LeftLion October 2023 Issue 164

Credits

Al-chilles

Alan Gilby (alan.gilby@leftlion.co.uk)

Featured Contributor

Editor-in-Chief Jared Wilson (jared.wilson@leftlion.co.uk)

Editor Sophie Gargett (sophie.gargett@leftlion.co.uk)

Assistant Editor Gemma Cockrell (gemma.cockrell@leftlion. co.uk)

Head Designer Natalie Owen (natalie.owen@leftlion.co.uk)

Head of Video and Photography Curtis Powell (curtis.powell@leftlion.co.uk)

Partnerships Manager Adam Pickering (adam.pickering@leftlion.co.uk)

Partnerships Assistant Lottie Murray (lottie.murray@leftlion.co.uk)

Fashion Editor Addie Kenogbon (fashion@leftlion.co.uk)

Stage Co-Editor Ian C. Douglas (ian@leftlion.co.uk)

Stage Co-Editor Dom Henry (dom.henry@leftlion.co.uk)

Screen Co-Editor George White (george.white@leftlion.co.uk)

Curtis first joined the LeftLion team in July 2017 to work on video and photography projects. Over the last six years he has worked on various projects, including taking many of the photos that appear in this magazine. He has also made a lot of videos for us. It’s hard to pick out favourites, but if you twisted our arm we’d point you to his animation work on our awardwinning feature ‘The Lord of Milan’ and his ‘Voices From A Rebel City’ feature with the Kanneh-Mason family. He has also been busy outside of LeftLion working on music videos for the likes of Bru-C (see Inhaler on

supporters

Screen Co-Editor Oliver Parker (oliver.parker@leftlion.co.uk)

Music Editor Maddie Dinnage (music@leftlion.co.uk)

Food Editor Julia Head (food@leftlion.co.uk)

Photography Co-Editor Fabrice Gagos (fabrice.gagos@leftlion.co.uk)

Photography Co-Editor Nathan Langman (nathan.langman@leftlion.co.uk)

Art Editor George Dunbar (art@leftlion.co.uk)

Distribution Dom Martinovs

Environment Editor Eleanor Flowerday (environment@leftlion.co.uk)

Cover Laura Decorum

Guest Editor

Addie Kenogbon

Raphic Designer

Raphael Achache

Editorial Interns

Beth Green

Writers CeCe

Jonathan Doering

Nadia Whittome

Photographers

Daniel Hughes

Jaclyn Nash

Honey Williams

Perm Ghattaura

Peter Richardson

Romany Francesca

Tom Morley

Willard Wigan

Illustrators

Alex Black Rikki Marr

Youtube which has 7.3million views and counting), Vandal Savage, Snowy and others. He’s also been known to DJ in various venues around town under the name LVNDLXRD

This issue marks his swansong from LeftLion as he’s moving onto a new role with the University of Nottingham. He'll be missed around the office, but it’s nice he’s bowing out on an issue that he’s been intrinsically involved in. Watch out for the videos he’s creating to accompany our Windrush interviews and the Our Yard documentary.

These people #SupportLeftLion

Alison Gove-Humphries, Alison Hedley, Alison Knox, Anamenti, Ant Haywood, Audrey & Lizzy & Margot, Barbara Morgan, Cat Sharpe, Cerys Gibson, Chloe Langley, Chris Jarvis, Chris Underwood, Claire Foss, Clare Foyle, Cyra Golijani-Moghaddam, Dan Hemmings, David Knight, Dick Watson, Donna Rowe-Merriman, Eden PR, Erika Diaz Petersen, Harry Sutcliffe, Hayley Howard, Hazel Allister, Heather Oliver, Holly's Merry Moggies, Harry Turner, Ian Carroll, Ian Phillips, Ian Storey, Ian Yanson, James Place, Janine Lees, John Haslam, John Hess, John Holmes, John Scruton, Jon Blyth, Joshua Heathcote, Julian Bower, Justyn Roberts, Kathleen Dunham, Kay Gilby, Kiki Dee the Cat, Lilian Greenwood, Livi & Jacob Nieri, Louise Duffield, Marc Weaver, Mark Barratt, Mark Gasson, Matt Turpin, Matthew Riches, Michael Mc, Mighty Lightweights, MinorOak Coworking, Miri Debah, Monica White, Nigel Cooke, Nigel King, NottingJam Orchestra, Paul Boast, Paul Wentworth, Pearl Quick, Peter Hamilton Family, Rach, Rachel Ayrton, Rachel Morton, Raphael Achache, Redbrick Communications, Richard Goodwin, Rob Arthur, Roy Manterfield, Russell Brown, Sam Hudson, Sam Stiling, Sarah Manton, Selectadisc, Simon Evans, Steve Benton, Steve Lyon, Steve Wallace, Sue Barsby, Sue Reader, Tracey Newton, Will Horton

Fancy seeing your name (or the name of your band, small business, loved one, pet etc) in this mag every month? It only costs a fiver and the money supports this magazine. Plus you get all kinds of other treats too. patreon.com/leftlion

Literature Editor Andrew Tucker (literature@leftlion.co.uk)

Nottingham’s Windrush Generation

In celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Windrush generation, we have been working with the NAE and their YOUnity Commission funded by Freelands Foundation

Sheriff’s's in Town

Soul Sisters

We spoke to Melonyx all about the inspirations behind their debut album Soul Glow, working with Joe Buhdha, and what’s coming up for them later this year

Everyone has heard of the High Sheriff of Nottingham, but what does the job entail in the modern age?

Falling and Flying with Jorja Smith

Multi-award winning artist and Midlands lass Jorja Smith has fast become one of the UK’s most iconic neo soul voices

The Honey Effect

Working as an artist, graphic designer, DJ and musical performer, it seems Honey Williams’ creativity holds no bounds

Can You Digg It?

Jah Digga’s passion for music that led him into taking a mentor role for the youth, at St Ann’s Community Recording Studio (CRS)

3Miniature Masterpieces

Since April, Dr. Willard Wigan MBE’s Miniature Masterpieces exhibition has been available to view for free at Wollaton Hall

41

A Yard Act To Follow

Starting as a clothing shop, Mimm has evolved into a community hub for the vast amount of creatives residing in the city

Getting Hooked

Born out of a lockdown hobby, Nottingham premium knitwear brand Rose & Wül has since amassed an ever-growing following

Accidental Poet

We spoke to Ravelle-Sadé Fairman about performing on stage, inspiring young writers and being an accidental poet

Len’s In Focus Writer, photojournalist, poet and activist, Len Garrison was one of Britain’s leading historians on Black history, with much of his work based here in Notts

Yello Yard

Yello Yard’s Jowayne Marks and Mahalia Chambers have been slinging Jamaican patties and other Caribbean treats around Notts since 2020

Best of October

Looking for things to do this month? From Hockley Hustle to Casino Zero, we’ve got you covered

editorial leF tlion in the wild

Welcome to a very special edition of LeftLion, in celebration of Black History Month. It was a real honour to guest edit this month’s issue and to help shine a light on the many talented Black people who call Nottingham and the UK home. And these are just a few. In fact, Notts has a long list of Black icons who have played a big part in making our city what it is today.

Whether its former slave and Nottingham’s first Black entrepreneur, George Africanus who went on to change the course of history for many Black people who came after him, paving the way for many future Nottingham trailblazers. Or, Eric Irons who was appointed as the UK’s first Black magistrate in 1962 and went on to

inspire thousands of budding lawyers and dreamers over the past sixty years. And you can’t talk of Nottingham’s Black history without mentioning the Windrush generation, who left home 75 years ago to board the HMT Empire Windrush, and to whom we owe our gratitude and respect. Their indelible mark on the city can be seen in all walks of life today. This month’s magazine features Black voices and inspirational stories across the whole magazine from art to music, literature to fashion, sports, environment and everything in between. Join us as we celebrate Nottingham’s Black history, the LeftLion way.

