a text turns up and the voice is just some random teacher voice in your head. I was thinking, what's the point in that? So I started musical truth with like, hello, my name is Jeffrey because I want people to know that there's a person that's experienced things behind these ideas and that the narrative that I'm exploring or the narratives of communities I'm exploring is running alongside my own very personal narrative. And you as a reader have your own narrative too. And hopefully you can find some common ground there. So yeah, not patronising people and leading with integrity and that hopefully gives me some confidence as a writer. Yeah, I think you can completely feel that that sort of conversational element where you can hear the voice in the head but you also feel like there is space for you to talk back to and that's so, so important. And I think like particularly maybe this is just to be in my bonnet that I have like being a music journalist but I feel like so often what I do is kind of patronised in a way of like, oh, you're just writing about entertainment, like there's entertainment and then there's politics but I think like the book proves and so much that's gone on that you've written about proof that the two just overlap in such a neat way. Yeah, absolutely. It's like to me, it's, you know, I've experienced a whole curriculum outside of school through black culture but I learned so much about what it means to be black and British, what it means to be African, to be West Indian, to be Afro American, things that just were never presented to me and I learned it all through culture, through music, movies, conversation, fashion and what's interesting is that that culture like holds weight, it holds a lot of weight, you know, it's got currency. And so to marginalise it as something which is just merely entertainment is to miss out on everything that those cultures hold. There are whole stories in there, there are whole narratives in there, there are whole histories in there and I think that, you know, those stories, the way that music can kind of encapsulate that is just amazing to me because it always feels like now when you listen to music, it always feels like present which is something that I try to bring to my writing about music. I want it to feel alive, you know, you're in the moment, you're listening, present sense. Present sense, Ginessa. Present sense of the way. As you were researching, did you learn anything that even you didn't know previously or like, because, you know, talking about how you hadn't been presented with this stuff in schools but you kind of learn it through culture, was there anything that came as a bit of a shock or a surprise to you? Yeah, lots and lots, like, I thought I'd done all my research, you know. I'd already written a couple of books about this kind of thing, you know. That list was 100,000 words, are you serious? And then suddenly when I was researching Winifred Atwell, who's one of the earlier artists in the book, talking about the 40s, and then I got into the no-colour bar dances in Lambeth. I grew up in Lambeth. That's the bar that Brixton's in. And it turns out that a massive no-colour bar dance was one of the first political, social events where, you know, white people and black people invited to dance together as a show of solidarity. That happened in the town hall that I passed every day going to school. I couldn't believe it. So I'd seen this town hall, my whole childhood. I didn't know what it was. I think it was like council offices but that just blew me away to think that there was all this history on my way to school. I would pass Electric Avenue. And I didn't know one fairly recently that was what the song by Eddie Grant was inspired by. So as I've got further into some of these stories, some of these little historical factoids that I didn't realize were so close to my life, they were just jumping out on me. So that's amazing, because it showed me again just how alive all this stuff is. It was right in front of my face for years and I didn't know that. Yeah, it's mad, isn't it? The stuff we overlook because we just like see it every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And there was no one telling me as well. There was no music proof when I was at school that I said, did you know? That would have been cool if I'd known that when I was a kid, but you know. I would have loved that textbook. Yeah, yeah. Me too, me too. Oh well, oh well. We've got it now. We've got it now. That's the important thing, isn't it? Thinking about like how this process differed to your other books. It's like you say, you know, Blacklisted was obviously like this long kind of extended prose thing and this has broken down into the 28 songs. Do you think you found this process easier or harder to kind of write within a sort of individual segment? All right, good question he says as he thinks of the answer. No, the issue there is that at least I found really hard to write because I had to really rip apart everything I thought about myself as that person and really think hard about what is my identity as Black person and what are the other identities that relate to my experiences. And that was just, that was a difficult on that level. Musical truth was really hard because the whole time I wanted to say a lot and I wanted to say it in a way that felt really easy. I thought Blacklisted was quite easy to read but it turns out that some people like people have read it and reviewed it and just said that was the most difficult thing I've ever read. Like, oh my God, I didn't know. A lot of non-Black people actually read that and thought it was hitting them over the head with hammers. They were like, oh my God, I've never thought about that. So I really thought if musical truth is going to be intergenerational, it's going to be accessible, I needed to, I was being a DJ. You know how a DJ wants people on the dance floor. You want the DJ, you want the party to be just bubbling along. You don't want people to be thinking hard about, what's this track? Can I dance to this? Is it a bit too, you want them to be in it? And the next thing they know, they're in the middle of some crazy music that they didn't even know they liked. I put that hat on. I want it to DJ my way through it. And that was quite hard because you've got to really think hard about the ebb and the flow, you know, the rhythm, the tracks, the tones, the genres. Some of those choices were not obvious choices. But if you told me like 10 years ago, I was going to write a book about Black British history, would I have thought that immigrant by Sade would be the Sade track in there? Probably not. Skunk and Nancy have been in there. Probably not off the top of my head. But there's a reason why these tracks made it in because they helped tell the story that I felt needed to be told. And they had a certain cadence that led to or contributed to the entire piece. Yeah, yeah. Jeffrey the selector. 