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Har-Q || Singer-Songwriter + Rapper/Poet

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Har-Q || Singer-Songwriter + Rapper/Poet

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@official_harq https://www.instagram.com/official_harq/

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Ashley McKenzie || Multimedia + Sound System (Restoration Sound with Colleagues)

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Ashley McKenzie || Multimedia + Sound System (Restoration Sound with Colleagues)

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Shereen Ingram || Business Owner + Festival Organiser, CEO at NorFAMtoN Community Group

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Shereen Ingram || Business Owner + Festival Organiser, CEO at NorFAMtoN Community Group

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@norfamton https://www.instagram.com/norfamton/ @boxfood https://www.instagram.com/boxfooduk/ https://www.youtube.com/@norfamtonnncommunitymovements

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https://www.facebook.com/LuAngelSinger

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https://www.facebook.com/groups/567418616636149

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@mysticcrewreggaeband https://www.instagram.com/mysticcrewreggaeband/ https://open.spotify.com/artist/4H4LGcNlswLi2YresC0Sa7

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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@jahtrooperssoundsystem https://www.instagram.com/jahtrooperssoundsystem/ https://open.spotify.com/artist/0I70xIsFBCQoVttE7CFfJ4 https://www.facebook.com/jahtrooperssoundsystem

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@kristelmorrisonmusic https://www.instagram.com/kristelmorrisonmusic/

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Jacob Brathwaite || Singer-Songwriter + Musician

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Jacob Brathwaite || Singer-Songwriter + Musician

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@bocaj39 https://www.instagram.com/bocaj39/ https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jacob+brathwaite+northampton

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@iamnerissasimmone https://www.instagram.com/iamnerissasimmone/https://open.spotify.com/artist/51L3DHgr9KzNtHJcxkzaRD

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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@restoration.soundsystem (Instagram) https://www.instagram.com/restoration.soundsystem/

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@afreineofficial https://www.instagram.com/afreineofficial/ https://open.spotify.com/artist/6bajTaH5yRNHy365XdeqiZ

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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COVID-19 and Racism: Counter-Stories of Colliding Pandemics || Eds. Vini Lander, Kavyta Kay, and Tiffany R. Holloman, 2023

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COVID-19 and Racism: Counter-Stories of Colliding Pandemics || Eds. Vini Lander, Kavyta Kay, and Tiffany R. Holloman, 2023

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See my chapter 'COVID-1984: Wake MBE Up When Black Lives Matter' https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=0D3C4369E384DF16B57D8CCA4E4F0078

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TWO: COVID-1984: wake MBE up when Black Lives Matter

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Colonial honourifics to land grabs, genocide, white supremacy, and other forms of violence (aka Honours), are awarded biannually as part of the political calendar. Today, it is also jarring to see so-called activists, anti-imperialists, and ‘allies’ take these medals. Since March 2020, imperial gongs have gone to people for combatting the same institutional violence that has been manufactured and/or upheld by the state. This chapter uses auto-ethnography to discuss the intimate links between Honours, COVID-19, Black Lives Matter – and the cognitive dissonance required to take state recognition while pontificating about social justice. All while hereditary aristocracy appears to have pervaded through the allocation of senior jobs in the UK government’s COVID-19 response. How can anyone take Honours or a life peerage in proximity to state power, while also positioning themselves as anti-oppression and/or against the government’s gaslighting of the public sector? It is deplorable.

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Big Trees, Small Acts: Does the UK Honours System Divide and Rule Black British Media? || The Commoner, 2023

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Big Trees, Small Acts: Does the UK Honours System Divide and Rule Black British Media? || The Commoner, 2023

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Big Trees, Small Acts: Does the UK Honours System Divide and Rule Black British Media?

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Problematising the acceptance of colonial honorifics amongst Black media figures and anti-racists working in Britain.

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honey boy - rickie - wandering wandering - sound call like wondering - count shelly records

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Catch a Fire || Bob Marley and the Wailers, 1973

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Catch a Fire || Bob Marley and the Wailers, 1973

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“‘We Know Where We Are From’: The Politics of Black Culture from Myal to Marley” || Sylvia Wynter, 1977

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“‘We Know Where We Are From’: The Politics of Black Culture from Myal to Marley” || Sylvia Wynter, 1977

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Paper presented at the joint meeting of the African Studies Association and the Latin American Studies Association in Houston, Texas, November 1977 https://monoskop.org/images/4/4a/Wynter_Sylvia_1977_We_Know_Where_We_Are_From_The_Politics_of_Black_Culture_from_Myal_to_Marley.pdf

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Novel and History, Plot and Plantation || Sylvia Wynter, 1971 

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Novel and History, Plot and Plantation || Sylvia Wynter, 1971 

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Wynter, S. “Novel and History, Plot and Plantation.” Savacou 5 (June 1971): 95–102 https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/caribbeanreadingwordlecology/wynter_plot_and_plantation.pdf

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Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History || Michel-Rolph Trouillot, 1995

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Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History || Michel-Rolph Trouillot, 1995

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https://library.lol/main/7B3D14413F9D03D8E0484E3382159C44

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Skip to Main Content (Press Enter)

"A sparkling interrogation of the past. . . . A beautifully written, superior book."
- Foreign Affairs

"Trouillot is a first-rate scholar with provocative ideas. . . . His work [is] a feast for the mind."
-Jay Freeman, Booklist

"Now that so many grand projects of the past are up for reappraisal, Michel-Rolph Trouillot interrogates history, to ask how histories are, in fact, produced. . . . A beautifully written book, exciting in its challenges."
-Eric. R. Wolf

"An accessible book filled with wisdom and humanity."
-Bernard Mergen, American Studies International

"Aphoristic and witty, [ Silencing the Past] shows that the two senses in which history is made, by doers and by tellers, meet in moments of evidentiary silence. . . . A hard-nosed look at the soft edges of public discourse about the past."
-Arjun Appadurai

"Written with clarity, wit, and style throughout, this book is for everyone interested in historical culture."
- American Historical Review

"[Trouillot was] a transformative presence in multiple fields [who] redefined the meaning of scholarship. . . . Trouillot taught us all how to read carefully, argue passionately, and write responsibly."
-Colin Dayan, Boston Review

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Silencing the Past by Michel-Rolph Trouillot: 9780807080535 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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Now part of the HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, written and directed by Raoul Peck The 20th anniversary edition of a pioneering classic that explores the contexts in which history is produced-now...

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Black and Ethnic Leaderships: The Cultural Dimensions of Political Action || Ed. Pnina Werbner, 1991

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Black and Ethnic Leaderships: The Cultural Dimensions of Political Action || Ed. Pnina Werbner, 1991

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See the chapter - “Red Star over Leicester: Racism, the politics of identity, and black youth in Britain,”by Sallie Westwood - https://library.lol/main/AB771E343438F4B390344A436F99EA0B

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Black and Ethnic Leaderships | The Cultural Dimensions of Political Ac

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First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

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Why Red Star Challenged Peter Soulsby: The Story of the Founding of Leicester Nirvana FC || Thoughts of a Leicester Socialist, 2016

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Why Red Star Challenged Peter Soulsby: The Story of the Founding of Leicester Nirvana FC || Thoughts of a Leicester Socialist, 2016

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Living While Black || Guilaine Kinouani, 2021

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Living While Black || Guilaine Kinouani, 2021

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https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=87A215A5D2F6A39B8FE34ED2C41D786B

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'Revelatory, necessary and brilliant' Candice Carty-Williams | 'A must read' Robin DiAngelo | 'A powerful wake-up call' Patrick Vernon | 'An incisive and important book that will change the way you think' Nikesh Shukla | 'An unmissable read for everyone' Julia Samuel | 'Honest, razor-sharp, f ascinating and impressive' The Psychologist | 'Groundbreaking' Bad Form

For the past 15 years, radical psychologist and therapist Guilaine Kinouani has helped hundreds of Black people to protect their mental and physical health from the harm of white supremacy. In this timely book, she brings together powerful case studies, eye-opening research and effective coping techniques from her anti-racist academy and award-nominated blog, Race Reflections, helping readers to:

- set psychological boundaries and process trauma
- protect children from racism
- handle difficult race-based conversations
- understand the complexities of 'Black love'
- find connection, beauty and joy in the world

Living While Black empowers you to adopt radical self-care tools that improve day-to-day wellness. It teaches you how to thrive not just survive and find hope - or even joy - in the face of racial adversity. It is also an essential anti-racist resource for allies who want to do better.

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A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Revelatory, necessary and brilliant' Candice Carty-Williams | 'A must read' Robin DiAngelo | 'A powerful wake-up call' Patrick Vernon | 'An incisive and important book that will change the way you think' Nikesh Shukla | 'An unmissable read for everyone' Julia Samuel | 'Honest, razor-sharp, fascinating and impressive' The Psychologist | 'Groundbreaking' Bad Form ____________________________________________________________ For the past 15 years, radical psychologist and therapist Guilaine Kinouani has helped hundreds of Black people to protect their mental and physical health from the harm of white supremacy.

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This is Not a Humanising Poem || Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, 2017

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This is Not a Humanising Poem || Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, 2017

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The Last Word Festival 2017 - Poetry Slam Final - Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

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Postcolonial Banter || Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, 2019

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Postcolonial Banter || Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, 2019

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Description

Postcolonial Banteris Suhaiymah's debut collection. It features some of her most well-known and widely performed poems as well as some never-seen-before material. Her words are a disruption of comfort, a call to action, a redistribution of knowledge and an outpouring of dissent.

Whilst enraged and devastated by the world she finds herself in, in many ways that world is also the normalized and everyday reality of her life. Hence, whilst political and complex in nature, her poetry is also just the reality of life for her and others like her. Life in a world where structural violence is rife makes it a shared knowledge, and sometimes, when possible, that shared knowledge is the subversive in-joke, the bonding glance of solidarity, or the passing nod of affection used by those who know it to survive those structures themselves. This collection is first and foremostly for them.

Ranging from critiquing racism, systemic Islamophobia, the function of the nation-state and rejecting secularist visions of identity, to reflecting on the difficulty of writing and penning responses to conversations she wishes she'd had; Suhaiymah's debut collection is ready and raring to enter the world. الله أكبر

This item is also available as an EPUB download. To order this, please go HERE
Postcolonial Banter Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan 19 Sep 2019
PBK: £9.99

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Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan - Postcolonial Banter

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Postcolonial Banter is Suhaiymah's debut collection. It features some of her most well-known and widely performed poems as well as some never-seen-before material. Her words are a disruption of comfort, a call to action, a redistribution of knowledge and an outpouring of dissent.