Addie Kenogbon

Claire Jones

New member of the pride

Tag us on Instagram @ leftlionmagazine to feature in a future issue.

LeftLion Ltd is a carbon neutral company, having reduced our direct emissions by 99% since 2018. We offset the rest via direct air capture from Climeworks. LeftLion Magazine is fully recyclable and compostable, made from recycled or FSC® certified (C015932) sources, and printed using renewable energy. The emissions of this paper are offset via the World Land Trust.

UNDERCOVER ARTIST

Hi there, my name is Laura Decorum and I guess I'm a lowbrow surrealist painter, muralist, workshop facilitator, illustrator and face-painter, living and working in Nottingham as well as surrounding cities.

The inspiration for this cover was actually the Bob Marley lyrics to Redemption Song: “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds” and a very old photograph I found of a matriarch of my family.

Oh, good grief! What a relaxing project this was! This was a joy to paint to be honest and a nice change to work on a smaller scale which I hadn't done for a short while. The biggest challenge was in choosing who or what to depict for this cover as this could have gone a lot of ways. Rather, I chose to paint a woman I admire who doesn't ever let life get her down that I am privileged enough to call my grandmother.

With regards to previous projects in the past year, I have worked on Bridlesmith Gate in Nottingham city centre, producing a three storey mural of a robotic lady, and have not long had an exhibition upstairs in the New Art Exchange with two other black female local artists. Kim Thompson and Paula De Pontes, amongst many other projects like painting buses and live murals for Green Hustle and lots and lots of other things.

I don't like to talk too much about my upcoming projects if I'm honest. But I will let you have this; I'm involved in a project currently in Bink's Yard, and you'll find me painting live at Hockey Hustle so come and say hello. But that's all I'm prepared to say. I like the air of mystery.

I can't think of anything else to tell you, other than you're a lovely bunch in Nottingham and that I hope you're all as kind to yourselves as you are to each other as we embark on these darker winter months. And also I hope you like my cover for the LeftLion.

Pick Six

Avoid Charlie, he's spreading the clap round Nottingham something ridiculous. He reckons he's going to get cancelled

He said he was gonna two-foot me. I only asked for a day off

Mum to young child: no you’re not redecorating your room Child: you can’t stop me I’ve already got a floor plan

You don’t even know if it’s your kid and you're buying designer clothes for it

I think my arms are too long, I mean this is a lot of reach to have

This month we caught up with Saziso Phiri, curator, writer and Associate Artistic Director at New Art Exchange, to find out her top picks.

Film

I don’t watch many new films these days. I have a short attention span when it comes to going to the cinema, however, I recently streamed Air, which is about how Nike fought to sign Michael Jordan. It’s a nice film that also gives an insight into the events that led to the birth of the Jordan brand and how influential his mum was in enabling it! There’s also a Matt Damon and Ben Affleck partnership which is nice to see as I think they work so well together and have great chemistry on screen. Also nice to see Chris Rock back in action too!

Book

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo is a book about a young girl called Darling who dreams of leaving Zimbabwe to go and live with her aunt in the States in search of greener pastures. A story that many immigrants, not just from Zimbabwe can relate to. I was very fortunate to have worked on an oral history project inspired by the book called We Need New Stories, where young people documented the stories of people who were born in Zimbabwe who had moved to Nottingham over the last five decades. A lot of the stories had crossover with Darling’s, and even my own family members who moved to the UK and Americas in search of a better life, not realising that the grass isn’t always greener.

Music

I have been listening to a lot of Amapiano recently, which is a subgenre of House music that originated in South Africa. I love it for its distinguishable and infectious percussion and piano/keyboard melodies, and that it very much gives 90s dance music vibes. When I was younger, I was obsessed with Kwaito, another type of House that originated from South Africa that rose to prominence in the 90s, and which Amapiano is influenced by.

My eyeballs are sweating

Who had the malignant humour removed from the team that put this out?

I can find deeper voiced squirrels that have had more profound and interesting incidents in Notts

Person 1: We always used to say we’ve got a woman in every team Person 2: Where were you working? We’ve gor’em all ovah the place!

What crisps you got for babies?

I'd

childrenforgotten had ears

Did you used to fold over the skin above your knee and pretend it was a person?

Meal

Can we talk about the NAE Cafebar’s fantastic 100% plant-based menu! One of the best art gallery cafes I have been to and very different to the tea and cake only option you’ll find at a lot of other galleries. The cafe runs Community Cafe on the 3rd Thursday of every month where people can enjoy a two-course plant-based meal on a pay what you can basis. Each month is inspired by cuisine from a specific country. September’s was Nigerian-themed.

Holiday destination

I am currently writing this as I holiday in Zimbabwe, where my parents were born. It’s my first time back in the country in 22 years. I have been road-tripping across the country with family and have spent a couple of days at Mosi-Oa-Tunya (The Smoke that Thunders), which is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and the largest curtain of falling water in the world (height and width combined). Most people know it by its colonial name, Victoria Falls. I was scared to go there when I was younger, as I have a fear of large bodies of water, and I am so glad I overcame that because it’s so beautiful. There’s also a rainforest there, and lots of incredible wildlife that you’d never see round our neck of the woods.

Nottingham spots

Those who know me know that I am a coffee snob. I only found out about it a month ago (ashamedly as a Nottingham art person), but Beam Editions bookshop has a cafe at Primary on Seely Road that does some of the most incredible coffee I have ever tasted in MY LIFE! It’s such a lovely airy space, and their bookshop is such a treat with a variety of publications, some made by Beam themselves. Dangerous for my wallet though!

Sherwood in Nottingham Community Group

*Picture of a hedgehog cuddly toy*

Person 1: Hey guys! New pet owner here- I’ve just rescued a hedgehog from the side of the road and named him Dave. I’ve just tried to feed him some lettuce but he’s turning his nose up at it! Can anyone give any advice on what I should feed him ? Desperate for answers he looks very hungry

Person 2: He’s probably full. He looks stuffed.

Beeston Updated

Person 1: To whomever made the post box topper for the bottom of Inham Rd, there was a very confused wasp on the pears earlier. So kudos to you, very lifelike

Person 2: I've some fake maple leaves with red berries in a planter, the birds have eaten 2 of the red foam berries!

Bulwell community

Anyone know why there's bare cop cars going through Bulwell?

Lenton in Nottingham Community Group

Hello l live just near Park St and unfortunately this large cat is

words: Dani Bacon

making my cats life a misery. If my cat is in the garden it will chase him and if he is inside by the patio doors it will run at them and try to get at my cat.

Spotted in Netherfield

What’s going on around here tonight! Feel like I’m living next to Silverstone racetrack!!!!

SNEINTON AND ST ANN’S COMMUNITY GROUP

Whoever keeps setting off fireworks during the day when you don't even get to SEE anything I just have to say... WHY?!

Beeston Updated

Thanks to the lady at the weir who lent me a poo bag so I can pick up a massive d1ld0 that my dog found on his walk this morning and dispose of it in the bin. He had a blast being chased around with it. I'm still creasing at the image of him running around the field with it flapping about in his mouth

Have you ever realised how surreal reading a book actually is? You stare at marked slices of tree for hours whilst hallucinating vividly.

Nadia on...

Nottingham’s Black Pioneers

Every year during Black History Month, I learn something new about our city’s past, and the huge role that Black communities have played in shaping it. Nottingham wouldn’t be the same without the many pioneering Black figures who called it home: from George Africanus, a former slave who became a successful entrepreneur, to Eric Irons, Britain’s first Black magistrate; Louise Garvey, a nurse who campaigned for equality in the health sector, or Des Wilson, our first Black Lord Mayor. It’s fantastic to see this history become more visible across the city; commemorated with plaques and murals, or buildings and buses named after prominent Black Nottingham residents.