100%, 100%. It's all coming out now, isn't it? You can tell I was like, ah, he used to be a DJ. Okay, now I'm going to say, all right, all right. But no, the transitions are so, so important. And I was really curious actually about how you whittled all of these songs down, like the balance between things that meant a lot to you and things that meant a lot to the story. You know, there must have been stuff that you could have or wanted to write about that didn't make it. Oh man, there were so many tracks that I went for about a week's worth of just nostalgia tripping. So all those songs from my own childhood, I was like, oh, I'm going to do that one and that one of Boney M, there was a barrel of Billy Ocean. And I just thought, hang on a second, I'm not sure if I'm serving the piece here, you know. The unedited version would have definitely been 200,000 words long, 100%. It would have been a history of modern Black Britain in 48,000 songs. Here is my iPod in general. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So it was quite a challenge to edit. But then I just had to, then I just felt like I wanted to be in service of those wider narratives, you know. I always find just on a sort of like personal level, I'm better when I'm in service to someone else because then I drop off my thoughts and my fears and my ego and I do the thing which is truest. So I thought about what am I writing this book for? What am I trying to say? Which stories are important? And I let that steer me and that's how you get smiley culture in there. That's how you get skunk and antsy in there. That's how you get moany love in there, you know. Because there were things I need to say about particular points. Yeah, no, I can completely resonate with that. And we've obviously discussed the importance of the title and how by nature of its title, it does deal with some hard to hear stories. But also I feel like we really should make clear that it is a book of great joy. Yeah. Yeah, it's all those things. It's all those things. I think that's when art is special, I think. And when you've got that combination of joy and celebration but also pain and trauma but also resistance and protest which I think is at the core of a lot of music. There's a reason why every, it's the same story isn't it? Every like five years, there's some new moral outrage over the next genre. Thanks to rap, it's going to grind. It's like, you cage it. And it's like the same story going back to whatever, you know. Root boys from Jamaica are doing this rock and roll, you know, jazz musicians. So, and I think what's interesting there is that there's something about music, popular culture, youth culture as well, which is pushing back at society. Yeah. So like pushing what society tells you is right and true. And that's how society evolves because you get to the point where rock and roll becomes mainstream. Like I bet that the most mainstream individuals, people that are in government and stuff like listen to rock music without black culture, you know. So it's an interesting thing that music allows you to celebrate and also to protest and to comment on society and to document it too. That's the fourth thing. Completely document. It's really interesting actually where we're at at the moment with kind of like the pot punk thing. Like that's had a huge massive resurgence but seeing people of color taking up space or I suppose taking back a genre that began with them has been super fascinating. 100%. 100%. I like that. Are you into pot punk? I'm a huge pot punk fan. Yes. Always and forever. Michael McCrome, that's yes. Okay. But again, like it's mad to me now that like I'm interviewing people, I'm speaking to people where I'm just like if you were around when I was 15, like my entire life would probably be different to be honest, like I haven't had someone who kind of looked like me. And I guess one thing, particularly in the book that did really resonate with me as a 93 kid was the entries for Craig David and So Solid Crew. Cause I feel like both of those were just so visceral to my like own memories of the kind of garage era but particularly I think as someone who, you know is mixed race did graph in Stevenage which isn't necessarily known for being the epicenter of musical excitement like having someone who was kind of like, whoa, you know it can be done. Yeah, yeah. So that, yeah. To me that was such an important moment because when you say So Solid we think about like when Craig David and the Artful Dodger got mainstream and we're so solid that year, 2001, whatever. Like I was at uni just when that hit and I was at uni in a place that was nowhere near London and I saw posters of the So Solid Crew. Like people knew what they looked like before the internet was really, like they knew what Ashidin looked like, they knew what Romeo looked like. It was mad cause these are just, these are just like people from Battersea, you know they were on pirate radio. I listen to them on pirate radio, they're like whatever. So it was such a thing for me to see this very UK specific bit of like Black UK going into the craziest like mainstream place like into the stars. It just feels like that was a real turning point, you know and the fact that everyone knows those songs like everyone's listened to UK Garage. It's on everyone's playlists. It's just, yeah, it's a really special moment in time. I think it's going to be recognised like just how powerful that was for Black Britain, you know cause it was just, and it led to obviously, it led to where we are now cause it takes us into, you know, where it's always, it's into grime. It takes us into UK, wrapping to Afro, Bachelorette, Afro, you know, it was also, it all kind of started around that UK Garage jungle era. It was, yeah, crazy stuff. Sorry, sorry. It was a great time to be an eight-year-old, you know. I had my Romeo poster from Top of the Pops magazine. I had a craved it. Yeah, Top of the Pops, Top of the Pops. In Top of the Pops, so yeah, that's why. Top of the Pops magazine. Literally, they were everywhere, it was great. Yeah, nah, good times. Really good times. Who were the artists that I suppose were making you feel most seen personally? How do you remember? Yeah, that is a good question. Cause, you know, like, I'm a fan, right? That's my sort of default position. So I wasn't ever in the scene. I never really looked like the artist that I'm making. What I'm trying to say was that I'm not cool. Like, you know, like. Yeah, you are. Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but calling that way, you know, I was cool, I kind of hung out with anyone. I was a bit like a prototype hipster. I was one of those kids, you know? I'm an early version of a hipster, you know? I wore like Hawaiian shirts and stuff rather than like tracksuit. So I was always looking at culture from a slight angle. So I was just always fascinated when I saw things that I thought were underground start to become overground. That was all, to me, that was always an interesting moment because as I said, like a lot of these cultures, a lot of these cultural artifacts, the mainstream doesn't care about them. Like black people in this country is like, you know, 3.1% of the population is tiny figures. The impact culture is obviously much bigger than that. And the historical significance obviously way bigger than that. But it's small enough that you could just be overlooked. I grew up in Brixton. So I was surrounded by Jamaican culture, you know? My parents were Ghana in West Africa, but I was surrounded by Jamaican culture. So it was always fascinating to me to see the things that I thought were, you know, not mainstream start to make it into these spaces. So I suppose I felt very represented whenever I would be watching something like Top of the Pops and, you know, when I first saw General Levy on Top of the Pops. Like, I don't know, man, like Brixton, 94, that summer was taken over by that song. It was coming out of like buses. They'll just be like the bus driver with dreadlocks. And you just hear it coming out of like a little speaker. It was coming out of people's flats. And then when he was on Top of the Pops, it was like people were just clogging up the landline going, General Levy's on Top of the Pops. Like it was crazy. So those moments felt like the community that I was part of being seen just being recognised. And that was just huge, you know, for me personally. And I suppose a similar thing happened later on when, you know, because I started listening to Grime before I knew what Grime was. Like he didn't have a name. And then suddenly it was like all over the internet and stuff and people calling it Grime. And I thought, oh, this thing that me and my friends is listening to is like out there. And then you started to see these like superstars coming out of it. Those moments for like watershed moments, you know, where something big has happened, like there's a bit of step up, you know? Yeah. And I feel like that's a really core part of the book as well. The kind of movement between the underground and the overground and mainstream, but also that really important recognition that African and Caribbean diasporas aren't a monolith. And obviously everyone's experiences are completely individual too. And even, you know, black music as you're addressing in the introduction is, you know, something that people kind of refer to but it's so encompassing of different genres, different styles, different expressions. And I know that that's something that you're really passionate about. But I was wondering if you could tell us a bit more about how you try to accommodate for that kind of multiplicity in your work. Because obviously, you know, you're one person like you can't speak to every experience, but how do you sort of try to reflect as much as possible? Yeah, I just get nerdy about it and start looking at the links, the heritage, the interpolations, the interpretations, the history of. And that to me is as good as paying homage because when you understand that there are these interconnections between genres, you know, that one thing didn't exist in isolation, you get this richness, which you can really celebrate, you know, that was actually, that's why I wrote whole type because I realized that Grime was becoming, it was in newspapers and stuff and no one was talking about the various black cultural like art forms that contributed to that narrative. So people were talking about Grime and they weren't talking about jungle and they weren't talking about dance hall. And I was like, are you insane? So I thought, if I don't write a book to explain where I think Grime comes from and where it sits in the wide narrative, it's gonna get lost in history. Just Grime came out in 2003 with this album and then it's like, no, no, no, no, no. So it's out of respect really. And that's how I try to, that's how I try to kind of position a particular moment. I think about, well, what's its context? And when you go back, back, back, back, back, what is it linked to? And I personally believe that's why a lot of music which is produced by a lot of contemporary artists and stuff outside of like pop, which is just pure product has got such richness to it. I think you don't understand where it's all coming from. You can just feel it, you can feel it's got deeper roots than you might know or then you might be able to see. And that's what makes it kind of alluring and that's what gives it weight and integrity. So I just, I just fly the flag for that. And yeah, and it keeps me interested too. Yeah, of course it does. And I know like I've been super grateful to kind of have your books as a means of that context for stuff like I'm not super knowledgeable about Grime but I finished the book and suddenly was like, ah, it all makes sense. How have you found kind of navigating the publishing industry as a black writer? Because obviously, you know, so much has improved in the last couple of years. I feel like the last year particularly people have really realized the importance of making more space for people to tell their stories. But from your perspective as someone who's kind of right in it, what work do you think still needs to be done in order to make the industry really inclusive and kind of more than just, you know, a token book deal about this token trendy thing. Yeah, yeah. It just comes down to listen, publishing like every other institution, you know, is suffering from the same institutionalisms that the society is wrestling with. So it's not controversial for me to say that publishing is not inclusive, it's not diverse enough. And I'm not just talking about what gets published and talk about the people within publishing. Yeah. You know, I'm a firm believer that institutions don't exist like as disembodied entities with their own mind, they're just full of people then. And if these individuals within the institution haven't got a diverse range of experiences or haven't got the air for a diverse range of narratives, then how can they even be expected to include these marginalised voices? And you see it in everything, you see it in healthcare, you see it in education, you see it in publishing, you see it in entertainment, theatre, whatever. So there's so much, there's so much of a long way to go. My way of coping with it is really, it's kind of tragic because I just have to be excellent. Yeah. Sorry to break into everyone, it's my only strategy. I've just got to be really good. Like I produce whole manuscripts that are like good, you know, in another one, I'm like, yeah, because if I write another one that's good, I'm not going to get the time of day. So I just really push, but