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Black Handsworth: Race in 1980s Britain || Kieran Connell, 2019

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Black Handsworth: Race in 1980s Britain || Kieran Connell, 2019

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https://library.lol/main/A1DAAA4E9EBA251DCB87F33649D50F8C

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In 1980s Britain, while the country failed to reckon with the legacies of its empire, a black, transnational sensibility was emerging in its urban areas. In Handsworth, an inner-city neighborhood of Birmingham, black residents looked across the Atlantic toward African and Afro-Caribbean social and political cultures and drew upon them while navigating the inequalities of their locale. For those of the Windrush generation and their British-born children, this diasporic inheritance became a core influence on cultural and political life. Through rich case studies, including photographic representations of the neighborhood, Black Handsworth takes readers inside pubs, churches, political organizations, domestic spaces, and social clubs to shed light on the experiences and everyday lives of black residents during this time. The result is a compelling and sophisticated study of black globality in the making of post-colonial Britain.

Kieran Connell is Lecturer in Contemporary British History at Queen's University Belfast.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction: Black Handsworth
1. Shades of Black: Political and Community Groups
2. Visualizing Handsworth: Th e Politics of Representation
3. Dread Culture: Africa in Handsworth
4. Leisure and Sociability: Th e Black Everyday
Epilogue

Notes
Bibliography
Index

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In 1980s Britain, while the country failed to reckon with the legacies of its empire, a black, transnational sensibility was emerging in its urban areas. In Handsworth, an inner-city neighborhood of Birmingham, black residents looked across the Atlantic toward African and Afro-Caribbean social and political cultures and drew upon them while navigating the inequalities of their locale.

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Carolyn Cooper - from 10:52-15:30; Mykaell Riley from 54:48-55:03

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Roots, Reggae, Rebellion Full BBC Documentary

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Bauhaus || Punk band founded in Northampton 1978

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Bauhaus || Punk band founded in Northampton 1978

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Bauhaus were an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. Known for their dark image and gloomy sound, Bauhaus are one of the pioneers of gothic rock, although they mixed many genres, including dub, glam rock, psychedelia, and funk. The group consists of Daniel Ash (guitar, saxophone), Peter Murphy (vocals, occasional instruments), Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass).

The band formed under the name Bauhaus 1919, in reference to the first operating year of the German art school Bauhaus, but they shortened this name within a year of formation. Their 1979 debut single " Bela Lugosi's Dead" is considered one of the harbingers of gothic rock music and has been influential on contemporary goth culture. Their debut album, In the Flat Field, is regarded as one of the first gothic rock records. Their 1981 second album expanded their sound by incorporating a wider variety of instruments-such as keyboards, saxophone and acoustic guitar-and experimenting with funk-inspired rhythms on tracks like " Kick in the Eye". Bauhaus went on to achieve mainstream success in the United Kingdom with their third album, The Sky's Gone Out, which peaked at No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart in 1982. That same year, they also reached No. 15 on the Singles Chart with a standalone cover of David Bowie's " Ziggy Stardust", earning them an appearance on Top of the Pops. During recording sessions for their next album, Murphy fell ill and spent much of his time away from the studio, leaving the rest of the band to compensate for his absence. This created a rift between the singer and his bandmates, culminating in the group's dissolution on 5 July 1983, one week before Burning from the Inside was released. Featuring the hit single " She's in Parties", it would be their final studio album composed entirely of new material for a quarter of a century.

After Bauhaus' breakup, Murphy formed Dalis Car with Japan's bassist Mick Karn before beginning a solo career later on, while Ash and Haskins continued as Tones on Tail and, later, reunited with David J to form Love and Rockets. Both enjoyed greater commercial success in the United States than Bauhaus had but disappeared from the charts in their homeland. Bauhaus eventually reunited for a 1998 tour, again from 2005 to 2008, and once again in 2019.

Daniel Ash, his friend David J. Haskins, and Haskins' younger brother Kevin, had played together in various bands since childhood such as "Jam" and "Jackplug & the Sockets", where they would play cover songs from the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Ash initially tried to convince his school friend Peter Murphy to be in a band, but nothing came out of it. According to Ash: "Pete didn't think about it at all, it wasn't on his mind as such." One of the longer-lived of these was a band called the Craze, which performed a few times around Northampton in 1978. However, the Craze still split up fairly quickly, and Ash once again tried to convince his old school friend Murphy to join him, simply because Ash thought he had the right look for a band. Murphy, who was working in a printing factory, decided to give it a try, despite never having written any lyrics or music. During their first rehearsal, he co-wrote the song "In the Flat Field".

Ash's old bandmate Kevin Haskins joined as the drummer. Ash made a point of not inviting David J, the driving force in their previous bands, because he wanted a band he could control. Instead, Chris Barber was brought in to play bass, and together the four musicians formed the band S.R. However, within a few weeks Ash relented, and replaced Barber with David J, who suggested the new name Bauhaus 1919. David J. had already agreed to tour American airbases with another band but decided that joining his friends' group was "the right thing to do". With their lineup complete, the band played their first gig at the Cromwell pub in Wellingborough on New Year's Eve 1978.

The band had chosen the name Bauhaus 1919, a reference to the German Bauhaus art movement of the 1920s, because of its "stylistic implications and associations", according to David J. The band also chose the same typeface used on the Bauhaus college building in Dessau, Germany, as well as the Bauhaus emblem, designed by Oskar Schlemmer. Bauhaus associate Graham Bentley said that the group was unlike any Northampton band of the time, most of which played predominantly cover songs. Bentley videotaped a performance by the group, which was sent to several record labels, in the hope of obtaining a contract. This approach was hindered partly because many record companies at the time did not have home video equipment, so the group decided to record a demo.

"Bela Lugosi's Dead" and 4AD

"Bela Lugosi's Dead"

"We'd been talking about the erotic quality of vampire movies, even if they were the Hammer horror type. There was this conversation about the sexuality and eroticism of Dracula. Danny talked about his fascination with this and the occult connotations. So, we carried on that conversation and made it into a song."

-Peter Murphy, on the origins of "Bela Lugosi's Dead"

After only six weeks as a band, Bauhaus entered the studio for the first time at Beck Studios in Wellingborough to record a demo. In rehearsal for the demo, the band experimented with echo and delay on the drums. One of the five tracks recorded during the session, " Bela Lugosi's Dead", more than nine minutes long, was released as the group's debut single in August 1979 on Small Wonder Records. The band was listed simply as Bauhaus, with the "1919" abandoned.

"Bela Lugosi's Dead" was strongly influenced by the band's interest in reggae and dub; where the bass and the drums were pushed upfront. It was the band's first recording they ever made and completed in the first take. It was also the first time Murphy ever sang in a studio microphone. Murphy was sick with a cold when he recorded the song. Kevin Haskins' drumbeat was based on a Bossa nova style of drumming. Daniel Ash explained how the inception of the song began when he talked with David J in regards to a riff he made: "I was talking to David (J, bass) on the blower one night and told him I had this riff, using these trick chords that had a very haunting quality to it. He went: 'It's so weird you should say that because I've got these lyrics about Bela Lugosi, the actor who played a vampire.'" David J further elaborated: "There was a season of old horror films on TV, and I was telling Daniel about how much I loved them. The one that had been on the night before was Dracula [1931]. I was saying how Bela Lugosi was the quintessential Dracula, the elegant depiction of the character." Ash elaborated about the chords: "My riff has these mutant chords - they're not even minor chords - but it's rooted in an old Gary Glitter song, slowed right down. I didn't realize that when I was doing it." Ash also explained how he was able to achieve the echo effects for the song: "...David had this old HH echo unit, which would crap out on you all the time. We hooked up the guitar and snare drum to this echo unit and I was just sliding the HH amp thing to trigger all these echoes as the song went through." David explained the process of how they recorded the song: "We didn't really talk about what we were doing. Daniel started scratching away on the guitar, Kevin started his rhythm and there was this atmosphere building. I came in with those descending chords and Peter was just prowling up and down, slowly, like a big cat."

On the origins of the song, Murphy explained: "We'd been talking about the erotic quality of vampire movies, even if they were the Hammer horror type. There was this conversation about the sexuality and eroticism of Dracula. Danny talked about his fascination with this and the occult connotations. So, we carried on that conversation and made it into a song." Murphy also elaborated: "There's an erotic, alluring element to the vampire. We didn't want to write an ode to Bela Lugosi, ostensibly. The kitsch element was his name because he was the biggest icon, yet he was the most unlikely vampire-looking person. So there was that Brit angle to it, but it wasn't at all negative. It was perfect. The idea of Bela Lugosi being dead or undead is classic." The band was initially nervous about their song due to its length as various record labels refused to issue the single due to the song being too long. Haskins explained the frustration the band faced with the song's length: "Danny took an acetate around all the big companies - Virgin, EMI and the rest - and they all said similar things: 'This is the sort of thing I listen to at home, but it's not commercial.' Or: 'It's way too long. Can you edit it down to three minutes?' Even Beggars Banquet turned us down, which is ironic because we ended up on that label." However, Peter Stennet of Small Wonder Records accepted and was insistent on putting out the record by favorably comparing it to Velvet Underground's single Sister Ray.

The single received a positive review in , and stayed on the British independent charts for two years. The song received crucial airplay on BBC Radio 1 and DJ John Peel's evening show and Bauhaus were subsequently asked to record a session for Peel's show, which was broadcast on 3 January 1980. Murphy gave his account of the John Peel session: "We walked up to reception, passing Motörhead on their way out, and said, "Hello, we're Bauhaus and we're friends of John Peel. We'd like to go up please." Somehow, we were allowed up there and we put the record in front of him. After we'd all introduced ourselves, he said on air, "We've got Bauhaus in the studio, they're from Northampton and they have a new single out called "Bela Lugosi's Dead". It's nine-and-a-half minutes long and this will probably be the first and last time I'll play this." Then we left and went down to listen to it in the car. Apparently, the BBC switchboard was jammed with listeners wanting him to play it again." Of the additional tracks, Classic Rock wrote that, "The rest of the material finds a band fumbling for direction, even touching on ska."

Despite the success of their signature song, the band left Small Wonder Records due to its lack of support for touring due to budget issues. As Stennet put it: "The trouble is we just can't afford to send the bands on tour or anything like that, and a group needs that sort of support". Signing with the 4AD label, the band released two more singles, " Dark Entries" in January 1980 and " Terror Couple Kill Colonel" in June 1980, before issuing their first album In the Flat Field in October 1980. The album cover for the album was chosen by David J and it was a photograph called Homage to Purvis de Chavannes by Duane Michals, which depicts an image of a naked man blowing a type of trumpet. Reviewer Andy Gill from described it as "Gothick-Romantick pseudo-decadence" and ultimately dismissed the band as "a hip Black Sabbath". Despite negative reviews, In the Flat Field topped the indie charts, and made headway on the UK Albums Chart, peaking for one week at No. 72. While the band was satisfied with the album, they admit that it didn't capture everything that they wanted. They felt the LP was a little too intense; however, it was "the purest statement of what [we] were like then".