As an MP of colour, I often emphasise that I stand on the shoulders of giants: of people who came before me and fought for their right to be heard. Among them were fellow parliamentarians, trailblazers like Bernie Grant and Diane Abbott, but also countless people whose names we don’t always remember, who for generations worked to challenge racism and lift up our communities. That’s why in this month’s column, I wanted to take the opportunity to pay tribute to two of those Black activists who had a profound impact on Nottingham, and who inspired me: George Powe and Valentine Nkoyo.

George Powe was born in Jamaica in 1926. At seventeen, he lied about his age to serve in the Royal Air Force during World War II. He then moved permanently to England, where he worked as an electrician and a maths teacher.

Witnessing widespread racial discrimination, George threw his energy into a long list of campaigns: he got the Raleigh bicycle company to overturn its ban on employing Black staff, led a campaign against a pub that refused to serve Black and white customers in the same room, and challenged Nottingham City Council over its policy of having a specific welfare officer to deal with complaints from Black residents, rather than speaking to them directly. In 1963, he became one of the UK’s first Black councillors, and later went on to establish the Afro-Caribbean National Artistic Centre in St. Ann’s. He was a lifelong socialist, trade unionist and campaigner for nuclear disarmament.

George passed away just over a decade ago, in September 2013. Sadly, I never had a chance to meet him. I heard tributes from those who had during the unveiling of a plaque in his memory in Mapperley, and it’s clear that he made a lasting impression on our local community.

I also know George from his writing. His pamphlet Don’t Blame the Blacks (which is available at the Five Leaves) is just as relevant today as when it was written in 1956. As a response to rising tensions between white British and migrant workers, Powe wrote a powerful appeal to working class unity.

“The first thing we must try to put over to each other is the fact that our struggle is the same, providing we have to sell our labour for a living,” wrote Powe. “It is always the policy of the ruling class to divide and conquer. The easiest way to achieve this is to have a scapegoat upon whom they can throw the blame for all the social ills.”

It’s striking how little has changed in those 67 years. Today, like then, migrants are being accused of ‘stealing’ jobs and driving down wages, blamed for overcrowded schools and long NHS queues. These arguments are very convenient for governments that have clamped down on workers’ rights and failed to raise living standards or invest in our public services. As Powe argued, the answer to deprivation is not turning against migrants, but working class people of all ethnicities organising together for their common interests.

Unlike George, the other person I wanted to celebrate in this piece is someone I was lucky enough to know personally. Valentine Nkoyo was born in Kenya, and from a young age she had to fight to receive the same education as boys did. As a teenager, she wrote a poem for her dad to convince him to allow her to stay at school. She came to Nottingham for her Masters degree, and stayed.

For nine years, she led the Mojatu Foundation, working to support and empower communities of colour, especially women and girls. In particular, she gained recognition for her work to combat female genital mutilation, something she experienced as a child. She organised events bringing together MPs, experts and FGM survivors, and her efforts led to Nottingham becoming the first UK city to declare zero tolerance for FGM.

I first met Valentine through one of my previous jobs, working on hate crime prevention. Her passion for change was contagious, and her expertise impressive. I learned so much from her, and I was deeply saddened to hear of her untimely passing in July of this year. Valentine touched so many lives in Nottingham and beyond, and while she’s no longer with us, her legacy will live on.

George and Valentine were just two of the many unsung heroes who helped make Nottingham a better place. They inspired many more incredible activists, who are now following in their footsteps and continuing the struggle against injustice.

Black history in Nottingham is still being made today, and it deserves to be celebrated –not just in October but all year round.

nadiawhittome.org

The answer to deprivation is not turning against migrants, but working class people of all ethnicities organising together for their common interests

words: Nadia Whittome photo: Fabrice Gagos

BY ENAM GBEWONYO

7 OCTOBER 2023 - 13 JANUARY 2024

NAE’s latest exhibition, Dellu, a showcase of textural works and performances on film from Enam Gbewonyo, winner of the NAE Open 2022 Exhibition Prize, opens on 7 OCTOBER

To be amongst the first to experience Dellu, join us on FRIDAY 6 OCTOBER (6-9PM) as we launch our new season of exhibitions, events, artist residencies, community projects and celebrate 15 years of NAE.

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT NAE.ORG.UK

FREE ENTRY | 0115 924 8630 | NAE.ORG.UK | INFO@NAE.ORG.UK

GALLERY & CAFÉBAR

OPENING TIMES

Tue - Sat 10am - 4pm

Closed Sun & Mon

Closed Bank Holidays

NEW ART EXCHANGE

39—41 Gregory Boulevard Nottingham NG7 6BE

A short walk from The Forest tram stop

@newartexchange

@new_art_exchange

@newartexchange

New Art Exchange

The term ‘Windrush’ is commonly used to highlight a group of people who emigrated en masse to the UK from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1973. The name is derived from the ‘Empire Windrush’, the name of one of the early vessels which carried passengers over.

The roots of this lie in the British Empire and commonwealth. Shortly after the Second World War the UK government heavily advertised for skilled and wealthy people from the Caribbean to come over to the UK, start a new life here and help us rebuild the country after it had been heavily bombed and destroyed. Those who came over paid their own money to get on those boats and aeroplanes. They were often the most wealthy and privileged in their own communities and thus had the means to pay to travel across the other side of the world. The contributions they made to our society cannot be overstated, helping in many fields and walks of life including forming the bedrock of our National Health Service. However, it’s safe to say that many of them were also not treated as well as they might have hoped.

Catherine Ross

In 2018 ‘Windrush’ or the ‘Windrush scandal’ made international news as it came to light that the UK home office and government had illegally deported at least 83 people and hundreds of others had been wrongly detained, denied basic legal rights and wrongly threatened with deportation.

In celebration of the 75th anniversary of the first of the Windrush generation, we at LeftLion have been working with the New Art Exchange and their NAE YOUnity Commission funded by Freelands Foundation, to highlight the voices of Nottingham’s Windrush generation and some of the challenges they faced…

I was born on the beautiful island known as St. Kitts in the Caribbean. I came to the British Isles in 1958, at the age of seven, with my parents. We made Nottingham home. I came over in winter, but it was not snowing. I felt cheated because I’d been told that England was cold and it snowed here. I should have enjoyed that time, really. Later I suffered terribly because of the cold, experiencing chilblains and constantly having a runny nose.

I had read every fairy story ever written and I knew everything there was about princesses. So I was delighted that I was coming to a country where there was a Queen and I couldn’t wait to meet her! I assumed England was small like St. Kitts and that I'd bump into her from time to time. When I realised that wasn’t going to happen, I was very disappointed.

The food was different. It seemed like almost every meal at school had something to do with pastry. Also chips. In the Caribbean, I was more accustomed to things like dumplings, boiled and fried or rice all served up with seasoned meats. But pies and chips were a new experience for me!

There was definitely racism, sometimes intended and sometimes not. A lot of children and teachers had an annoying habit of touching your hair and skin all the time. They wanted to see if anybody could “really be that Black” or if it would “come off”. I once tried to count and there must have been about forty different racist names black people were called throughout my school years!

Once I started to learn about my heritage, which was never taught to us in school, I started to be able to defend myself against this better. If people called me a “wog” I could tell them they’d got the wrong continent. Or if I was called a “blackie” or “darkie” then I could talk instead about my melanin rich skin. This played a big part in us wanting to set up Museumand and do what we do today. I want people to understand and be proud of their cultural background and to be able to access information about where they and their ancestors are from.

Against all the odds, my daughter Lynda and I set up Museumand, The National Caribbean Heritage Museum. People with civic and those with heritage responsibilities tried to discourage us from doing so. They thought a museum that celebrated and commemorated the Caribbean contribution to the UK wouldn’t ‘catch on’. It has. I am proud that as the first Caribbean museum in the UK, we’re now inspiring others to champion Caribbean heritage.

Something I'd like people to understand is that the Caribbean is made up of lots of different islands. I'm from St. Kitts and it’s a very small island and quite different from Jamaica. I want people to realise that there are unique differences between all the islands and to know not just about Jamaica, but other islands such as Montserrat, Grenada and St. Lucia. There are differences in the people, the food, the cultures, a result of how the islands were colonised.