that's part of the, that's kind of part of the black story, which is fortunately still true to this day. It's a cliche, but the whole work, twice it's hard to get half of this far thing, it's true. That is the thing out. So you are witnessing someone who is like burning a crazy intensity because I fear that if I don't, if I was mediocre in my output, it would just get washed away, you know? Yeah. I mean, well, I was going to ask, because I can't tell you enough really how inspired I am by your commitment to balancing books, journals and teaching research, all of this stuff. But like, honestly, that must, like, do you have a secret? Some of us don't know, like, is there 12 days in your week? Like, how does this happen? Everyone asked me that question. I don't know, man. I think it's, again, it's clocking what is important. Yeah. And clocking it and doing that. Because when it's important, then there's no no, like it is going to happen. In the same way that when you want to watch that program or Netflix, you watch that program, it doesn't matter what else is going on, you watch it. If you want to eat a KitKat, you eat a KitKat, like, so I've got to work out what is important. And then I only really think I'm going to pull the trigger when it's really important. I'm going to do it. And I think that motivation then allows me to make the most of all the little corners of my day and stuff. And, you know, I wrote the first two books while I was holding newborn babies at three in the morning. That was the only time I had crying baby in one arm, laptop in the other, writing a book, you know? So yeah, sorry, that is definitely not the secret. It's not on our kids, like, that's not what I'm saying here. And then you're right, but yeah, just a leader with integrity helps. Yeah. And the teaching must inform it so much as well in terms of, you know, seeing what the kids want to talk about, what they're not hearing enough about all of that stuff. 100%, 100%. It's a real privilege, actually, like teaching could be a headache because it's run by people, young people as well, who are like, but at the same time, it's a real privilege to just be in proximity to people that are living in the zeitgeist that you are not, you know what I mean? That's just a privilege. And I find it fascinating because the worldview is so different to what you think it is. Like, people think they know what teenagers are like, but if you actually talk to teenagers, you get a very different set of responses. And that's why popular culture is always interesting to me because popular culture is like, that's what kids are looking at, you know? The kids are very interested in what's happening now. And things get out of date very quickly to a younger audience. And some things that you think are out of date are very relevant to younger audiences. It's really fascinating. So I just find, I can't quite shake teaching as a place in which I can explore the world, you know, by going hand in hand with like the next generation sort of thing. That was almost cheesy, that was. That was almost cheesy. You say cheesy, I say, you know, moving. I think you're right. I think you're completely right. Did the students have like feedback on songs to include? Or like, did you test the waters with any of the ideas? I didn't actually. I sort of mentioned it. They're very interested in the cover. Yeah. Know what it's gonna look like. And they're very interested in like the later songs, the ones they recognize, because it's a nostalgia trip. It's a song that, it's a book that when you see the playlist, you instinctively think, oh, that was when I was, oh, that was, you know, so when they got to the 2010s, a lot of the kids were like, oh, wow, are you like, are you even here? You know, they just lose it because we used to seeing stuff from their lifetime in a book about history. So, yeah, yeah, but apart from that, no, I didn't really poll many kids about what to include. This is musical truth part two. I feel it. Here we go. I feel it coming. Sound like my agent. Oh, no. Yes, let's go on with it. Let's do it. Let's make it happen. It's funny actually that you mentioned Dave, because obviously the book does take us up to the modern day. And I feel like with both Dave and Stormzy, you kind of have these two phenomenal examples of us. So I feel of really demonstrating what it means to be young, black, but also quite unashamedly political. And I wanted to talk just a little bit about those two songs and kind of what made them such distinctive choices to you. And I suppose how you think they reflect a bit of a changing relationship between politics and youth. Because obviously it's always been there, but I feel like now is a particularly charged moment for that sort of engagement. Yeah, definitely. What it is is that the predecessors of that era were sort of in a way, they were kind of like apolitical. Not that they weren't political, but they didn't explicitly lead with their personal politics. So you never really heard like, who's Mega Man voting for? You never really thought about it. But then you get these next generation who were sometimes very pointedly political, like they would be name-checking politicians, like literally calling out prime ministers in their bars. Like what, like talking about Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Zach Goldsmith in their tweets and stuff like that. So it's interesting because those kids, to use a patronising term, because they're not kids anymore, but they sort of came up in an era and they're the kind of product of an era and they're suffering from the same issues that have afflicted certain communities for decades, like urban poverty and education system that struggles to meet the needs of certain communities that excludes black kids at a higher rate than non-black kids, all of those issues. And they come out of it and they somehow managed to get a platform which talk about it. And I think that itself is really, really important. So the fact that you've got artists who feel empowered enough to say something about the worldview and to give their worldview to tell us what it's like from that position, that in itself is worthy of celebration. And the fact beyond that, they can actually influence change and make change. I think that's hugely important. So the last three tracks were all about that. It kind of goes from Stormzy and being a symbol of a new sort of politics and a new empowered sense of black youth. Dave, who just writes these beautiful dissertations about black identity and politics and culture society. George, who right when the whole world was talking about race and identity wrote something or put something into the world that wasn't just asking more questions but was like an example of where the conversation could be going next. I think that was really important to me. It felt like not a conclusion to