In August 1980, the band traveled to North America to play four dates in cities such as Toronto, Chicago, and New York. One of Bauhaus' first US shows was in a venue called Space Place in Chicago, Illinois in September 1980, booked by Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher, the owners of the independent record label Wax Trax! Records. The band returned to England in October 1980 for a 20-date tour in England and in Europe to promote their first album. In December 1980, Bauhaus released a cover of " Telegram Sam", a hit by glam rock pioneers T. Rex, as a single.

Bauhaus' growing success outstripped 4AD's resources, so the band moved to 4AD's parent label, Beggars Banquet Records. Bauhaus released " Kick in the Eye" in March 1981 as its debut release on the label. The single reached No. 59 on the charts. The following single, " The Passion of Lovers", peaked at No. 56 in July 1981. Murphy said, "One of our loves is to make each single totally different from the last, not to be tied down by a style or sound." Bauhaus released their second album, , in October 1981. The band employed more keyboards, and a variety of other instruments, to add to the diversity of the record. The front and back cover of the album was an impressionistic drawing made by Ash. In an unconventional move, the group shot a video for the album's title track as a promotional tool for the band, rather than any specific song from the record. David J explained the techniques, effects and his reaction regarding the content of the title track: "I can still recall with crystal clarity overdubbing the echoed bass part and using a metal bottleneck to achieve the cascade effect that comes in at the point where Daniel's acoustic twelve-string part starts. Hearing these sounds in ultra-sharp coke-intensified focus through headphones produced an ecstatic heart-bursting emotion on the edge of orgasmic release." The film crew consists of Chris Collins and Ken Lawrence of Standard Pictures. The video was made with a minuscule budget; the gear used in the video were powered off car batteries and roll film, and filmed in a hazardous building in Northampton, which was just across the road from the main police station. David J explains how the band and film crew broke into the building to make the video: "We snuck into this place about three in the morning and the lights kept going down at crucial moments so we'd have to wait and sit around in complete darkness...the place was dripping wet although it all added to the atmosphere." The video's imagery and lighting borrowed heavily from German Expressionism. David J commented on the content of the music video: "We improvised around the loose idea of a ritualistic resurrection, with Peter lain out like a corpse on a wooden slab. Each of us would administer some kind of shamanistic voodoo to assist in the raising of the dead. The place was freezing cold, dank, and dripping with filthy water. The lights kept going out, and we would be plunged into complete darkness until they were restored." When the scenes of the factory were finished, the group went to another location for filming. David J explained: "Once we had filmed the scenes in the factory, we set off for a second location: the woods on the grounds of the Spencer family's country estate - another illegal situation, and a potential threat to the monarchy. We did have fun that night! The finished film looked great: a fog-cloaked atmospheric drama that was redolent of a German Expressionist silent horror flick." David J also mentioned that the music video was more of an art piece than a traditional music video and commented that Chris Collins "did a brillant job of capturing the visual essence of the band." Chris Collins commented on the motive of the video: "Foremost in our minds was to make something interesting, so somebody who'd never heard of Bauhaus before and suddenly saw that video might say, "God, that's really interesting, I want to know more about that". Ken Lawrence also explained the film's intention: "Every film about a band should show the strengths of that artist. So of course "Mask" is a promo because hopefully, it's what Bauhaus are about. If you listen to their lyrics at all, if you know the way their music is structured - it's thought provoking, it evokes mood and it's very atmospheric music and that was our approach to making the film." It made only one appearance on British TV. Around the same time, "In keeping with our surrealist leaning...", the band also employed the "exquisite corpse" technique to an experimental film they made called "Consequences", where each member was given an amount of time to film whatever they wished. It was shown on tour in place of a support band. The band toured broadly to promote the album by playing a 16-date tour of England and 13 dates in Europe.

"Spirit" and The Sky's Gone Out

In July 1982 Bauhaus released the single " Spirit", produced by Hugh Jones. This was unusual for the band since they tend to produce their own music and, as a result of this move, led to conflicts and compromises in the studio. As David J explains the predicament: "It took ages and ages. Usually we recorded very quickly - we'd do an album in three weeks from start to finish - but that took about nine days, which for us was absurd. There was so much agonising over it more from the producer than us." The song used an acoustic guitar with a bossa nova drumbeat. According to Shirley, the song was about: "...a 'fifth member' of the band - a spirit they felt occupied the stage, lifting them to a higher plane when they were playing well." The music video was directed by Collins and Lawrence. Originally, the video was to show a physical representation of this spirit which included "a single dancer with a white facemask and body paint who would come onto the stage whilst the band performed the song and literally 'lift' Peter and give him wings." However, this did not happen since once the band completed their part, they had to depart in a hurry in order to do their tour of the United States. So, Collins and Lawrence were responsible for the editing process and completion of the video. They changed the spirit figure and exchange it with a spectral female figure "who would walked through the theatre along with a motley crew of clowns and jugglers." When the band returned from their tour of the United States, they were repelled by the music video and wanted to redo it. However, their record label refused as the band was already given a budget for the video and was not interested into providing more money for it. Despite this, the band was still unrelenting and still wanted to change the video. As David J explains: "So we raised the money ourselves out of our own bank balances and pooled our money and so we went in and re-edited it, trying to get it into some kind of shape. We did it. Delivered the master to Beggars Banquet. Next week - this was at the time of the video jukebox craze - we went into a pub and we see the original horrible version on the video. So we immediately rang Beggars Banquet and said; "What's going on?" and they'd send out the wrong one and it had gone off to TV and everyhing." It was intended to break into the Top 30, but only reached No. 42. The band was also displeased with the single, and re-recorded it later in 1982 for their third album The Sky's Gone Out. Also when they played a gig in Salford University in 1982, Nico joined the band for a cover performance of the Velvet Underground song, " I'm Waiting for the Man".

For their third LP, The Sky's Gone Out, based on their previous experience with their producer of their song "Spirit", they originally wanted to produce the album themselves as they knew what they should sound like. However, this led to problems in the studio as arguments between the band members would flare up based on their individual disagreements on how to make the album. The results of the album were due to the whole band's decision as a group and efforts of compromise. The band understood that they were too closely aligned to their work to have an objective take on their music, and were in need of a third party that wasn't a producer however, one that makes suggestions and elucidations for their album without exerting a dominating effect on the band. This resulted with Derek Tompkins as their third party person. Derek Thompson commented on his agreement as an engineer of the album: "I was, however, quite willing to act as an engineer provided the resident engineer was responsible for the engineering and I was only responsible for interpreting what they wanted to him and helping a bit creatively myself."

The band were booked into Rockfield Studios in Wales for one month to record the album. The band at the time had little original material written for the album due to the constant touring which didn't allow enough time for the group to write and rehearse new material. As Murphy explained: "The third LP was one of those unwritten albums that was done on the spot. An album of experimentation which was enjoyable to us because we didn't have any songs and we didn't feel like writing stuff and we said, "OK that's fine. If we don't have any songs we'll make the songwriting environment the studio." Although the sessions went well, there were some issues between the engineer and the band as the members would spend hours on laying down tracks until they got exactly what they wanted. However, this was solved with Derek Thompson as a mediator of the sessions. As Thompson explained: "I was a link to eliminate any strain between the two. A lot of things they did the engineer knew was not right but I used to say to him, "Don't worry about it, when it comes to the mix they'll throw it out. Don't worry, they're just putting down stuff to work with. The creative part will come with the mix." Despite Thompson not understanding the music or lyrics of the album, he mentions: "I always used to ask them what the song was about so I knew what mood I was aiming for". Some of the lyrics of the album reflected the band's personal feelings and experiences. For example, one of the songs from the LP, "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything", was, according to David J, "evokes nostalgic memories of a time of innocence and naive yearning." David J also praised Murphy on the song by saying his singing: "...emoting the bittersweet sentiment so perfectly, every word ringing true."

In the same year, Bauhaus scored their biggest hit with a cover of David Bowie's " Ziggy Stardust", which was recorded during a BBC session. The song was chosen by the band in spite of their critics who accused them of being "Bowie plagiarists", a label that they were quite annoyed with. Ash explained that the band did not care about their critics and "...so we thought we'd do the opposite of what they'd expect and promptly release 'Ziggy'". The song reached No. 15 on the British charts, and earned the band an appearance on the television show Top of the Pops. Due to the success of the single, the album also became the band's biggest hit, peaking at No. 3. That same year, Bauhaus made an appearance in the horror film , where they performed "Bela Lugosi's Dead" during the opening credits. The final cut of the scene focused on Murphy; this, coupled with the singer's modelling work in a popular ad campaign for Maxell, caused resentment among the rest of the group.

Burning from the Inside

Prior to the recording of their fourth album, Burning from the Inside (1983), Murphy was stricken with pneumonia, which prevented him from contributing much to the album. Ash and David J took the reins, becoming the driving forces behind the record and even performing lead vocals on several tracks. One of the songs on the album, "Who Killed Mister Moonlight", was described by David J as a "surrealistic ballad inspired in part by the murder of John Lennon". Later on, the mysterious character of Mister Moonlight had a symbolic meaning, which was seen by the band "as being representative of the dreamy, poetic aspect of Bauhaus". The album's lead single, " She's in Parties", reached No. 26 on the charts and earned Bauhaus their third and final Top of the Pops appearance. Bauhaus then embarked on an international promotional tour for the album, with dates in Europe and the Far East. David J recalled that the night before they were supposed to perform two shows at Hammersmith Palais in London, the group decided to disband.

The band played their farewell show on 5 July 1983 at the Hammersmith Palais; dedicated fans had been warned by the band's crew not to miss the show, without telling them it was the last. After a long encore, consisting of some of their early songs, David J left the stage with the words "rest in peace". Burning from the Inside was released a week later. The album received largely positive reviews and reached No. 13 on the charts. Bauhaus released the single "Sanity Assassin" in limited quantities as a farewell gift for those who joined the group's fan club.

During the band's initial lifecycle, solo projects would be initiated at times. For example, in 1981, while still being a member of Bauhaus, David J started a solo project in collaboration with Rene Halkett, who was one of the original students of the art school of their band name. The origins of this correspondence was due to Halkett's younger neighbor telling him of hearing about a group called Bauhaus on the John Peel Show on BBC radio. This intrigued Halkett and he soon wrote to Peel about getting in touch with the band. They eventually met, discussed poetry and decided to work with David by sending a cassette tape that contain Halkett orally citing two of his poems. After listening intensly on the tape, David decided to go a recording studio where he provided the backing music to the tape. This collabroation resulted as a single called "Armour/Nothing" which was released by 4AD. According to David J regarding the correspondence, "He wrote to John Peel when he was playing Bauhaus' first record, 'Bela Lugosi's Dead', and Rene was then in his 70s and was an avid listener to John Peel's show. He heard this and was intrigued that this band of young upstarts had usurped the name Bauhaus and he wrote to John Peel asking for more information. Peel sent me the letter and I was just amazed to be in contact with somebody from that time, so I wrote to Rene and we struck up this correspondence and in the end would meet up and I'd go down and visit him in his little cottage in Cornwall. We ended up making a record together, which was his poetry that I put to music. It was one of the first releases on 4AD. I would just go down and he would enthrall me with these stories of him appearing in these cabaret clubs in Weimar and dancing on the piano and letting off revolvers in the club and this whole sort of barbarous cabaret scene that he was intrinsically involved in. He met Bertolt Brecht and people like that, the surrealists came through and his teachers were Kandinsky and it was just amazing to have a friend from that time so that gave me a real insight, to actually be communicating with somebody that was there." Both Halkett and David were satisfied with the single. Halkett commented on his contribution to the single: "I felt that the two poems required something more than print because they depend on things which can only be expressed in musical signs... It (the single) falls between music and poetry and is not entirely either. With "Nothing" David has written a perfect arrangement for what is a quite concentrated philosophical idea and it becomes so much more than the words..."