I also want young Black people in the UK to understand and not be afraid to acknowledge their African or Caribbean roots. I think everybody when they talk about themselves should be able to give that full history about themselves.

People forget that many Windrush parents were wealthy, educated and paid to come to Britain. They were the best of Caribbean talent, asked to help rebuild the UK after the second-world war. They did exactly that but were often denied professional jobs, bank accounts and the chance to buy a home. Undaunted, they turned to the Pardner Hand, a traditional Caribbean community-based savings scheme, and together overcame the banking and other exclusions faced. Inequality remains, but as the descendants of those Windrush parents, we’re still resourceful, resilient, and ambitious, and still contributing to Britain – our home.

For more information about Catherine, the museum’s work, and Windrush 75 exhibitions and podcast, please visit museumand.org.

interviews: Jared Wilson & Curtis Powell photos: Curtis Powell

A lot of children and teachers had an annoying habit of touching your hair and skin all the time. They wanted to see if anybody could “really be that black” or if it would “come off”

I came over to the UK in 1966 as an eightyear-old boy from Barbados. My dad had originally come over in 1959 and then my mother came over in 1960 or 1961 and they got married soon after they came here. Before I came over I was living with my Grandma.

I remember getting on the plane and then meeting my parents at Heathrow airport. I remember feeling really cold when I landed, I’d never worn a coat before. I was used to finishing school and running across the road to the beach to play with friends. So it was quite a culture shock at first and I must have cried for about a month thinking, “Where am I?”

We lived in Kilburn in London and I grew up and went to school there, which helped me to settle. One of the first things my mother said to me was that if you’re from the Caribbean you’ll get put in the bottom groups at school. Schools did this automatically. Thankfully she complained to the school and so they gave me a test, which I passed with flying colours and put me up to the top groups.

My brother is six years younger than me and was born over here. When we were growing up he suffered lots with chest problems like asthma and skin problems like eczema and got really ill. So they decided to take him back to Barbados and it cleared up within a couple of weeks. It tells you a lot about the Caribbean in the fresh air and different diet over there and he made the decision to stay over there permanently after that.

I’ve been back to Barbados a lot, over twenty times since I left. I try to go back every year and I’ve had kids of my own over here and always tried to take them back over so they understand a bit about the Caribbean and so they could get to know their grandparents. They’ve all made interesting lives for themselves over here and I'm proud of what they have achieved.

Windrush is an important part of the history of the UK. Obviously Black people had come over here before then, but perhaps not in such numbers and I don’t think the UK was ready for it. The government here had put out a call, but I think they under-estimated the take-up they’d had because Jamaica had just been battered by hurricanes and employment was low. However, for 28 pounds and two shillings you could get on this ship and people expected the streets to be paved with gold and opportunity. It was a lot of money for some, but it was an achievable amount for many. The hardest thing for people once they were here was to find accommodation as there wasn’t enough of it. It led to tensions between different communities who didn’t understand what had happened and thus to racism.

I’ve made my life here in Nottingham. I’ve been a DJ, worked in nightclubs and bars, been a teacher, a cafe owner, a postman and I'm now a police careers advisor and trainer with Nottinghamshire police. Five or six months ago I was asked to write a black history programme for Notts police training after all the issues of racism within the Met Police. As part of that I do a quiz highlighting the contributions of Black people to western society, like Garrett Morgan who invented the traffic light and the gas mask, Claudia Jones who pioneered the carnival and Lewis Latimer who worked on air conditioning and alongside Thomas Edison on light bulbs and Alexander Bell on the telephone. There are all great people in history that many people don’t know about. There’s a lot to tackle in terms of people’s perceptions of the police in society, but I'd like to try and encourage young people - and in particular young black peopleto try and help change the system from within.

I came over to the UK in 1961 at the age of two with my mother, father and my sisters. We came over on an Italian ship called the SS Ascania. I was so young I don’t really have any memory of the journey, but apparently when we docked in London my mother's reaction was, “What are we doing here?” We’d traded in this amazing tropical island to live somewhere where it was cold, grey and constantly raining.

When I first heard the term ‘Windrush’ and about the government scandal, my initial reaction was, “Great, another label slapped on my head.” It feels like there have been a lot of labels over the years. As a kid growing up here you were used to the everyday racism of things like name-calling, never being invited to other children’s parties or houses and generally being excluded. It hurt a lot. My father always told us that because we were young Black women, we were going to have to work twice as hard as anybody else to get anywhere in life.

I have a profound memory of a time when I was seven years old and holding a white toy doll called Tessa. In that moment, I had a strong wish to be white like my doll, so I could lead a less complicated life. I promised myself I would never wish for that again. I’m happy to say that’s the only time I've ever wished to be anything other than what I am.

Around the age of thirty I went back to visit Trinidad for the first time. The guy at customs said “Welcome home” as he stamped my passport. It was an amazing feeling. Then when he found out that was the first time I'd been back he told me off and asked when my next visit would be. Unfortunately, I’ve only been back once more in all those decades since.

In my time in the UK I've lived in London, Coventry and Nottingham. I was a teenager in Coventry when bands like The Specials and The Selector were on the rise, as well as the corresponding rise in the National Front. It was an abusive and frightening time. You had to be especially careful to not be in the streets in town on Saturdays after the football finished, as it would be easy to get caught in the wrong place by the wrong people.

I actually worked with The Specials, too - I did two summer internships working with them in London. It was an amazing experience to be part of a group of people actively working to spread love and fight against racism. There were downs as well as ups though. I remember one time we were with Lynval Golding and we were attacked by two racists. One guy was

chasing me up the stairs of a block of flats and picked up a piece of scaffolding and tried to hit me with it. Thankfully he missed, but I was only a whisker away from having my back broken.

As I mentioned, I wasn’t keen on the Windrush label at first. But the more I've thought about it since the more proud I have become of it. Our parents must have had a lot of courage to make such a big life change and I know they were doing it for their children, for us and for our futures.

England is a better place for it, too - just consider the 200 pioneering women on SS Windrush, many who came to help kickstart the NHS and how valued their contributions have become since. Plus, the many skilled professionals and RAF pilots and war veterans Like every country, the UK is by no means perfect, but there are a lot more people of different backgrounds and cultures and skin tones working together, developing friendships and falling in love than there were forty or fifty years ago. That has to be a good thing.

Donna Humphrey

Obviously black people had come over here before then, but perhaps not in such numbers and I don’t think the UK was ready for it

You had to be especially careful to not be in the streets in town on Saturdays after the football finished, as it would be easy to get caught in the wrong place by the wrong people

I came to Nottingham with my sister in 1962 as a nine year old girl. I’d lived with my grandmother in Jamaica up until then. I remember her taking us to the airport and trying to keep me calm. I was so young I had no concept of how far away we were going and that she wouldn’t be coming with me.

My parents had come over to the UK before us. My dad came over in 1958 and my mother in 1960, so I remembered my mother but didn’t really know my father. It was interesting and took a bit of getting used to. When I first saw this tall dark man at the airport I didn’t believe he was really my dad.

Although we left a community in Jamaica, it felt like we moved into a new and different community here. I remember that when we first arrived people came out on the streets to meet us. We lived in Lenton and I went to the primary school there. My father was one of the first black men in our community to buy a house and I was proud of him for that. Although some of our parents might have travelled around the city for work, we didn’t go far. My neck of the woods was the Savoy Cinema side of Derby Road and although we played out all the time, the furthest I was allowed to go was the library on Lenton Boulevard. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I knew where Radford, Hyson Green or the Meadows were.

School life was okay, but sometimes problematic. I’m a typical Jamaican girl and when I didn’t understand what the teacher was saying I'd put my hand up and ask a question. They didn’t always like that and thought I was being cheeky, but the education system just wasn’t set up for kids like us. History was boring because we weren’t taught anything about our own history.