the book, but a sense of we've turned a bit of a corner here and look where we could go now, you know? And then also if you listen to it as well, if you listen to these tracks, like the final track has got this kind of beautiful, just tonally, just the music is confident, it's assured. It's not like Grime in 2003, which is spiky and abrasive and it felt like frenetic and angry. The music been produced now by a lot of black artists. It's just wonderfully kind of beautiful. The quality of the music is so high. Some of that stuff from 2003 sound like people kicking drum kits down the stairs, you know? I like that sound, I can't lie. It sounds like sirens and synthesizers getting thrown out of windows, I like that, right? But then you've got this other wave now of music which is just like beautiful, you know? So if we go back to my DJ hat, ending on black would have been okay. Yeah. Piano, the thing. But then you move on to Black and Reddy by George and it starts to kind of soar, you know? Yeah. And I think it kind of starts a new conversation because there's a new confidence while asking the same questions. So yeah, that's, I don't know how we got into that divergent, sorry, but that's, I felt very strongly about just making sure that the readership will be hearing the future, you know? As well as hearing the questions that have come from the past, if that makes any sense. Absolutely makes sense. And actually speaking of kind of future voices and future ideas, you've set me up stunningly for a beautiful segue because we are incredibly lucky to be joined actually for the last part of this chat by George himself, the man, the myth, the legend, a rapper, singer, artist and producer from Croydon, who's 2020 song, Black and Reddy is the final song on the playlist. So George, if you're lurking in the virtual green room, as we're calling it, do you feel free to pop on in? Hello, hello, how's it going? Welcome, how are you doing? I'm good. I was just listening to that conversation that I was popping in the conversation as just as a fan, a personal form of this. This is just a great conversation to hear there's so many gems in there and I'm listening to you talking about Craig David. Yeah, yeah, I was about eight at the same time, so yeah. I guess we must have been around the same age. Yeah, I'm 94, I'm 94, so a bit younger. Oh, I feel like the old one, no. Craig David was definitely a bit of a cultural reset, I feel. 100%. Yeah. He's like, for me, he's one of the most important artists to come out of Britain. I think the juxtaposition of him and so solid at the same time. Yeah. You have both sides, you have a bit more soulful, a bit more R&B, but then you have the hard-hitting unapologeticness of soul, solid. So for me, that was like, I don't know, it's something that I base my music of now. A lot of it is, it's like a beautiful juxtaposition of being good, bad, and everything in between, being that rough, smooth, and everything in between as well, so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's in. Tell us a bit more about Black and Reddy. Like, it must be pretty cool to be featured in the book, right? That's pretty sick. I feel like that's one of the first things my mum is like, really, really proud of. She snatched it from me as soon as I brought it home. But like, so Black and Reddy was more, for my birthday, the 6th of June, right? And on the 6th of June, 2020, I went to protest in London. And I went with two of my school friends, I grew up knowing them for about 10, 15 years. And there was just a big feeling of like, being annoyed, feeling the right to protest, but at the same time feeling like, a bit tired of doing the same old thing, that we protested all the time. This protest happened every few years. There's always some sort of need to protest, and there's always some songs that come out of it, and people think, oh, this is a really cool song. And then that's that, like it kind of moves on. And I think at the same time, it was a period, I got home and I wrote the song just from a place of like, I just need to get this down. It wasn't to release, it wasn't for anything else, other than that therapy for myself, to be honest. And I didn't want to release the song at first. I didn't want to put it out because I felt like, I'd be like cashing in on a moment, self gain. I didn't really believe in that. So I spoke to my label and I said, the only way that you guys are gonna get this song, and you guys are gonna be able to release this, is if we can donate all the profits from this song to some sort of something to help build the black community. Because I think as good as it is to talk about these things, as good as it is to have these conversations, like, I'm tired of it. I've been having these conversations for my whole life. So let's just do more, I'm a solutions person, let's start doing more. So we had decided to donate all the profits to the black curriculum. I'm not using this. Just trying to bring the promoting, the use of black history in our national curriculum, trying to make that happen. And yeah, and then once the song came out, it was like, I don't know, I just felt overwhelmed by everyone else saying that they've been through similar circumstances because a lot of the song is just me talking about my personal experience, you know, a lot of things that I'd seen and experienced in as a black man growing up in South London, and seeing how many people have had the same, had the same things happen to them was quite, it was heavy, if I'm honest, but it was pretty cool. Like I had people saying that I was never the best, I was always smart in class, but I was never the best, but hey, I had a lot of people saying, oh, we're going to talk about your song in class, we're going to study it. And now I'm in a book and I'm like, oh, wow, this is someone who dropped out of university twice and didn't make it through college. So, yeah, it's a bit of like a full circle, privileged moment making me feel like I've given something to the world, you know? Yeah, bit of a start from the bottom moment to borrow from Canadian cousin. It's funny, isn't it, this whole idea of like not wanting to cash in on the moment, because like I very much felt that too. And it's so strange because it's like, it can't really be cashed in on a moment if it's you telling the truth of your own experience, but it does sort of, it can feel that way very acutely and it can also feel very much like when you're doing well that that attention's kind of coming from a place of I suppose sort of like a bit of sweet place of like, oh, why are we all suddenly talking about this now rather than always? And I guess that must have been something to really kind of cope with that song in particular. I'm always of a place where, even when people contact me about things, I'm always coming from a place like, okay, this is good, but how is