After Bauhaus disbanded, the members of the band moved on to various solo work. Murphy worked briefly with bassist Mick Karn of Japan in the band Dalis Car, before going solo with such albums as 1986's Should the World Fail to Fall Apart, 1988's Love Hysteria and 1989's . Ash had already started Tones on Tail with Bauhaus roadie Glen Campling as a side project in 1982; after Bauhaus broke up, Kevin Haskins joined the group, and the trio released an album and several EPs before breaking up after a 1984 American tour. During this time, David J released two solo albums and collaborated with other musicians, recording two albums with the Jazz Butcher, and also with comics writer/spoken-word artist Alan Moore in the short-lived band the Sinister Ducks.[citation needed ]

During a discussion about the state of their projects at the time, Ash and David J began talking about reforming Bauhaus. All four band members arranged a rehearsal, but Murphy failed to show up on the scheduled day. The other three band members rehearsed regardless, and were inspired by the chemistry they had as a trio. As a result, Ash and the Haskins brothers formed Love and Rockets in 1985. Love and Rockets scored a US hit four years later with " So Alive". The band broke up in 1999 after seven albums. Both Ash and David J released solo albums during the Love and Rockets years; Murphy contributed backing vocals to David J's 1992 single "Candy on the Cross".[citation needed ]

Bauhaus reunited for the "Resurrection Tour" in 1998, their stage show opened with Double Dare and Pete Murphy singing to the audience via a TV screen set up centre-stage. The tour featured a new song, "The Dog's a Vapour", which was also included in the Heavy Metal 2000 film soundtrack. A live album was recorded during the tour, , which was released the following year. It included a studio recording of Bauhaus' cover of the Dead Can Dance song "Severance".

Bauhaus reunited again in 2005, playing that year's Coachella Festival in Indio, California. They opened their set with Murphy being lowered upside-down to the stage, singing "Bela Lugosi's Dead". The performance was critically acclaimed and ranked among the greatest and most memorable performances ever in Coachella. Following Murphy's 2005 tour, Bauhaus embarked on a full tour beginning in North America in autumn 2005, ending in Europe in February 2006. During the tour, Bauhaus covered Joy Division's " Transmission". The band also mentioned that they hoped to record new music. In May they performed as opening act for Nine Inch Nails on the summer leg of the latter's US tour.

In 2008, Bauhaus released their first new studio album since 1983, Go Away White ( Cooking Vinyl). It marked the band's end and the album had no promotional tour. In late 2007, Kevin Haskins said "We were getting along really well, but there was an incident that occurred," and added that as a result, "Some of us just felt that we didn't want to carry on as a working unit." In early 2008, Murphy claimed that he "was most satisfied with the bonding on an emotional level. It was good to be working together and to put the past behind us and it was very positive. The result was coming out really fast, so it was exciting and it was very enjoyable", but in the end, "that rocky character worked and I think it was a bit right to finish it, really". The same year, David J commented on the breakup: "You have a test tube, and you pour in one chemical, and you pour in another chemical, and something happens. It starts to bubble. Pour in another chemical, and it starts to bubble a bit more. You pour in a fourth chemical, and it bubbles really violently, and then explodes. That's my answer".

In 2017, Ash and Kevin Haskins toured as Poptone with Haskins' daughter Diva Dompe on bass. The group performed songs from Bauhaus, Tones on Tail, and Love and Rockets along with cover songs. A live album recorded at various stops on the tour was released through PledgeMusic.

In 2018, Murphy and David J announced a tour of New Zealand, Australia and Europe to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Bauhaus, with the pair performing In the Flat Field in its entirety.

In September 2019, after a 13-year hiatus, Bauhaus announced a show at the 5,000-seat Hollywood Palladium with all original members on 3 November. A second show was added for the following night, after the first show sold out quickly. A third date at the same venue was then confirmed for 1 December.

In March 2022, Bauhaus released their first new song in fourteen years with "Drink the New Wine," which was recorded separately by all four members during COVID-19 lockdown. The recording process used the Exquisite Corpse method whereby each artist adds to the piece without hearing what the others have done.

Bauhaus toured the west coast of the United States and Europe in 2022 and was set to return to the east coast of the United States for more concerts before abruptly cancelling the tour on 31 August as Peter Murphy announced that he was entering rehab. On 19 April 2023, Daniel Ash confirmed in an interview the Bauhaus reunion was over, as the remaining remembers reformed Love and Rockets.

"Our influences were many. The obvious ones were glam rock and punk rock, but when we were recording, when we finished each day, we'd usually record in a residential studio so we would all stay together at night time. So when we'd wind down, we'd always play either dub reggae or late Beatles, like Sgt. Pepper. When I mention that to people they're kind of surprised. So we weren't listening to dark music, there were many influences."

Kevin Haskins, in regards to the band's influences.

"We were very influenced by reggae, especially dub. I mean, basically Bela was our interpretation of dub."

David J, regarding reggae's influence on the band.

In terms of early influences from childhood, David J said that he was interested in jazz and its musicians such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. He has also listed Television's Marquee Moon as one of his all-time favorite albums. Peter Murphy cited Doris Day, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, the Everly Brothers and his experiences from Mass in Catholic school as highly influential to his singing. He mentioned that the first 7-inch single he ever bought was " A Hard Day's Night" by the Beatles and also listed Brian Eno's Music for Airports as one of his favorite albums. Daniel Ash was interested in music at a young age, first being impressed by the stomping of the Dave Clark Five's "Bits and Pieces" song and later going through his older brother's music collection of records from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Faces and the Kinks. The first record he bought was Dave and Ansell Collins' "Double Barrel". When Ash was asked about how he developed his playing style and guitar influences, he replied: "My style of playing comes from a mixture of extreme laziness to learn proper scales/chords and a burning desire to sound original and new. Although I am a huge fan of Hendrix and Mick Ronson, Robert Fripp on Bowie tracks is also fab, and what about Earl Slick!" Ash also mentioned his appreciation of bands such as the Only Ones, the Damned, Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids and said that the Stooges' as one of his all-time favorite records. Kevin Haskins at 14 years old went to see Led Zeppelin and the drummer's ( John Bonham) drum solo impressed him and called it "amazing". However at the same time, he was depressed as well due to feeling inadequate about his own musical abilities and never reaching the skill of Bonham. He even had thoughts of giving up music altogether. However, the nascent punk scene and seeing bands such as the Sex Pistols and the Clash gave him the confidence he needed to pursue in music.

Around 1970, David J's was intrigued by the ska music, Roots reggae and dub music coming out of Jamaica. He mentioned that reggae "...was the first music that I was seriously into." It was from this exposure from these musical styles that made David J choose a bass guitar instead of a lead guitar. David explained: "I loved [Dub]. It was so exciting because it was my first exposure to this other world really. Something subterranean, dark, sexually charged, violent and compelling. This dark music was played in these dark places and was just captivating. I realised very quickly that what was powerful about this sound was the bass. I recalled that when we got guitars, no-one wanted to be the bass player - we had various bands just a bunch of friends who wanted to play pop music and they all wanted to play lead guitar - so I went; 'Well, I'll play the bass'. I retained my six string guitar and just played the bottom four strings and just used to play along with the records and work out the bass lines. I just got into it and found it really satisfying and saved up and bought a bass guitar."

Given their mixture of reggae and punk rock, Murphy said that musically, they were "more aligned to the Clash than anything else that was going around." When asked about the influence of reggae on Bauhaus' music, Murphy stated that it was "massive. We were listening to toasting music all the time, and David brought in a lot of bass lines that were very lead riffs [...] those bass lines really formed the basis of the music" In particular, dub reggae was highly influential to the band, so far that David J mentioned that their signature song, "Bela Lugosi's Dead", was intended as dub.

The band members Daniel, David and Kevin once attended a Rastafarian event that became quite influential to their music. As David explained: "At the time, Northampton had a large Rastafarian population, centred around the Matta Fancanta Youth Movement, which had its base at the old Salvation Army Citadel on the corner of Sheep Street, just across from Derngate Bus Station. It was run by Trevor Hall, whose uncle had started the famed Count Shelly sound system, which Trevor inherited. They would hold monthly events featuring two outfits competing against each other, spinning dub plates-instrumental tracks direct from Jamaica-and blasting them over the huge speakers while their respective 'toasters' took turns freestyling over the top. They would really go to town, painting up the entire place in the red, green, and gold of the Ethiopian flag and wearing suits and outsized hats to match, while the women would dye their hair. There were quotations from Haile Selassie all around the walls, and the air was thick with ganja smoke and the gamey aroma of goat's head soup. It was a true 'temporary autonomous zone', to quote the anarchist writer and poet Hakim Bey, and the police would wisely keep their distance. Daniel, Kevin, and I would be the only white faces in the throng, but there was never any trouble-quite the opposite-and the amazing music that we heard in that place became a big influence on us, 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' being a good example."

The band's other musical influences included various forms of rock ( garage, glam, art, electronic, prog, psychedelic, heavy metal, folk, experimental, krautrock), as well as avant-garde music, ambient music, traditional pop, disco and funk. Outside of music, Bauhaus's influences were often artistic and literary and included William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Bertolt Brecht, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Comte de Lautréamont, Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Surrealism, German Expressionism, Greek Mythology, Ingmar Bergman, David Lynch, Oscar Wilde, Franz Kafka and Antonin Artaud. In regards to the influence of the original Bauhaus movement on the band, Murphy stated that "Bauhaus had no influence on Bauhaus (the band) except for being the sound, shape, energetic, and sensory birth name of our group."

Bauhaus combined these influences to create a gloomy, earnest and introspective version of post-punk, which appealed to many music fans who felt disillusioned in the wake of punk's collapse. Its crucial elements included Murphy's deep and sonorous voice, Ash's jagged guitar playing and David J's dub-influenced bass. Their sound and gloomy style would eventually come to be known as gothic rock or simply "goth".

According to David J, the band were "...always keen not to be a traditional 'rock' band, and we would go to great pains to avoid that well-trodden road." They experimented with various techniques and methods for song composition such as the Exquisite corpse on tracks such as "1. David Jay 2. Peter Murphy 3. Kevin Haskins 4. Daniel Ash" along with the use of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies cards as well. To achieve some of the sound effects in their songs, various instruments were implemented such as bottlenecks, echo units and a Syndrum.