I’ve always lived in Nottingham and never wanted to move. I’ve had my children here and they’ve had their own children here, too - I’ve got five grandchildren in total. The passport I came over here with said

inside it that the Queen offered us safe travel to England. For a while I thought of myself as a British citizen born under that commonwealth flag. That all started to change after Enoch Powell did his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968. Around the age of twenty I decided to apply for a British passport, I was denied and I felt betrayed. So then I went through the naturalisation process and got a passport that way instead. I now class myself as a British Jamaican as I have dual nationality.

As I started to get older and raise my own family I moved to St Ann’s. A lot of people think that if you’re black and from St Ann’s you’re either a drug dealer, a prostitute or a pimp. But there have always been a lot of nice families there. I’ve got a starter plot at the St Ann’s Allotments now and it’s a really lovely space. It’s also surprising how fertile the ground is. I don’t use anything other than the soil and I’ve grown runner beans, potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, wild rocket, quinoa and Jamaican pumpkins.

Health has become important to me and over the last decade I've been diagnosed with high-blood pressure, a leaky heart valve and, most recently, breast cancer. But I've always been keen to get everything tested and checked. A lot of other folks in our community have said things to me like, “I put my trust in God to keep me well”, but my take on that is that God has given us doctors and medicine, so I don’t see why that means we shouldn’t use them.

I think overall society has changed for the better for younger Black people in Britain over the years. There’s a lot more going to university and I'm blown away when I meet a young black person in their thirties with a doctorate. This is thanks to the struggles that their parents and grandparents have gone through to get over here and build a life. There will still be discrimination, but I'm confident that today’s young people have the knowledge and the vocabulary to be able to cope with it better than we were able to.

My dad Ezra was from Beckford Kraal in Jamaica and came over to the UK on a boat in 1953, settled in Nottingham and had a child. My mum was from a place nearby called Thompson Town. She came over in 1961 by plane, lived in Manchester for a little while and then moved to Notts where she had her first two children. They met over here, and they fell in love and had two more kids together here, myself and my sister. Both my parents also had children before they came over to the UK. Those siblings were left with my grandparents in Jamaica, while my mother and father tried to establish themselves in the UK, with the plan being for them to come over once they had settled. This is known by some as ‘Barrell Children’.

I was born here in 1970 and grew up on Burford Road in Forest Fields, which was like the Harlem of Nottingham at the time. As a kid it was a great place to live and we were out on the streets from dusk till dawn, playing curby, dobby and kick the can with kids of various races and colours.

There were a lot of Black and mixed-race families on our street, as well as lots of Pakistani and Indian families, and the Hyson Green flats were just round the corner. Obviously there were a lot of white people too, but it was a nice multicultural mix and there were quite a lot of West Indian and Caribbean events and culture.

I started out in music by rapping at school with my friends. I took it a bit more seriously than most though, which is probably why I'm still doing It (music production not rapping). We had a little crew called the MC’s Logik and we toured with Queen Latifah and De La Soul, and had a record deal with the legendary house music DJ Graeme Park. Since then I've done production for people like Klashnekoff, Terri Walker, Estelle and John Legend, Melonyx, Rodney P and many more.

When I grew up there was a Black music magazine called Black Echoes, and they had a Black music chart which had UB40 and Lisa Stansfield in it. Over the years more white artists would make Black music. Subsequently, people within the music industry felt uncomfortable with the term Black music and

it became known as ‘urban’ music. However, if I was making Chinese food it would still be Chinese food, right? On the plus side UK music does allow for quite a lot of blending of styles by being such a melting pot. Genres like jungle, drum and bass or grime just wouldn’t have been nurtured and allowed to thrive in America in the same way. Whereas they were all able here due to British multiculturalism and the impact of Black culture.

I’ve been back to Jamaica during the last year, after my mother passed away. We buried her up in the hills in Thompson Town, which is what she wanted, and it was quite a spiritual experience. The last time I was out there was seven years ago and before that was when I took my son for his 18th birthday - he’s in his 30’s now. I also visited Jamaica when I was 13, (that was a long time ago) when my grandmother was still around.

To me, Windrush is an unfinished journey that started when we were taken from the motherland. Arriving in the Caribbean and leaving en masse to our enslaver’s motherland is just a part of the journey, as we will all eventually find our way back home to Africa. I did a DNA ancestry test and found out that I was 75% Nigerian, with the rest being from Senegal, Mali, Ghana and Burkina Faso. Basically, I am 100% African, but somehow through Windrush and whatever happened before slavery, my Caribbean ancestry is Maroon. This would explain why I don’t have any European Heritage, as Maroons fought the enslavers and lived in the hills.

I was born and brought up here in Nottingham and have lived in the UK my whole life, but given my heritage it is mind blowing that I speak English, and have a name like Richard Douglas. I think it’s important for all young Black people in the UK to learn about not just Caribbean history, but African history too. Like it or not, we’ve had an inferiority complex enforced on us for many years by never being taught about the history of our people. It takes a long time to get rid of those shackles. I doubt we’ll ever see a Black Prime Minister in the UK in my lifetime, but it will be an amazing example for children if and when that finally happens.

We have also created video versions of these interviews with more information than we can fit on the printed page here. These will be premiered at the New Art Exchange on Saturday 21 October and will be available to view online afterwards. For more information please visit leftlion.co.uk/windrush

When I think about Windrush, I think that the Caribbean is just another stop off and it’s all a big journey that started in Africa and that we’re still traveling on

NOTTS SHOTS

photos: Peter Richardson

These images are taken from St Ann’s, The End of An Era by Peter Richardson (Five Leaves Publications, 2021).

Since the late 1940s, the district of St Ann’s has been a richly diverse community and home to diaspora from all over the world, including many people of AfroCaribbean descent. However, the landscape of the area changed immeasurably post-1960, when much of the nineteenth century terraced housing was demolished. While more structurally sound habitation was built, up to 30,000 residents were rehomed throughout the city, and the community that had developed in St Ann’s was never quite the same.

interview: Lottie Murray

Everyone has heard of the High Sheriff of Nottingham, but what does the job entail in the modern age? We spoke with Veronica Pickering, Nottinghamshire’s first Black female High Sheriff, about her truly fascinating career journey, her international and local community work, the changing nature of the public sector, and what she likes to do in her free time…

You have had a really fascinating career journey. What led you to this field of work and what is the process involved in becoming high sheriff? There is a process whereby the High Sheriff is appointed by the king, initial selection is by a panel. Every county has its own process. There is a two/ three year run up to being actually appointed. This is a period of preparation and clearing your diary to ensure you are ready to take on the responsibility. High Sheriffs have different priorities for their year and mine is to focus on the achievements of young people and the organisations that support them.

My work has always been people and community focused. I would probably say that my interest and focus has always been people. I started in social work, then working with the courts for many years. I have always been interested in promoting frontline workers who do a really important job. I’m not somebody that has sought to have a career that is high profile or a career that puts me on a stage!

I’m a very ordinary and humble person that’s really interested in how best to get through some of the challenges that we have in society. My passion also comes from my own background and the challenges that we had as a family and as immigrants trying to settle in the UK.

The challenge is always focused on how to do things better for more rather than for less and who can help you do that work better. So I’ve worked internationally and with amazing people who have connected me with others who are able to solve problems a lot quicker than me; that’s been a skill that I have built and I guess that’s partially some of what has led to me being High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire.

Over thirty years, how have you seen Nottingham public sector organisations positively change and adapt?

I think wherever I’ve gone I have felt the pressure of the lack and reduction of services that are being offered to the public. There are a lot of professionals who feel the same but yet they still want to serve the public and do the right thing and also do more preventative work.

I think local authorities are doing an amazing job and I think the Chief Execs are angels frankly. The people on the ground and frontline are amazing from fire officers, police officers, paramedics and social workers - these are the people we seriously rely on, they are the people that really know our communities. I just feel that they need more help and more support to do the day to day work but we don’t always have the resources for them - I’m a dreamer, right?