this actually going to benefit people that take this in, are people going to be educated by it, is it going to financially benefit other people, is it going to help provide some sort of jobs or some sort of anything for the people that come after me because it's all well and good, like me taking the floor that's kind of benefiting my career, but if I walk through the door and I don't hold it open, then like pointing at me walking through the door in the first place, do you know what I mean? So yeah, yeah, it's, it was a, it's very bittersweet, bittersweet is the best word to put to sum it up actually. Yeah. Man, it's such a, yeah, it's just, I'm just listening to you and just, it's amazing because obviously, you know, I choose a song, never met you, never heard the narrative, never heard the history, and it's just amazing to hear you detail where you were at at the time and what was going on at that point. And yeah, it's like, I just feel like just what you said there about how you wanted the song to land and how you wanted it to be received, just the most important thing is just people having the opportunity to say their truth. I feel like that's so important. And if you never felt like you could put this out there if the gatekeepers kept the gates closed so that those voices could never be heard, then we can never push forward. So I just feel like it's so important that the things get heard. It's so important that they get shared widely that we support. And I'm just happy that your mum's happy too, you know? I just put a smile on her face as well. My mum's reading it right now and she's taken long, so I'm like... We've just got to keep the mum's happy, haven't we? I feel like everyone wants to keep their mum happy, particularly in the Black community. I feel like your mum being happy is like... That's it, you've made it, you know? Even like, I'll put out a song and it'll be a great song. She'll be like, I love the song, but Jordan, you swore. And I'm happy with that. So, you know, I think even in this song, I swore. And she'll be like, Jordan, I love the song. And she cried when she heard the song. So it's weird because a lot of the stories that I spoke about in the song, I haven't even told her about. I haven't told her. Here in the song was the first time that she'd heard that I'd gone through some of the things that I've been through, like, for example, being stopped and searched by a policeman at 14 so many times. There's so many times that has happened. And, yeah, it's just weird. You don't really talk to your mum about it. And it's not really something that... It's not about not being able to talk to her about it. It's more like, for a place of, I don't know, embarrassment, shame, like, this happens to everyone. So it must be normal. And then even, like, having conversations with my dad, where he's like, OK, this happened to you when I was young. This happened to me. And then blah, blah, blah, and then this, you know, lineage. But, like, coming back to your point, as in Jeffrey, about being able to speak my truth, I think the music that I've listened to has always... And the music that's resonated with me, even the books I've read, the poetry I've listened to, it's always come from people speaking their truth. I grew up reading like Benjamin's for now, and he was always someone that went against the grain. One of my favourite books is his book called Gangster Up, where there's, you know the book, and it's about a rap group, and they are similar to that, so solid, I guess, they're quite controversial, but they were people that were changing their own lives and painting the lives of people around them. But the public didn't necessarily understand that. And I think... But the people that mattered to them understood that, like, young people, the streets, the hood, and that's, I think, when you're black and when you're making music, that's all that really matters, and then sometimes wider conversations get, like, you get a responsibility that's put onto you to stay true to what you know, but then you have people from the other side saying, no, you can't say that because blah, blah, blah, you know, this is violence, this is wrong, but if you're speaking your truth, then you shouldn't really have anything to hide, if that makes sense, sorry, Sam. Yeah, there's so many layers to it, but like you said, there's musical truths and all we can do is talk about it. And something that jumped out when I heard your track in particular was this kind of, like, thread of, like, just like community, like, unity, like, being proud of being black, like, that seems to be something that I heard specifically in that track, I can hear it in glide as well, you know, which you don't always hear explicitly in a lot of modern music. So when I heard that, I just thought, like, it sort of, it kind of made the song sort of, like, put itself front and center to me because I thought this is for the collective uplift, the sort of uplifting about the way that you were looking at that community and commenting on it and documenting it, you know, and also telling your own story. And I feel like that's really important because that's something that a lot of black people that I know will feel that and talk about it and it's evident in various black communities. It's not always the thing which the mainstream gatekeepers want to put front and center because it's not always the most commercial thing. It's not always the most, it's not always the most exciting thing, you know. Now, people will talk about So Solid Crew and they'll talk about the violence and demonize them. They'll talk about the flashiness. They'll talk about the edginess. But I don't want to talk about the fact that this is a community of people who are uplifting each other and the Mega Man was like a community leader, you know, no one talks about that but he was creating something bigger than him. And he still does. Look at the Instagram, like, it's all about, you know, so when I heard that in your song, that's another reason why I felt it was important to bookend this project with that because that I feel is something that the mainstream still hasn't really got its head around and there's a collective uplift that we are pushing towards. And when that really happens, then we'll see change because we won't be like doing the crabs in the bucket thing, you know, we'll be pushing together, you know. So yeah, just another reason why I'm thrilled that it's in and I'm thrilled that we're in Zoom here. It's just brilliant because I'm a fan, you know? It's small progression, it's small steps, I think, before we know it, we're gonna be the mainstream. And it's like, so where I'm from, where I grew up, I'm from South London, four in Heath. And it's finally enough that I lived two roads away from Stormzy, around the corner from Krypton County on Wilfrid Zahar used to play against