In their second album Mask, expanded their sound with the addition of synthesizers, electronics and a saxophone to "add color and dynamics to each song." The album was less structured and spontaneous compared to their first album. The song Of Lillies and Remains is an example of this method. According to Murphy: ""Of Lillies and Remains" is a song that was written as it happened. None of it was rehearsed, worked out or played beforehand. We simply told the engineer to turn on the tape. That was incredibly exciting. That said a lot for our confidence and courage and total absurdity; that it was possible to demonstrate that those ideas form an artistic point of view, come from another outside force - i.e. the collective creative thing." In an interview with John Robb, Ash mentioned that he bought an EBow in 1981.

In their first album and singles, Bauhaus' songs dealt with taboo subjects such as martyrdom, paranoia, madness, obsession and prostitution. For example, the song Stigmata Martyr was about (according to Shirley) "...a person whose religious obsession with Christ takes the form of a physical manifestation of the crucifixion; i.e. nailmarks on the hands: "In a crucifixion, ecstacy, Lying cross checked in agony, Stigmata bleed continuously, Holes in head, hands, feet, and weep for me." When delivering these lyrics Peter became the stigmata." Murphy also commented on the misconceptions of the lyrics of the song: "I don't think the other members of the band really got what I was writing about, and the collective intention suddenly became very anti-religious. And that song is not an anti-religious song at all. The message is, really, the dangers of obsession, of almost psychosomatic induction of that masochism. That alone can be an illusion. And it's way off the mark as to the actual source of the message of any religious God. God doesn't want you to be in pain and die. It wasn't anti-religious. It wasn't demonic. It was alluding to the manifestation. Is it truly a mark of the Holy Ghost or is it simply an obsession condition? That's all there is to it." Another song, Dark Entries tells the story of title character Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is Murphy's favorite novel. Murphy explains: "It was the first book with real substance that I chose for myself. It's a story of great narcissism and esoteric interior, and brilliantly written. It's a window into this personality, this Oscar Wilde chap I'd heard about. The language is so opulent. It's a rock star's story, really." The song A God In An Alcove was about "...the story of a fallen idol." The title track's In the Flat Field was inspired by "...the quotidian mundaneness of life in Northampton, and the desire to escape that 'flat' existence."

Other songs from later albums and singles, explored subjects such as nostalgia, desire, reflection, self-realization and hope. For example, the song All We Ever Wanted Was Everything was about the "...nostalgic memories of a time of innocence and naive yearning." Also, some of the song titles came from literary sources. For example, the song title Kick in the Eye was based on a line from the novel Satori in Paris by Jack Kerouac.

The construction of their lyrics were inspired by the Cut-up technique method. An example of their approach to lyric structure is the amalgamation of individual lyrics from each member in the song Of Lillies and Remains, as Murphy explained: "I'd written a dream out on a piece of paper and Dave picked up this piece of paper at random and found a blank side and wrote out a lyric. He turned it over and asked what it was. I said, "It's a dream." And so he said: "Let's do this." So David went in to do his half - no rehearsal - and then I took it from where he left off. That was a typical way of working."

In terms of live performances, Bauhaus' stage theatrics, specifically their lighting, was inspired by a Judas Priest concert that Murphy attended with Bauhaus' manager. They predominantly used black and white lighting for their live shows. When they were asked why in early interviews, David J responded, "...coloured lights are for Christmas trees." Their lighting was so minimal that sometimes the band would play in almost complete darkness where they were glimpsed rather than seen in their shows. Their manager Graham Bentley helped with the lighting, "I started doing lights for Bauhaus - which obviously came about because I was the person who was there - I got into it very much from the start. I love the shadows. I used to call it a dark show rather than a light show. The essential emphasis was less light." Bentley used industrial lights for the lighting and put the lights on the floor rather than the ceiling. Also, a strobe light would be used for Murphy to hold on to his body and move around with it on stage.

Bauhaus are frequently considered to be the inventors of goth; however the band rejected this label, preferring to describe their style as "dark glam." Peter Murphy said he felt their contemporaries had a larger hand in solidifying what became goth. Likewise, Kevin Haskins felt that bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees were more influential to goth subculture than themselves and mentioned that Bauhaus were "...more three dimensional, more art rock". Ash nevertheless admitted: "if you wear black and your first single is "Bela Lugosi's Dead," you've pretty much got a stamp on you. That's always been one of our strongest songs, so it's sort of undeniable".

Alternative Press included Bauhaus in their 1996 list of "100 underground inspirations of the past 20 years."

The Bauhaus song "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" (from The Sky's Gone Out) was covered by several artists and bands, including John Frusciante (guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers), MGMT and Xiu Xiu (who recorded it in 2006 for their EP). Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins sang T. Rex's "Telegram Sam" and "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" live on stage with Bauhaus in 1998. "Double Dare" was covered by the alternative rock band the God Machine. "Hollow Hills" was covered by System of a Down. "Silent Hedges" (along with "Double Dare") was covered by the power metal band Nevermore.

"Bela Lugosi's Dead", was covered by numerous acts, including Until December (1986), the Electric Hellfire Club (1996), Opera IX (on 2000 album The Black Opera: Symphoniæ Mysteriorum in Laudem Tenebrarum), Sepultura (on 2001 album ), Nouvelle Vague (on 2006 album Bande à part), Chris Cornell (2007), Nine Inch Nails (2009), Trent Reznor with Murphy and TV on the Radio (2013), Massive Attack (2013), David J with Jill Tracy (2013), Chvrches (for the 2014 Vampire Academy soundtrack), Dead Cross (on their 2017 debut album) and the Damned (2019).

Bauhaus's fanbase extends beyond music; the American novelist Chuck Palahniuk was influenced by the Bauhaus song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" when writing his 2005 novel . In James O'Barr's 1989 comic book , the facial features of Eric Draven were based on those of Peter Murphy. In Neil Gaiman's series The Sandman, Dream's face and appearance were also based on Murphy. Additionally, comic book writer Alan Moore wrote the sleeve notes of Mask and contributed an anonymous Bauhaus review called "Phantoms of the Teenage Opera" to the UK music paper Sounds.

The 1984 music video of the song " You're the Inspiration" from the American band Chicago featured lead singer Peter Cetera wearing a Bauhaus T-shirt.

In an interview at the CBGB, Axl Rose from Guns N' Roses is seen wearing a Bauhaus T-shirt.

In the Beavis and Butt-head season 3 episode "Meet God, Part II" (1993), they view and comment on a music video for Bauhaus' Bowie cover, "Ziggy Stardust".

Susie Lewis, the co-creator of the American animated series , is a fan of the band and used their song "1. David Jay 2. Peter Murphy 3. Kevin Haskins 4. Daniel Ash" in the closing credits of episode 213, " Write Where it Hurts".

In the 2003 episode " Raisins", Henrietta Biggle (one of the "goth kids") had a bedroom poster of "Blauhaus", a parody version of the band.

In the 2015-2016 American Horror Story season " American Horror Story: Hotel", "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is used in the opening episode, in line with the underlying horror/vampire theme of the series.

In the 2017 The Americans episode "Darkroom", the Bauhaus song "Slice of Life" is played in the background of the red room scene. It was ranked #8 in Vulture's list of "The 10 Best Musical Moments in The Americans".

Saturday Night Live's recurring "Goth Talk" skit used "Bela Lugosi's Dead" as its theme song.

Bauhaus' performance at Coachella in 2005 has been ranked #5 among as one of "The 20 Best Coachella Sets of All Time".

Bauhaus' appearance in the Tony Scott film has been ranked #20 by Rolling Stone as "The 30 Greatest Rock & Roll Movie Moments". and #17 by Time Out as "The 50 Best Uses of Songs in Movies".

Daniel Ash - guitars, acoustic guitar, saxophone, lead and backing vocals

Peter Murphy - lead and backing vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards, melodica, congas

Kevin Haskins - drums, keyboards, piano, backing vocals

David J - bass, keyboards, percussion, lead and backing vocals

Studio albums

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Bauhaus were an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. Known for their dark image and gloomy sound, Bauhaus are one of the pioneers of gothic rock, although they mixed many genres, including dub, glam rock, psychedelia, and funk. The group consists of Daniel Ash (guitar, saxophone), Peter Murphy (vocals, occasional instruments), Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass).

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Who Killed Mister Moonlight? || David J. Haskins, 2014

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Who Killed Mister Moonlight? || David J. Haskins, 2014

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Jawbone Press is an independent publisher of books about music and popular culture.

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Big Youth - Screaming Target (Official Audio)

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ackhi&saltfish Digital Network || Podcast 

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ackhi&saltfish Digital Network || Podcast 

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My Episode - https://open.spotify.com/episode/1UnYAvu68K56m47HLKrEY5

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#24 “There is so much beauty in what’s broken” - We meet Rankin’s favourite photographer | Before Our Friends Die

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EXTRACT: The Other Windrush’: the hidden history of Afro-Chinese families in 1950s London || Tao Leigh Goffe, 2021

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EXTRACT: The Other Windrush’: the hidden history of Afro-Chinese families in 1950s London || Tao Leigh Goffe, 2021

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The hidden history of Afro-Chinese families in 1950s London - gal-dem

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In this extract from ‘The Other Windrush’, writer Tao Leigh Goffe explores the history of relative Hyacinth Lee, who migrated to the UK from Jamaica.

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‘The Other Windrush’: the hidden history of Afro-Chinese families in 1950s London

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The Other Windrush: Legacies of Indenture in Britain's Caribbean Empire || Eds. Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and David Dabydeen, 2021 

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The Other Windrush: Legacies of Indenture in Britain's Caribbean Empire || Eds. Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and David Dabydeen, 2021 

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See Tao Leigh Goffe's chapter title: 'Scratching the Surface: A Speculative Feminist Visual History of other Windrush Itineraries'
https://library.lol/main/06917CA089CCC390F2461E16391FC14B

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'This illuminating, vivid volume is a fitting tribute to the experiences of migration' - Hanif Kureishi

Between the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948 and the passing of the 1971 Immigration Act, half a million people came to the UK from the Caribbean. In the aftermath of the 2018 Windrush Scandal, the story of the Windrush Generation is more widely known than ever. But is it the whole story?

Through a series of biographical essays, poems and articles, The Other Windrush shines a light on the hidden history of a 'minority within a minority': Caribbean migrants of Indian and Chinese descent - often the descendants of indentured labourers - who were the 'invisible passengers' of the Windrush generation.

Both highlighting the diversity of their lives and cultural backgrounds, and delving into the largely forgotten history of the system of indenture in the British Caribbean, The Other Windrush makes a unique addition to the literature on migration and the British Empire.

Maria del Pilar Kaladeen is a writer and Associate Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. She is the co-editor of the anthology We Mark Your Memory: Writing from the Descendants of Indenture.