Not only are you working towards improving the lives of those living in the Nottingham community, you also have maintained a partnership with Kenya, where you were born. Can you explain more about your international work, more specifically in Kenya?

I’m a member of the UK Kenya Society, which has strong partnerships across the UK and linked to the Kenya High Commission. I do my best to support them when I can and attend their meetings. I’m also a new member of the Rotary Club.

I didn’t know much about the work of the Rotary Clubs before. They’re in most countries, and they do amazing charitable work in Kenya. I really like their ethos, which is that serving is a priority - not the taking but giving back to society!

I have good links to the Nottingham Kenya Welfare Association (NKWA). I was a former chair of the Mojatu Foundation, which was then being run by two Kenyans then. I’ve done a lot of work to support Kenya and Kenyans in the past to help lots of other people - working with funders and children’s homes and some very tricky and difficult stuff to be honest. But it’s also been quite amazing too with brilliant experiences - I can’t believe I’ve seen and done some of the things I have.

You also host an online support group for women of colour. What is your involvement in this and how does this group support the women of Nottingham?

I started the group during Covid and I felt that psychologically these women needed a space where they could go to talk to each other and help one another. It was just so refreshing to know that we had a safe space and we could talk about our individual issues throughout Covid, the stress of our new jobs, the concerns post George Floyd and how these issues affected women and mothers in particular and how fed up we were at times and just how much we could help each other. It was a really great project and hopefully it will pop up in a different form somewhere else but for the two/three years it was running it was beautiful.

We have focused a lot on your career, but what do you enjoy doing in your free time?

We are very family oriented so we spend a lot of time with our children, grandchildren, and our mothers. We have always been quite creative as a couple, although my husband Roy is the artist! Art, creativity, and culture is a huge part of our lives for us.

Another thing is planning our trips to Kenya, which I try to do once a year so we can see family and friends. I’m a trustee of the YMCA Robin-Hood Group in Nottinghamshire - it's a great charity that works to support young people and their families. The Royal Air Force is an important part of my life with 504 (County of Nottingham Squadron) for whom I was appointed by our late Queen as Honorary Air Commodore and as an RAF ambassador nearly five years ago. I have a great respect for the work of the military - they are a fantastic group of people who I’ve really grown to love and appreciate.

I also really love gardening in my free time and going to look at other people’s smart and creative gardens. We have inherited a fantastic garden in our new house. I often come back thinking, “How can I recreate what I have seen in my own garden?” It is what connects me to nature and my passion for the work of the RSPB. I have been a trustee and on the UK council to the RSPB the last four years –and there’s nothing that they don’t know about the impact of climate change on our everyday lives. I’m constantly learning and being a trustee gives me invaluable access to the experts and specialists in their field - it's a real privilege to be able to share my expertise when I can.

veronicapickering.co.uk

The people on the ground are the ones who really prop up every service that you can imagine, from fire officer to police officer to social worker - they are the people that do the real running around in our communities

Since bursting onto the music scene at the age of just 21 back in 2018, with her critically acclaimed debut album Lost & Found, multi-award winning artist and Midlands lass Jorja Smith has fast become one of the UK’s most iconic neo soul voices. Ahead of her upcoming UK album launch tour which will see her performing at Nottingham’s The Level, we caught up with Jorja to find out more about her highly-anticipated second album.

words: Addie Kenogbon photo: Romany Francesca

It’s been over five years since Jorja Smith first catapulted to stardom, with her breathtaking voice, heartfelt lyrics and spell-binding presence cementing her as one of the most celebrated voices to come out of the UK in the past ten years.

Her accolades include two Brit Awards - the Critics' Choice award and the British Female Solo Artist award - as well as a UK Music Video Award for best Urban Video, four MOBO award nominations and a Mercury Prize nomination to name a few, not that you’d think it when you speak to her. She brings a charming humbleness that is often at odds with someone with such a long list of achievements under their belt, but it is one of the many qualities that has made her so well-loved.

Her new album, released on 29 September, is her second studio album, and marks an evolution in sound for the soul star, touching on themes of heartbreak, love, growth, self realisation, relationships with friends new and and old, as well as Jorja’s relationship with herself.

“With Lost & Found, I was just a teenager, whereas with Falling or Flying, I feel like I've stepped into womanhood,” she says. “To me, this album just sounds like growth. Iat’s about where I’m at, and where I have been at.

“Before, with the songs in my other album, I was never in love when I was sixteen, so I’d have to exaggerate, or I'd take inspiration from observations or stories I’d see. But now I'm talking more about my own personal experiences in my songs. This album is actually about me, with songs I can sing to myself. I think the thing that's changed is, I've just grown up. I’ve got older.”

The release of Falling or Flying not only marks a return to the spotlight for Jorja, but also a return to home, with Jorja swapping the busy streets of London for a return to her hometown of Walsall, a move which saw her reconnect with producer duo and old friends DAMEDAME*.

She says, “I feel like a lot of people might think I'm experimenting with different sounds with this album, but I've always been playing around with these sounds. Working with DAMEDAME* really brought that out of me too.

“It brought me back home. They had a studio in Birmingham, so I was coming back home a lot more and it was just really comfortable. It wasn't like work, it was fun. We’d link up, jam, make some music, eat food, laugh, do the same again. It was just fresh with them. I feel so much better being back home too - I feel like myself. It’s where I’m supposed to be.”

Over the years, Jorja has worked with the likes of Drake, Kali Uchis, Stormzy and Kendrick Lamar. And her latest album sees her adding two more iconic voices to her roster of renowned associated acts, with appearances from British rapper, singer and Afroswing pioneer J Hus, and Jamaican reggae singer and songwriter Lila Iké on the songs Feelings and Greatest Gift respectively.

“J Hus just came to the studio on a random one, and we weren’t going to play him the song,” says Jorja. “But then one of DAMEDAME* played it for him, and he liked it and just jumped straight in the booth, and that was that.

“Then with Lila, she was over from Jamaica - she’s from Kingston - and it was actually her birthday when she came to the studio, so it was even sweeter that the song is called Greatest Gift. She brought that song even more to life. I could listen to her talk and sing for hours. I love her voice so much. It was great working with them both.”

Speaking of her influences for this album, Jorja says her friends have been a huge influence. “My friends have influenced this album a lot. People like [producer] P2J, DAMEDAME* and my friend Wesley Joseph, I was really influenced by. Conversations influenced it, too. It’s not just music that can influence the sound.”

The album artwork features a powerful and striking black and white portrait of Jorja wearing an elegant dress, which was shot on film by world renowned British Ghanaian-Russian photographer Liz Johnson Artur, whose work includes documenting the lives of Black people from across the African Diaspora. She has also photographed the likes of Mos Def and Amy Winehouse, and toured with M.I.A, and Seun Kuti to name a few.

“She's a legend, and I love looking at her images and seeing her work - her photographs are like stories,” says Jorja. “I couldn't believe she wanted to work with me and I got a bit nervous when I had to message her but it was great when she responded.”

The new album features sixteen tracks of catchy melodies and breathtakingly beautiful soulful anthems. The viral sensations, Little Things and Try Me, which were also previously released on Jorja’s four-song EP of the same name as the album, Falling or Flying earlier this year, are already firm fan favourites, with the likes of GO GO GO, She Feels and Backwards sure to follow suit.

And Jorja’s favourite track of the album? “Probably right now it’s, She Feels. We just started rehearsing it with my band and it sounds great and it’s feeling good.”

Her upcoming album tour kicks off on 28 September and features ten dates. “I'm so excited and I can't wait for everyone to hear the new album,” Jorja says. “I’m looking forward to doing the shows, so then I can actually see what songs people are screaming at, what songs people cry at. I’m so excited for the tour because I love performing, being in front of everyone and just singing with them.”

@jorjasmith_

Jorja Smith’s Nottingham gig takes place at The Level on 15 October 2023.