him in primary school. Dave lives around the corner as well. Like, there's so much going on, but with us and our community, now we're like representing a lot of the mainstream culture and even like a lot of my family from Manchester, from Southwood, which is where Marcus Rashford's from, just people like that. And those are people that are my age that are actually leading, you know, just leading the way. So I think with me, I'm like, so I'm seeing that happening. And I'm so unapologetic about being here or I am because I've seen people do that before me that I'm my age and it's working for us all. So like, we're just, I think there's a new found fearlessness about people my age. And I wanna even look at people that are younger than myself. I'm like, wow, where they're gonna take it is scary. Like, I know some, I know this girl, she's called Deborah. She was in the glide video and she lost her mom last year. The week after she lost her mom, she was in the NACA and like those kind of things. I'm like, yeah, I think we are in safe hands to be honest. I'm not, I don't fear the future. I'm more excited about the future when I look at what's coming next. I'm very, just the way I'm, I'm very optimistic. And that's why I've made the song black and ready rather than black and angry or black and pissed off because I think we're just ready for the next steps. So yeah, I'm excited. I think the hustle's definitely real. And I think like what you were saying about stuff kind of popping up all over the country, super important too. Cause you know, this isn't just London. This isn't just this kind of like concentric thing on it something like it's happening everywhere. And I completely agree like from a music writing perspective, like most of the people I'm interviewing now are a good decade younger than me. And it's just like, you know what, this is going to be fine. Like it's all, it's going to be fine. It's going on, but younger than you. I'm having a crisis at 28. I'm telling you, like, everyone is young, young. I just turned seven and I'm like, oh, oh, oh, oh. From, from both of your perspectives, like who are the kind of people that you're looking to for, I suppose musical truth part two or just, you know, that to kind of carry that next, that next torch of big songs that we're going to be talking about is really instrumental. Good question. Wanna go first, Jeff? Yeah. I mean, I, in terms of music, I like to like keep my ear to the streets to use an old fashioned phrase, you know, I like to really listen carefully to what is coming out of the, you know, of the, of the sort of, not the realist, but the sort of the, what's been created in those places that haven't got a spotlight on them yet, you know, I'm always fascinated by that. Cause I feel as though it's usually communicating something even if people try to dismiss it as just being, oh, that's just glorifying violence. That's just a remake of that genre. It's usually communicating something and these are artists as well. So a lot is, a lot gets talked about, say, UK drill has been a problematic art form, but the artists making this music, first of all, they're artists, they've got personas and the evolution, you start to hear it over time. The subject matter starts to evolve, you know? So I heard a jewel track the other day and it was a love song, just 100% straight up love song. I thought, okay, UK Jaws making love songs now. All right, all right. And then as people get older, you start to hear other things. There's a reason why you're artists like, I don't know, for example, gets, he was just the angriest kid, like just angry, just angry at everything. His music is now so deep and mature and wise, you know, cause as you grow, you get wise, you learn things, you speak to people, you see a bit more of the world. So I'm always interested in what the, the youngest people who are starting to, starting to interact with the world, how they are perceiving it and what they say. And I like to take it warts and all, you know, I'm not here to sanitize music cause I think that's a real risk. People go, oh, you can't say that, oh, that's just that. Society is full of problems. Like society is riddled with issues and we all get born into it. And actually some of that, some of those problems like, will get relayed through art. And it's our job as responsible listeners and adults to not just like tell people off, but to try to understand where it's coming from, you know? And then I feel like you can start to see a bit of the future and just stick with it, like let it grow, let things grow. So I'm just, yeah, that was a very long answer to a short question, but I'm just like listening out for interesting things coming from lots of different places now, but yeah. That's me. No, I think that's, yeah, you summed it up. So I own a studio in East London and what we've been doing recently is teaming up with a bunch of schools and charities to get the kids to come through and just record. And some of the stuff that I'm hearing, I'm like, yo, these guys are, these guys are 14. And when I was 14, I had like a four pound microphone from Argos. My living room, the worst technology ever. But these guys, when I hear, and not even necessarily the stuff that they're saying, but the way that they know the technology about how to make music, and they know to put a chorus there, or they know, oh, here comes a middle A, and I'm like, but when I was 14, all I did was write bars constantly and hear the, okay, this two bars, we say that four times in the chorus. Whereas they're like, oh yeah, if we say these lyrics, it might build up and then it will cause the transition to here and there. And I think there's this one kid in particular called Ida who came in, one week he came in and he'd been robbed for his fun. And he was like, he was raging, wanting to go back and find the guys and listen, just chill here, stay here and make some music. He ended up staying for about four hours, which was, that's the reason why I do what I do, just to help, just to serve other people coming after, but the stuff he was saying, the maturity that you had, like he was a very level headed guy, very respectful person, but he's got some ground to do. And I think that you were saying, Jeffrey, you got society has to allow people to grow. Cause if people were judging, yes, on the music that he was making in 2008, he wouldn't have made it to 2020 and he wouldn't have had the album that went number two. And similar to myself, if people would like judge me on who I was in 2008, then I wouldn't have ever made a song like Black and Reddy. And it's very interesting seeing what comes next, but at the same time, a lot of these people were still, they're still raw, they're still saying a lot of things that may not be true. They're still fabricating some things to seem cool, which is fine as long as we let these people grow and become who they can become. And I think it was very interesting, actually, as well as how many people listen to myself and Dave. And when I hate young people quoting Dave, Dave is like really, really important to these people. Like he was saying before, they're educating people on politics, they're educating people on black history, they're educating people on things that, it took me going to Jamaican and going to Africa to learn about these things. Whereas they're getting the first-hand experience from music, which is, you know, that's super important. Like I said, I'm not worried to talk about where the future is and where the future is going because we've got good people ahead and we have good leaders to lead them as well. Yeah, we're in safe hands, I think. We're in safe hands. We're in safe hands. And what about both of your respective futures? What's next for each of you project-wise? The magic question. You're like, give me a break, I've barely done with this one. Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, like I said, I'm on a bit of a mission, you know. I feel like there's work to be done in society in general. I'm committed to education, holistically as well, not just like schools, but the concept of education. Like you can't have another generation coming out of school, not knowing certain things. You can't have another generation, not understanding the impact of certain national stories, certain histories. So I'm pushing in that direction definitely and my books are definitely in that lane. I've got all sorts of other projects as well, but I can't tell you about, you know, secret projects, you know how it goes. We love a secret project. We'll find out in time. But yeah, I think, to be honest, it's good to know what the mission is. I feel as though I'm clearer and clearer and clearer about what it is I want to say and the impact that I want to have in this society that I'm part of. So everything is pulling in the same direction. I'm just going to try and do my bit, connect with people that are having the same conversation, put work out there that will help people to be part of the conversation and be like a translator for the conversation for people that can't see it as well, because that's what I do as a teacher. Like I'm the person that has to get you to think about stuff that you don't necessarily know you want to think about. So I'm just going to carry on being a teacher in the grandest sense of the word, you know, while the hair gets grayer and grayer. No, I think that's a wonderful way to put it. I really do. Yeah, I think the sense, honestly, very similar. Like I'm here to, I just see what's wrong and I try and fix that in the best way that I can. So one of the passion project that I've started recently is I'm, I was looking at the price of school uniforms, you know, and I just thought, this is ridiculous. He's way too much. I remember my mom, you know what I mean? When I was here seven, my mom bought me a blazer that lost me until year 11 because it was that expensive. So me and a friend of mine, we launched, we're launching a company called Pick the Uniforms, where we are going to be providing free school uniforms for kids that are on free school meals. So it's like, as well as releasing my music and I've got a single coming with DWE. And yeah, I've got a single with DWE. So then I've got the Uniform project coming out after that. Then we've got the album coming. And then I just, there's a lot. Jeffrey, when you're saying you work hard, I know what you mean, I know exactly what you mean. But so there's like so much going on, but I think the underlying theme to what I want to do is just uplift and I've processed my trauma. I've processed my trauma as a black man. I've processed my trauma as a man. And now I'm not here for like wallowing in my sorrow anymore to be honest. I'm here to just uplift and change what I can change rather than just feeling down all the time. Cause if we always living in our trauma, we'd all be sad all day. Whereas I want to let that power me on and drive me to do better for myself and for those who are coming after me. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Amen. I feel like, you know, I feel like we could talk about all of this stuff for hours, but I also feel like I've got to let both of you off this call so you can get on with the absolute mountain of stuff. But, you know, we've got to achieve. I can see all of these things are more coming from both of you, I really can. And, you know, both your music jobs and the book, both are so incredibly special and important to this uplifting journey. So thank you both so, so much for your time. I've got to say as well, I've got an interruption as well, but for yourself, what you're doing as well as a black woman. Exactly. In the industry that you're in, that kind of reflects on that at all. Cause, you know, like, I believe being a black woman in any industry is more difficult than anything. So you being able to conduct this conversation is like a massive, massive thing in itself. So yeah, that's off to the major. Thank you. A pleasure, absolute pleasure. That's huge. It's huge. 100% co-sign that one, man, definitely. And doing it so effortlessly as well, Janessa. I try my best, you know, like you say, I'm out here working, working twice as hard, you know. You can ask the question, Eva, what you're working on. I know you've got stuff in the pipeline, I know you have. Me, what am I working on? Wow, okay. So, me is kind of similar really in the teaching sense, you know, I'm halfway through a PhD, I'm how you think to also enter the academic field, I guess, at the university level, but we'll see what happens, you know. It's a big old field out there, who knows, you know. Hopefully books, we'll see. Like, I mean, we've got to start working on musical truth too, haven't we? Like, I feel like that's been decided, you know. Definitely, definitely. Amazing, well, like I say, thank you so, so much, both of you, for your time. And thank you also, everyone, to who is watching this, who's tuned in. Make sure that obviously, you know, you are getting out there supporting George's music, supporting all of the artists that are mentioned in the book via the playlist. You can find that on musicaltruthplaylist.co.uk or via YouTube, if you put it in the search. And also, as we mentioned before, you can pick up your copy of musical truth via the book tab, where you can also give any feedback on the event, if you enjoyed it, if you didn't enjoy it, please do let us know. But until then, I guess this is where we do our little wave in our individual boxes and say, you know, thank you all for tuning in and for joining us. And hopefully we'll see each other soon and everyone else soon in either a virtual or in the IRL capacity, who knows, eh? Thank you for having me, and a pleasure. Thank you so much.