David Dabydeen is an award-winning poet and novelist who worked at the University of Warwick's Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies. He previously served as Guyana's Ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO and as Ambassador to China.

- Hanif Kureishi, author of 'The Buddha of Suburbia' (Faber & Faber, 2009) - Hannah Lowe, author of 'Long Time No See' (Periscope, 2015) - Sibghat Kadri QC - Heidi Safia Mirza, Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmith College, University of London - Bhikhu Parekh, political theorist, academic and member of the House of Lords

List of figures
Introduction: 'My Father's Journey Made Me Who I Am'
Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and David Dabydeen
1. What's in a Face? - Jonathan Phang
2. Black Turkey - David Dabydeen
3. From BG to GB - Elly Niland
4. Made through Movement - Nalini Mohabir
5. Interview: 'Trinidad Implants in you this Wonderful Sense of Carnival' - Bob Ramdhanie
6. A Tribute to the Life of Rudy Narayan (1938-1998) - Lainy Malkani
7. Pepperpot - Gordon Warnecke
8. Scratching the Surface: A Speculative Feminist Visual History of other Windrush Itineraries - Tao Leigh Goffe
9. Everything of Us - Maria del Pilar Kaladeen
10. Three Rivers - Mr Gee
11. Interview: 'Invited then Unwelcomed' - Charlotte Bailey
Contributor Biographies
Index

Published by Pluto Press in Jun 2021

Paperback ISBN: 9780745343549
eBook ISBN: 9780745343563

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'This illuminating, vivid volume is a fitting tribute to the experiences of migration' - Hanif Kureishi Between the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush in ...

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God Save the People: A Trilogy (Nenequirer, 2022-2023)

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God Save the People: A Trilogy (Nenequirer, 2022-2023)

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God Save the People: When will Black lives matter?

https://nenequirer.com/2022/06/09/tre-ventour-asks-if-you-can-support-black-lives-matter-and-the-monarchy-in-thought-provoking-essay/

#Lizposting: An Autoethnographic History

https://nenequirer.com/2022/10/31/long-read-its-an-imperial-life-historian-talks-queens-legacy-in-thought-provoking-essay/

Obscured by quiche and coronation chicken? This must be Tory Glasto

https://nenequirer.com/2023/06/27/obscured-by-quiche-and-coronation-chicken-this-must-be-tory-glasto/

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Obscured by quiche and coronation chicken? This must be Tory Glasto

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“Just because they give you a seat at the table, doesn’t mean they want you to speak at the table” – Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Postcolonial Banter Was the Coronation Simply Imperialist Tea on t…

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The House of Black X-Cellence: Monument Culture and the Spectacularised Black British Past || Race Reflection, 2023

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The House of Black X-Cellence: Monument Culture and the Spectacularised Black British Past || Race Reflection, 2023

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And the Spectacularised Black British Past
Introduction
If we can talk about 'Black Excellence' without also discussing Black okayness, there is something wrong - worsened by a culture of Black British historical remembrance that places 'remember-worthiness' only as far as our labour contributions. Whilst in cases this may be due to violent erasure in the archives, it may also reflect a state ideology that positions Black people human value dependent on labour.

Through documentaries, statues, plaques and other cultural texts, these discourses to Black British remembrance revisit a monument culture that positions many Black people past and present only as valuable in proximity to our contributions in labour. The means through which Black British history is remembered is subject to the biases of (past) official record keepers and what they saw / see fit to record. As today, we are told the stories that manage to slip through the cracks of white supremacy.

Discourses to Black British history that spotlight 'exceptional' individuals, positioned ahead of everyday folks, speak about Black people like gods among us. Black people who do not aspire to 'excellence' are then positioned as 'lazy' - an ableist capitalist myth that treats human worth, let alone Black humans, as only valuable when on the production lines - through fieldwork, factories, and other forms of labour.

In this article, I will discuss how public monument cultures of Black British remembrance and excellence do not end with statues but pervades into abstractions including Black assimilation onto the colonial honours list (i.e knighthoods, MBEs). Human beings should not need to be 'super' to be valued, and we need to be able to imagine a world where Black people can exist without labour-contingent functioning labels - like role models, inspirational and trailblazers.
The Wretched of Infinite Earths
Whilst debates around public monuments have centered in the form of critiques of colonial statues ( Facing History, 2020) it is also worth noting other worlds, as fantasy and science fiction have long facilitated these discussions. For example, DC's Man of Steel ( Snyder, 2013) showed how humans viewed Superman: "He will be a God to them" laments Jor-El. By the sequel, humans had built a statue of him, as a thank you for saving Earth from General Zod at The Battle of Metropolis ( Snyder, 2016).

General Zod regurgitates colonialist language calling humans 'primitive'. Comparatively, so-called 'classic' works of English literature used colonial language to dehumanise. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines and Conrad's Heart of Darkness used such language to describe Black people. This is in congruence with a literary establishment that created a 'canon' with texts that promote whiteness while discriminating against Black and Brown people. Whilst the authors may be lacking in physical statues, Heart of Darkness, for example, was a taught text on my degree. This is one way that shows how monuments are made through dominant knowledge-making. Here then, no less than on degrees, universities monumentalise racism through culture, at the emotional toll of Black and Brown students.

Statues punctuate spaces across the UK. What differentiates those of white people from statues of Black people, is the former are not seen as representative of their racial group.

Or as Richard Dyer writes:

"There is no more powerful position than that of being "just" human. The claim to power is the claim to speak for the commonality of humanity. Raced people can't do that - they can only speak for their race. But non-raced people can, for they do not represent the interests of a race" ( Dyer, 1997: 3).

In a society where Black people are pressured to perform and achieve ( Byng, 2017; Fapuro, 2020; Asare, 2021), a problematic Black Excellence discourse is evident ( Kryemateng, 2019; Underwood, 2020; Moore, 2021; Ford, 2022; Yousof, 2022). As we do not have the privilege to just be okay ( Gomez, 2021), Black Excellence enforces an ableist culture of overwork to be seen as human.

In order to be viewed within the construct of 'human being', Black people are thus pressured to perform, in proximity to the white state as part of the capitalist modes of production ( Marx and Engels, 1848). Or as one YouTuber stated, "Black excellence is a scam" ( Alicia Renece The Artist, 2021), situated as "the notion that black people who are educated, smart, articulate, poised, and basically every other positive adjective ... are ... rarities among the general black population" ( Celluoid in Black and White, 2015). If we do not perform, Black people are discarded under a rubric of racial capitalism ( Robinson, 1983; Leong, 2013). Within Black spaces in the global west, a 'hustle culture' exists as internalised capitalism that imposes guilt when resting, whilst having Black and other racially minoritised groups who have been formerly colonised, to continue to live in survival mode ravaged by the system. Our humanity is temporary, based on ability to 'meaningfully' contribute while anybody who cannot work, is viewed as less than - including Black children, the elderly, and disabled people.

***

Considering documentaries as another vessel for this discussion, Una Marson: Our Lost Caribbean Voice ( Russell, 2022) frames Una Marson as the first Black producer at the BBC. It situates her life as one of service, whilst showing how the BBC valued her labour, not her humanity - leading to Una experiencing mental health problems and being incarcerated on a psychiatric ward. She then died early at sixty years old. This story was one framed of excellence, not ableism, enforced through the capitalist modes of production with an onus on labour. These framings 'superhumanise' the lives of Black historical figures only valuable as labour-contingent outputs, their existence "spectacularised" ( DeBord, 1967). The way Black pasts and presents are framed is focused on what we did / do, not who we are.

Historically constructed white supremacist barriers prevented Black people from ascending in the global west, so, many would suggest "... it is important to showcase those who have been able to advance despite the insurmountable odds created by global racism and anti-blackness" ( Celluoid in Black and White, 2015). In my view, however, 'Black firsts' are not an achievement, but a recognition of white supremacy as a social discourse of violence ( DuBois, 1920; Baldwin, 1965; Lorde, 1984; hooks, 1992; Seshadri-Crooks, 2000; Ahmed, 2004; Eddo-Lodge, 2017; Pérez, 2022).

White supremacy as a social and political structure ( Mills, 2003) foregrounds a public monument culture that not only others Black and Brown people based on labour ( Bhattacharyya, 2018), but also treats the Black people's labour as the focal point through which Black life is accepted in Black British historical narratives. For example, the life of African Tudor John Blanke is told through his job as a trumpeter in the courts of Henry VIII ( Habib, 2008: 40). So, in the British context, the state facilitates a set of rules for remembrance situated around Black high-achievers through labour. Therefore, us Black people who just want to live without the pressure of being excellent, are stigmatised.

Black people are not Gods, and these monument games are unhelpful, with Black excellence "centred as the kid to impress" ( Kinouani, 2021: 162). In a blog post for London School of Economics, historian Pippa Catterall ( 2020) discusses the role of monuments in public spaces, arguing "... they represent what people in the past chose to celebrate and memorialise." For example, in Northamptonshire there is a growing interest in Walter Tull, one of the first men of African descent to reach the rank of officer in the British Army and to play first class English football ( Vasili, 2009; Costello, 2015; Ventour-Griffiths, 2021).

However, one could argue humans have a long history of following those with 'great power' manifesting cultural icons like Tull in our own image. What is interesting is the mainstream media's disposition to criticise statues of 'bad white people' ( Senior, 2020), ahead of any debates about hero worship or analysis of why we have statues whatsoever, even for figures we may admire or respect.

In 2022, my local newspaper Northampton Chronicle revived support for Tull to gain his own statue in London and to be posthumously awarded the Military Cross ( Marr, 2022). Here, I question why the media monumentalise him rather than question the white supremacy of the British Army in 1914 - as "Commissions in the Special Reserve of Officers are given to qualified candidates who are natural born or naturalised British subjects of pure European descent" ( H.M Stationary Office, 1914: 196).

Just like the Royal Navy was once tasked with protecting ships full of enslaved Africans as British property in the eighteenth century ( Bellamy, 2018), Black soldiers fought in the Napoleonic Wars ( Moss, 2016; Costello, 2022). They were doing imperial work as agents of white supremacy like the military does now ( Miller, 2021). Meanwhile, Black soldiers in the present and in the world wars are celebrated for their service. Yet, racism in the British armed forces is endemic and continues to this day ( Allen, 2020), as Black assimilation into violent systems like the military and Honours list is celebrated.

Figures like Walter Tull and decorated Trinidadian RAF pilot Ulric Cross are celebrated as war heroes rather than critiqued within the military as an imperialistic construct part white supremacy. After all, it is far easier to campaign for the dead than to deal with the problems faced by the living.

***

Comic book media as cultural texts may act as allegorical for public admiration for monuments or superpowered beings. For example, Steve Rogers who became Captain America 'to do his bit' during a fictionalised Second World War ( Johnston, 2011), was made a fugitive seventy years later when he was accused of 'assassinating' Nick Fury ( Russo & Russo, 2014). The 'war hero' mythology of Captain America was compromised when he starts to investigate espionage agency SHIELD. He desired to be more than a symbol - a man - as monuments are not embodied by sentient traits, but human projections.