This album is actually about me, with songs I can sing to myself. I think the thing that's changed is, I've just grown up. I’ve got older

Perm Ghattaura @PicsByPerm

words: Sophie Gargett photos: Honey Williams

THE HONEY EFFECT

Working as an artist, graphic designer, DJ and musical performer, it seems Williams’ creativity holds no bounds, but the glamour of being a full-time artist comes with its ups and downs. Especially when your work centres on race, size and gender. We dropped in to see Honey at City Arts where she has a studio, to discuss art, creativity and being a Black woman in the art world.

It’s tough being a professional creative sometimes. Yes, you get to use your imagination, self-expression and produce things that spur people’s thoughts, but there’s also a lot that goes on behind the scenes, from juggling projects and admin to dealing with the varied reception that comes with publishing personal work. For a big Black woman in the industry, this pressure is infused with further issues of misogynoir and fat-phobia, yet Honey Williams has been creating art on and off for almost two decades, mixing music, painting and performance to further representations of Black women.

Her journey into the art world began in the early 2000s, when she studied graphic design and illustration at University of Arts London whilst also making music. Here she got involved in the UK Hip Hop scene, performing with artists such as Rodney P., and Kalashnikov, and getting remixed by names such as Roni Size and MJ Cole, while also creating art that discussed her identity as a Black woman. But when it came to the topic of natural Black hair, which music of her work focused on, she felt her tutors didn’t understand the deeper political meaning

“There was an image I made with lots of words associated with Black women and their hair - stuff like ugly, controversial. But it’s just the way your hair grows out of your head as a Black woman,” she explains. “This is before the natural hair movement kicked off, and the teachers just didn’t know what I was talking about. They said, ‘Why are you so obsessed with hair?’ It just went way over their heads.”

Feeling disillusioned with both art and university, she stopped making work for eight years. After moving back to Nottingham, it was her mother who inspired her to get back into creating art. “My mum is a poet and she has this piece that says, ‘Use your gifts.’ It's really ominous, like, how ungrateful are you to just let it fall by the wayside. I thought, yeah, mum's right. I should use my gifts.”

To combat her artistic block, Honey got into journaling, creating diaries full of drawings as a place to document her thoughts, but she still felt hesitant to go public with her art. “I remember a friend of mine was looking at them and said, ‘Oh, Honey, it's a shame that no one's gonna see

With some encouragement from people in the industry leading to a new burst of confidence, she began applying to competitions and open calls for artists. The perseverance paid off when she won the New Art Exchange’s 2019 Public Prize, out of 700 entries, along with a worldwide call to create several murals in Kingston, Jamaica, to commemorate the Windrush generation. “I’d just done a cover for LeftLion that depicted the Windrush Scandal, and people were saying, ‘Oh, you should do this!’, so I sent them my application and they chose me - which is nuts.” She then travelled to Jamaica to create the murals, which are still on display in Norman Manley Airport.

In 2021, after recovering from being seriously ill with

Covid, Honey’s work once again took a new turn. “I could have died, so I really wanted to leave a mark and to make huge work,” she explains. “I thought maybe I could paint myself - I can't think of many big Black women artists out there - singers, painters, or designers. There needs to be more depictions of big black women, because depiction is important. And lack of representation is dehumanising.”

I can't think of many big black women artists out there - singers, painters, or designers. Depiction is important, and lack of representation is dehumanising

This reflection was the catalyst for a new series titled Shrines & the 52 Machetes, which was recently exhibited at City Arts and explores issues of misogynoir and fatphobia. The giant self portraits are filled with splashes of colour giving an air of freedom, self-love and celebration, while at the same time featuring text which highlight some of the issues she has faced throughout her life. “When you get these constant rejections or heckles or attacks, as a big black woman you have to do repair each week, to top yourself up and pick yourself back up again. That is where the 52 Machetes comes in. Shrines is there because we also deserve to be praised.”

“I've always gotten backlash, because of just being an intersectional human. In any room in any place,” she explains. “I once travelled down to London for a job interview. I had my portfolio and was looking rather chic that day. I was ready. But when I arrived they asked me, ‘Have you come for the cleaning job?’ They didn't clock anything other than my big Blackness.”

She compares being a big Black woman to being a brutalist building, “Continuously being vandalised and underfunded, and just not treated the way that you should be. It's like people resent you taking up the room that you do take up, yet people expect you to be strong and do everything.”

Earlier this year Shrines evolved into a one woman show at New Art Exchange, which included live performance, projections, music and more, but it is just one of the many projects that Honey has been involved with. She has also hosted a variety of creative workshops, and in 2021 was commissioned to paint a large-scale street mural of Eric Irons, Nottingham resident and the UK’s first Black magistrate, on Carrington Street Bridge.

“Eric Irons was a very formidable character. We would not have gotten along,” Honey laughs. “But a very interesting man. He was an RAF pilot when he was a young guy, and then a judge, which was quite a feat.”

Working on an outdoor mural was new to Honey, and involved scaling up her artwork and using stencils. “You have to trust all the apparatus around you that you've used to enlarge it,” she says. “I'd love to work like that again, and I would love to commemorate a Black woman in Nottingham, because I haven't seen that done before.”

Alongside creating art, Honey has worked as a singing tutor at Nottingham Trent University, developing artists such as Melonyx and Trekkah Benjamin, and also heads up an all female choir, Gang of Angels, who perform ‘vintage songs laced with fresh new beats’. Working solo so often, the choir brings a sense of community to her creative outlet. “I think it's good for every artist to work in a collaborative way at some point. That's why the choir is good, because you're having to be in harmony with other people. There's no way around it,” she says.

Like many creatives, Honey seems to thrive on staying busy and has several other projects up her sleeve. She’s started DJing under the name THEHONEYEFFECT, performing recently at Nottingham Street Food Festival, and is hoping to begin experimenting with loop pedals.

“I'm very grateful for being given a second chance. And I'm still in that sort of hyper mindset,” she says, “I've got to make things, because you don't know how long you've got.” Shrines and the 52 Machetes is a project that she’ll keen to keep evolving, however. “It’s a malleable entity, in that it could be anything - a piece of art on the wall, a discussion, a workshop, all based around bigness, Blackness and womanhood, so I’ll definitely be doing more of that in the future.”

@thehoneyeffect

Local rapper and producer Jah Digga has become a familiar face on the Notts music scene. It is his passion for music that led him into taking a mentor role for the youth, at St Ann’s Community Recording Studio (CRS). We caught up with Jah in the studio, where he gives a deep-dive into all things creative.

Self-proclaimed council estate kid, Jah grew up in St Ann’s in the nineties, a time when crime was rife and gang culture was thriving. Kids were bored, the gang life offered them a sense of belonging and freedom, though the irony of gangs often means there is no going back. Jah was the youngest of five, with his closest brother Remie being only a year older. As they grew their paths divided, Jah turned to music whilst Remie was drawn to the road, which unfortunately led to his fatal stabbing in 2002.

Jah’s love of music began in a way I’m sure many of you can relate to, in his bedroom reciting lines. He speaks fondly of being a kid, writing down all the lyrics of his favourite artists, then rapping the bars back to himself. From there he started performing, “That’s when I knew - I enjoy rapping, I enjoy performing, so the next stage was to write my own music.” His early grime sets in collaboration with a DJ called Blender, are what put his name on the map. “It was like a snowball effect, where we would get more credible throughout the city, which meant we were getting recognised, so people started to book us.” His music career took off from this point, though this isn’t all he strived for. Jah wanted to make a difference, to help the youth stay away from crime and that’s where his work with CRS comes into play.