Public battles over statues, heritage, and culture, amid the conversations around 'revere or remove' are further mirrored in comics ( Millar, McNiven et al, 2007; Bendis, Marquez et al, 2016). The film Captain America: Civil War ( Russo & Russo, 2016) may act as a further allegory for what happens when humans are monumentalised and do not meet human expectations - as what also occurred with 'Old Man Bat' in DC's The Dark Knight Returns ( Millar, Janson et al, 1986; Oliva, Kane et al, 2013).

A decade after Batman's retirement, he returns to a Gotham besieged by violent crime. Forced to act, now fifty-five years old, Batman is no bars holds - matching this new generation of violent criminals in kind. The state will no longer tolerate him: James Gordon has retired, and a less tolerant Ellen Yindel is commissioner. With Batman positioned by the state as unamerican, his all-American antithesis Superman is called by gun-ho President Ronald Reagan to confront him. Batman is a pragmatist, now viewed as 'unrespectable' and unable to meet the human expectation of absolute virtue.

The same rubric of monumentalism that permeates superhero mythology can be contrasted against monuments in our world. Public monuments at large project a 'need' for a saviour to pile all our hopes on. In Northampton, soldier and footballer Walter Tull is celebrated with a statue at The Guildhall ( Newsroom, 2018), further to a pub as an honourific ( Greene King, 2022), ironically owned by Greene King founded by enslaver Benjamin Greene who is named in compensation records ( LBS, 2022). So, much alike Windrush Square in Brixton, the Mary Seacole statue at St Thomas' Hospital, and streets named for colonisers, this shows the relationship politics has with power. As the "knowledge that exists at any given time, the facts that are deemed incontrovertible, and the discoveries that it is possible to make, are in fact heavily influenced by that same era's power relations" ( Tom Nicholas, 2019).
Neoliberal Tales to Astonish
Scholar-YouTuber Tom Nicholas ( 2019 b) defines neoliberalism as a "political ideology which holds that the primary bond between humans is ... purely economic. All of our interactions ... with other humans are neoliberal posits, driven ... on self-interest" ( 1:42-1:54). The 'liberal' part of the term 'neoliberalism' is something of "a corruption of the term" ( Friedman, 2002: 6). It takes its meaning from the historic definition of the Georgian and Victorian eras promoting a person's right to use their money how they see fit, especially if they have money in abundance ( Tom Nicholas, 2019).

Neoliberal Britain has largely been criticised in the context of immigration ( Vernon, 2021), education and healthcare ( Maisuria and Cole, 2017; Radojevic, 2019), but these critiques can be equally levied at how the state, as well as publishing institutions, have decided to position Black British historical remembrance. The way Black British histories are framed then - for example in the case of the Windrush - is largely a history of overwork. In their case, this may appear as "good immigrants" ( Shukla, 2016) including their value to public sector institutions ( Chimara, 2016; Olusoga, 2019; Henry, 2021).

***

Some may believe that monumentalism stops at statues, but I believe it is an idea and ideas can manifest beyond the street. For example, how the British Crown as a monument was also rooted in street parties which formed part of a cultural narrative during the Jubilee ( Ventour, 2022; 2022b).

Focuses on capacities to labour and Black proximity to the white establishment come conjoined. E.g., Angelina Osbourne and Patrick Vernon, ( 2021) show many Black figures are highlighted for labour contributions. In their book, they list numerous examples highlighting Black people in relation to functioning labels - such as Sharon White for business and Marvin Rees in politics - further to Bernadine Evaristo and Steve McQueen and for contributions to the literature and film.

Another example of praising Black labour in a capitalist system includes the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. This continues the precedent that Black achievement is exclusive to labour value within a capitalist system ( Nwanji, 2021). Conversations about Black 'okayness' appear beyond the interest of dominant narratives. Or as sociologist Corey Miles tweeted, "Y'all be praising black excellence but I support black aight-ness. We don't need to be excellent to be loved, celebrated, and valued ..." (@CoreyMiles).

State mythmaking compounded by public investment in 'hustle culture' has created an environment that prevents Black people, now and in the past, from being ( just) human. Irrespective of 'good' or 'bad' monuments, they are united in state acceptance: state monuments accredited to 'good Black people' - including Walter Tull, Mary Seacole, and the Windrush - are underpinned by 'exceptional' Black individuals platformed for their work. Walter Tull is spotlighted through contribution to sport and military ( Vasili, 2009), Mary Seacole is remembered for her work in healthcare ( Seacole, 1857; Gunning, 2001) and the Windrush are praised for labouring for the British state following the end of the Second World War ( Wambu, 1998; Levy, 2004; Connell, 2019; El-Enany, 2020; Gentleman, 2021).

***

At some point, we are met with the (un)ethical dilemma of aligning ourselves with such goings-on even when these organisations hinder our development. For some, the allure of association with the establishment is akin to a magic of being 'touched by divinity' in hope of 'fitting in'. In Caribbean Britain, Lenny Henry begins to explore assimilation and respectability politics. Imitating his Jamaican mother, he talks about the pressure to integrate:

"You have to h'integrate; you must go out amongst the people in Dudley and talk like them, talk to them, mingle with them, eat their food. Try not to box them down. H'ntergrate! Otherwise, you won't fit in" ( Henry, 2022 - 0:29-0:42).

There are growing numbers of us who do not want to be superheroes or included ( Ahmed, 2012). Not everyone needs to be an activist when we are simply trying to live. Most people are impacted by violence differently, and Black Excellence narratives distract us from challenging the legitimacy of the cage ( Davis, 2003; Elliot-Cooper, 2021; Simpson, 2021). In our 'complaint' ( Ahmed, 2021) of gifted and excellence frameworks we may be rendered problematic by other Black people - as Sara Ahmed ( 2020) writes for Feminist Killjoys, "If you have to shout because you are not heard, you are heard as shouting."
Endgame
With each individualised narrative, I am reminded that I do not want the responsibility of saving other people. Nonetheless, humans have a long history of following those with power manifesting cultural icons in our own image and projecting our own values onto them. From Jesus to Obama and the late Queen Elizabeth II, there have been saviour figures across a swathe of political spectrums. Criticising colonial statues is easy; what's uncomfortable is challenging monuments of 'good people' because it makes us look within ourselves. Or as author Chinua Achebe said, "You must criticise yourself ... you do not accept anything except the best from your people" (in: Africa Turns the Page, 11:03-11:16).

The fact we expect 'our heroes' to be all-good and 'our villains' to be all-evil is part of the problem. Are we destined to walk this path of absolutes forever, or will we evolve? I will not make excuses for colonial statues; however, monuments to 'evil white people' and 'good Black people' both sprout from the same ideology of control, where "... the ruling ideas, i.e the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is ... its ruling intellectual force. The class which has means of material productions ... has control ... over the means of mental production" ( Marx and Engels, 1845).

Statues to all public figures are a result of the same ruling ideology. The fact we gained statues of Mary Seacole, Walter Tull and the Windrush in the last few years may be indicative of what the state accepts as 'good Black British history' - in juxtaposition to the statue of Jen Reid, the protester that replaced Edward Colston. It stood for less than a day before being removed ( Dwyer, 2020). If we are to advocate for the removal of colonial statues, this passion must be for all state statues, even for figures we like.

As far as Black Excellence, public monumentalism shows us Black icons are (and were) not people of absolute virtue. The invocation of exclusively positive human qualities onto sentient life is a disservice to the experience of life itself. For Black people, this reflects how the 'official' Black British history is remembered. We are not messiahs. Yet, it looks like aspiring to Black alrightness is treated as a thoughtcrime - and in such a provocation, we must confess our sins or risk a lightning bolt.

Tre Ventour: Bio

Tré Ventour-G riffiths is a poet, journalist, creative (writer), and public historian-sociologist whose work can be broadly contained within Black British histories, neurodiversity, racialisation and intersectionality. An interdisciplinary thinker, his work has been used in disciplines that include English literature, screen studies, neuroscience, and criminology. Tré is also a PhD student at Kingston University and his research is centred around Northamptonshire's Caribbean Windrush story. His further research includes whiteness in British television and disablement while Black. His work on period drama in particular, has also been used in educational contexts, no less than his writing on Jane Austen, racism and Regency whiteness. Outside of his studies, he is an Associate Lecturer in Criminology at a university - and further delivers freelance education sessions to organisations on Black British history, race, and disability. His work is available online and in-print and is always looking to connect with others. To enquire further, please Email: tre@treventour.com

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The House of Black X-Cellence: Monument Culture...

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And the Spectacularised Black British Past Introduction If we can talk about 'Black Excellence' without also discussing Black okayness, there is something wrong - worsened by a culture of Black British historical remembrance that places 'remember-worthiness' only as far as our labour contributions. Whilst in cases this may be due to violent erasure in the...

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The Empire Shuts Its Mouth || Nenequirer, 2017

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The Empire Shuts Its Mouth || Nenequirer, 2017

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Writer Tré Ventour asks Does Britain Really Have Historical Amnesia? as he reflects on his experience as a young black man educated in Britain. When you’re a member of a West Indian family and hav…

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No More Black Messiahs: Let Black History Bask in Ordinariness - Thinking About Black Excellence in the Life of Walter Tull || Leeds Beckett, 2021

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No More Black Messiahs: Let Black History Bask in Ordinariness - Thinking About Black Excellence in the Life of Walter Tull || Leeds Beckett, 2021

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Thinking About Black Excellence in the Life of Walter Tull

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Green Unpleasant Land || Corinne Fowler, 2020

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Green Unpleasant Land || Corinne Fowler, 2020

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https://library.lol/main/393ACD965B9822ECDB95E69A2B6089FB

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&dash; Home of the Best in Caribbean & Black British Writing &dash;

Creative Responses to Rural England's Colonial Connections

Classification

Creative Non-Fiction

Date published

Green Unpleasant Land explores the countryside's repressed colonial past and demonstrates its importance as a source of ideas about Englishness.

The book presents historical evidence to show that rural England was a place of conflict and global expansion. It also examines four centuries of literary response to explore how race, class and gender have both created and deconstructed England's pastoral mythologies. In particular, the book argues that Black and British Asian writers have challenged narrow, nostalgic views of rural England but also expressed attachment to English landscapes and the natural world.

The book questions the countryside's reputation as a retreat from urban life. It interrogates the idea that country houses are models for civilised living or that moorlands are places of freedom. It presents new perspectives on the "English" flora and fauna that feature in literature, parks, allotments and suburban gardens. The book reconsiders a range of rural locations through the lens of British colonial involvement, including East India Company activity and the slavery business. The book connects England's outward-reaching histories to what was happening in the countryside: the enclosure of common land, the beginnings of industrial mass farming and the reshaping of landownership through imperial profits. In bringing together histories usually separated by the Atlantic, Green Unpleasant Land makes connections, for instance, between the rebellion of enslaved people for their freedom in Jamaica in 1831, and the struggles of English agricultural workers in the Captain Swing uprising of the same year.

But Green Unpleasant Land is more than an academic study - accessibly written as it is - because it contains a section of Corinne Fowler's own stories and poems written in response to the research she has undertaken and the material objects she has encountered. It is a personal story, too, of her own family relationship to transatlantic enslavement.

Green Unpleasant Land should make uncomfortable reading for anyone who wants to uphold nostalgic views of rural England. The heatedness of the recent media response to such work shows just what is at stake: a selective vision of nation that underplays the impact of four colonial centuries, or a vision that embraces, as Paul Gilroy expresses it, a post-imperial 'convivial culture'.

Share this book

&dash; Home of the Best in Caribbean & Black British Writing &dash;

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dash; Home of the Best in Caribbean & Black British Writing ‐ Creative Responses to Rural England's Colonial Connections Classification Creative Non-Fiction Date published Green Unpleasant Land explores the countryside's repressed colonial past and demonstrates its importance as a source of ideas about Englishness.

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Mixed-Heritage Identity Has Plurality: On Being Irish, Jamaican, and Black || Medium, 2020

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Mixed-Heritage Identity Has Plurality: On Being Irish, Jamaican, and Black || Medium, 2020

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Mixed-Race Identity Has Plurality: On Being Irish, Jamaican, and Black

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Mixed-Race Identity Has Plurality: On Being Irish, Jamaican, and Black. It wasn't until I was twenty years old that I found out I come from a very recent Mixed-Race background - when my father told me my....

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‘Roots of the Windrush Scandal Go Much Further Back Than We Think’ || Medium + NN Journal, 2021

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‘Roots of the Windrush Scandal Go Much Further Back Than We Think’ || Medium + NN Journal, 2021

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When NorFAMtoN CEO Shereen Ingram asked me to join her project to help members of Northampton's Windrush Generation, I jumped at the opportunity without a second thought, to give back to the people that raised me. I am still firmly of the belief that the village raises the child and for me, that village was Northampton's Caribbean communities recalling my sites of childhood like the former-West Indian club on Claire Street. Additionally, watching men like my grandfather play steelpan across Northampton, including Monks Park Working Men's Club on the Wellingborough Road bringing communities together over the melodies of my countrypeople.

This project has been invaluable to the community (Photographer: Kevin Stoney)

Steel drums finds its history in the oil industry of Caribbean, wrought in the violence of White corporations and Black labour of the 20th century. However, what came out of that in this music is beautiful - and before this project, I never really felt that connected to those islands in the Caribbean but now I feel the link between myself, Britain and my grandparents' countries as inextricable. The Noels and the Ventours came to Britain and hence Northampton in the late 1950s early 1960s. Northampton has not been the same since. Going door-to-door with Shereen and co with hampers for my grandparents' generation, has only made me appreciate them even more than I already did. A initiative under non-profit , I was part of the 'Windrush Generation Doorstep Befriending Team' where we delivered Caribbean-specific hampers and fresh meals to members of the Windrush in Northamptonshire. With the arrival of the lockdowns due to the pandemic, we saw increases in loneliness, fear, and food poverty in Caribbean elders due to them not be able to get to the shops to get their usual cultural requirements. The Windrush Doorstep Befriending Team acted as a lifeline to Black Caribbean elders, though reliant on the goodwill of volunteers delivering a service that should have been filled by the local authorities.

As the hampers' products were sourced from local Black and independent businesses including Boxfood, Vicky's Kitchen and Mandala Moon Therapy, it gave some respite to a people that have often been responsible to help and economically support relatives in the Caribbean as well. But speaking with Shereen these last few weeks and absorbing her passion for this work, as a descendant of the Windrush herself, we talked on how the national press' critiques of the Windrush Scandal did not go far enough in their analysis. The Boxfood initiative showed me how the work we were doing was also a Black Lives Matter issue and inherently anti-racist. Furthermore, I also began to think original exposés by the national papers on the Windrush Scandal were not critical enough in their analysis which only covered seventy or so years.

To understand contempt for Black lives in the British context we must go back centuries, and in 1562 a trader by the name of Sir John Hawkins set sail for the west coast of Africa acquiring into his possession a few hundred enslaved Africans, going on to sell them in the slave markets of Spanish America.

Queen Elizabeth I was so impressed, she funded a return trip. However, it was not until the 17th century that British colonialism took root in the Caribbean starting in 1627 with arrival of men like Christopher Codrington in Barbados. So, to understand the Windrush Scandal we must go back to the days of White masters and enslaved Black people, where the conceptualisation of a White race and a Black race were constructed, and then imported into the Caribbean from Britain. And whilst today the Government put the economy first in their Coronavirus strategy, members of the Windrush that are both Black and elderly were bludgeoned by the intersectional violence where racism and ageism interlock to create something devastating. Further to the fact many of this generation may also be working-class and living alone.

Intersectionality continues to be threaded through this story and though the NorFAMtoN project is necessary, it is filling a gap that should have been filled by the local authorities in a world that follows the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, where we know racial inequalities have exasperated since March 2020. The Windrush Scandal exists unabated in a society where Black and Brown ministers in the Government continue to act as the diversity bunting of institutional racism. In Northampton, we have seen members of the Windrush experiencing food poverty, loneliness, and isolation compounded by the racism in British society at large. Yet, anti-Black racism in Britain has a history that goes back centuries both in this country and its former colonies. Working with Shereen these last few weeks as well as looking at the Black Lives Matter resurgence last year, reveals to me that in order to understand what is continuing now with the Windrush Scandal, we must also trace this history back to Britain and the Caribbean in the 17th and 18th century.

It forces us to look at policies of institutional racism in not just enslavement as a White supremacist system, but also during the world wars, pertinently after WW1 which was followed by the 1919 Race Riots in many places including London, Salford, Glasgow, Cardiff, and across Tyneside.

And with the ongoing hostile environment machine and the Windrush Scandal, I am brought to look at the everlasting relevance of community organising in a Britain where Black lives are continuously thrown under the weight of White supremacy - from disproportionate police stop and searches of Black people to a school curriculum that is White supremacist by design.

Coming into proximity with the local Windrush elders here, and after many conversations with my grandparents, the work I have contributed to with NorFAMtoN resulted in an a long-read article Writing this, I make links between the Windrush Scandal today and the racisms of yesterday, including that of the First World War and enslavement - where the actions of colonisers during the slave-trading era are still influencing the world we live in now.

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'Roots of the Windrush Scandal Go Much Further Back Than We Think'

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When NorFAMtoN CEO Shereen Ingram asked me to join her project to help members of Northampton's Windrush Generation, I jumped at the opportunity without a second thought, to give back to the people...

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Matta Fancanta Youth Members Take Over Disused Salvation Army Hall As Day Centre] feat. Lee Bryant, Pedro Samuel and Sarah Berry || ITN, 1977

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Matta Fancanta Youth Members Take Over Disused Salvation Army Hall As Day Centre] feat. Lee Bryant, Pedro Samuel and Sarah Berry || ITN, 1977

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Anglia Television news report and interviews with members of the Black youth led Matta Fancanta Movement.

Members of the Matta Fancanta Youth Movement have taken occupation of the disused Salvation Army Citadel, using it as a base for group members, all black youths, the majority British-born, to take part in recreational activities and religious study. Interview with Lee Bryant, Vice-Chairman of the Movement, and a second member of the group, who both explain their reasons for occupying the hall; mainly arguing a lack of facilities for young black citizens, who feel socially marginalised and alienated when attending other premises. Interview with Sarah Berry, Northampton Community Relations officer, who argues the group's occupation of the hall will make the public aware of the problems that young black people face, often socially disadvantaged, for example with regard to employment and education. Sarah Berry also hopes the movement will empower other community groups to take similar action.

Featured Buildings

The Salvation Army Citadel

Keywords

Race relations; Racial discrimination; Social issues; Youth Movements

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Anglia Television news report and interviews with members of the Black youth led Matta Fancanta Movement.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/northamptonshire/content/articles/2005/01/29/trevor_hall_feature.shtml

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MFM - Matta Fancanta Movement || Facebook Page

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MFM - Matta Fancanta Movement || Facebook Page

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MFM - Matta Fancanta Movement. 298 likes. MFM "Come Guide Yourself" a base set up in the 70s by a group of Black youth to meet share and learn

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Northampton(shire) as Rural History || akhi&saltfish podcast with Kahvan Bryan

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Northampton(shire) as Rural History || akhi&saltfish podcast with Kahvan Bryan

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"Black British History happened everywhere..not just the cities" | Historian, Tré Ventour | BOFD #37

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Tré Ventour Ed | Twitter, Instagram, Facebook | Linktree

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View treventoured's Linktree. Listen to their music on YouTube, Spotify here.

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Publications
Selected Publications:
2023 "I Am Kenough": Guy DeBord, Barbie, and The Society of the Spectacle (Medium)

- Get Out of Midsomer: How the Whiteness of Country Estates Should Go Bump in the Night (Medium)

- Big Trees/Small Axe: Does the UK Honours System Divide and Rule Black British Culture? (The Commoner)

- COVID-1984: Wake MBE Up When Black Lives Matter, in: COVID-19 and Racism: Counter-Stories of Colliding Pandemics (Policy Press).

- Think of the Autistic Black Children, in Part of the Story That Started Before Me: Poems About Black British History (Penguin Random House).

2022 The House of Black X-Cellence: Public Monumentalism and the Spectacularised Black British Past (Race Reflections).

- Northampton's Infinite Playlist: Whiteness, the Arts, and the Land of Shoe and Boot in Cahoots (PubPub).

- Can You Support BLM and the Monarchy? (The Nenequirer).

- 1919, The Year History Forgot: Riot and Interraciality in a Decolonial School Curriculum (Masters Thesis).

2021 Man-Made: For The Victims And Survivors Of Male Violence And The System That Enables It (Ink, Sweat and Tears).

- Comment: Exploring Northamptonshire's Black debt (NN Journal).

- No More Black Messiahs: Let Black History Bask in Ordinariness: Thinking About Black Excellence in the Life of Walter Tull. (Leeds).

2020 To Decolonise Creative Writing, You Need to Embrace Its Activist History (WonkHE).

2019 Historical, Not Hysterical: Beyond The Long Song (Medium).

2018 The Amazing Adventures of Walter Tull (The Nenequirer)

2017 The Empire Shuts Its Mouth (The Nenequirer)

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Tré Ventour-Griffiths - Research degree students - Kingston University London

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Selected Publications: 2023 "I Am Kenough": Guy DeBord, Barbie, and The Society of the Spectacle (Medium) - Get Out of Midsomer: How the Whiteness of Country Estates Should Go Bump in the Night (Medium) - Big Trees/Small Axe: Does the UK Honours System Divide and Rule Black British Culture?