Set up in 1991, the charity CRS was founded by members of the community, including CEO Trevor Rose. Their motto is simple, “We help young people to turn their lives around.” If the youth are with them, they’re not on the streets, potentially getting into trouble. The studio is a creative development hub for the community, and best of all it’s completely free. Although they direct their services to young people, anyone can join, no matter their age or experience - their youngest being just four years old! They have a booking system, whereby you can book one to one-and-a-half hour slots, with certain days being more tailored to specific age ranges. For those that aren’t musically inclined, CRS offers much more, including a production room, photography, camera work, engineering classes and sports. They also work with local schools, offering workshops to educate the youth in the classroom.

What sets this studio apart from many others is the support you receive, if you want to learn the craft, CRS will guide you. Jah’s passion for the studio flourishes when he speaks of its achievements, “Most of the successful people that make urban music in Nottingham have passed through here.” He emphasises the importance of creating a family dynamic, “The peoAple here are like the furniture, they can’t leave, it has that real family feel to it.” CRS is a polar opposite “family” to the one that the youth look for in gang culture, which in a way is why it works so well. Everyone needs to feel safe, with a sense of purpose and CRS are offering that, in the form of a positive outlet.

Jah takes on the role of Youth Engagement Officer, which essentially means he acts as a mentor for them, bringing them into CRS, supporting them and helping manage sessions. He has a strong presence, and will happily get involved as much as people need. It’s not uncommon to find

Jah in the studio with the young people, making suggestions and finetuning beats. “It’s my love of creativity that means I want to be involved, I don’t want to do too much, I want them to express themselves and be free. That’s where the magic happens. I’m just there for guidance, to give them the tools, put it into practice and make sure the sessions are running smoothly.” CRS provides a healthy channel to get your thoughts out there, whilst also learning a skill. Not to mention, being welcomed with open arms by Jah and Trevor, the ‘big brothers’ of the hub, which for some young people may be all that is needed, should they be unable to speak freely at home.

Last year saw the release of Jah’s short documentary: Poet Off The Ends This alternative creative outlook gives insight into what life was like for Jah at the time, and how his experiences have shaped him and motivated him to where he is today. When speaking about the documentary, Jah said, “There are a lot of people that will resonate with a similar story, especially those growing up in St Ann’s. I could have been on the front of the newspaper for doing other (criminal) things. I hope that this can plant the seed for those that don’t know how to express themselves in a positive way.”

So what’s to come from CRS? Well they’ve recently had the young people put on talent shows and perform, so right now they’re working on organising similar events.. Plus, a new project: Football is Life is up and running, bringing kids together to play. In July they put on a tournament with two hundred kids and ten teams. It was such a success that Jah is hoping to take it to Birmingham next. “I want to travel, I want to show these kids the world is bigger than their postcode, so let’s get out there and meet new people, and let’s be inspired.”

As for Jah, he’s showing no signs of stopping his creativity. In collaboration with a close friend Tommy, they will be dipping their toes into a new venture - musical theatre. After watching The Lion King onstage, he was immediately inspired. His vision is a poetry-led drama, telling the stories about living and growing up on a council estate. Although it’s in the early stages, there’s no doubt Jah is excited, “We’ve got so many personal accounts, and so much talent - poets, actors, singers and musicians. We knew we could bring it to a stage.”

There is no date as of yet, but he teased it could be early 2024. If that’s not soon enough though, you can catch him at Hockley Hustle in October, or even attend one of his creative writing workshops. A man of many talents, his motivation hasn't waned, only grown as he’s developed his creativity further. In his own words, “There are a million things you can do and accomplish. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, there’s so much out there to do, so make sure you do what you really enjoy.”

The people here are like the furniture, they can’t leave, it has that real family feel to it

words & photo: Beth Green

We just wanted to write something that was a celebration of how we're both very proud of who we are, and also an anthem to people who are still feeling how we did

SOUL SISTERS

Following the release of their debut album Soul Glow (which you should all be familiar with by now, since we gave it high praise in our last issue), we spoke to soul sister duo Melonyx all about the inspirations behind the project, working with Joe Buhdha and others in the Nottingham music community, and what’s coming up next for them later this year…

How did you meet and start making music in the first place?

Nadia: We met as teens going to an after school performing arts club. A little later down the line, we were both supporting each other, watching each other at open mic gigs. We started to get a few promoters ask us to do gigs individually. We had our ups and downs, as you do sometimes as artists, and we kept turning gigs down. Then, Parisa from Acoustickle was like, ‘Will you do a gig together?’ and that's how we started singing together. At that time, we were just singing our individual songs, doing backing vocals for each other, and then doing covers together. It all grew from there.

How has being part of that Nottingham scene shaped you as performers and artists?

Nadia: Our EP and our debut album Soul Glow were both heavily produced by Joe Buhdha and the Can't Stop Won't Stop team of producers that he works with. We've been on the scene for quite a while, because we had all those years previous to Melonyx doing separate things. Parisa was definitely a support when we were coming into the scene, Rastarella, Tommy Farmyard, Adam Pickering, Sounddhism… and that's just to name a few! The scene is so rich, I think everybody's just inspiring everybody all the time. The Elementz has also been a big part of our sound as Melonyx because of the beats that he makes, the use of sampling, his knowledge of all the music that's come before us in the different subgenres of Black music, whether that's Hip Hop, soul, funk… we've grown up with various influences in our household. So, I think it just gelled together to make a sound that you'll hopefully start to recognise as Melonyx.

What was the process of putting your debut album Soul Glow together?

Nadia: I didn't know that the songs from the EP would be on there. To be honest, that was something that the label put forward, just as a way to draw attention back to those songs. I don't think we particularly felt we were ready for an album, we just approached it in the way we would usually make music, so it was just a case of getting in the studio and listening to the beats and thinking about what we want to write about, which has kind of become our usual approach. I think a theme just naturally started to emerge around - self care, self love, development, affirmations… I think the album is quite indicative of the journey that we went on when we were making it.

What are your own personal highlights of the album?

Nadia: I think there's a lot of moods in the album and I think how I'm feeling indicates what I gravitate to at the time. Plenty is always up there. That's one of my favourites, just because I love the message of it. That for me is the self acceptance anthem. Butterfly as well, because for me that's probably some of my most honest writing. Georgia: I like them all for different reasons. But I always said that Made to Suffer is my most honest writing, from personal experience, and then At The Door because I love that we were able to inject that Lover’s Rock influence. I think it's a nice way for us to have touched on the subject of love. We have so many other things to talk about, other than romantic relationships. But everybody wants a bit of romantic love and that song encapsulates that.

You both speak about writing very honest lyrics, how do you approach that?

Georgia: I think we probably have slightly different approaches to writing. But I think for me I'm often led by what the melody makes me feel. I think it's definitely collaborative, we try to share as we're going along and see how these parts fit together, and how the story continues. What would you say, Nadia? Nadia: I'm very keen to get my words out as a writer. Sometimes, that doesn't always make for the best first draft, so I tend to do a lot of rewriting. But then the second time around, I start to think, ‘What am I actually feeling, what do I want to convey?’ - I think Georgia is very good at tapping into the emotional side of things, lyrically.

The track Melanin Queens stood out to me on first listen. What’s the story behind that one?

Georgia: We got the hook for that one quite early. I think we were just having lots of conversations about our experiences as Black women and being overlooked, especially in our younger years, and how long it can take to feel comfortable in your own skin, despite having a family that loves you, just because of societal pressure and westernised beauty standards. Sometimes, you can't even really explain why you feel less than or othered. You've got all of this language that we didn't have when we were in school. I know we used to speak about discrimination, but not necessarily about being othered or microaggressions, colourism and hair texturism, and all these other things. We're women, but we're also Black, so it's layered. We had lots of conversations about that.

We just wanted to write something that was a celebration of how we're both very proud of who we are, and also an anthem to people who are still feeling how we did. So, that song was kind of supposed to touch on all of that in a way that wasn't heavy, but more affirming. What I think is nice about it is we've had lots of interactions with girls that don't look like us, and men too, just saying how they think this song is special and they still connect to the meaning behind the message, even if it isn't necessarily aimed at them. Obviously, it's really special when we see Black women who love the song, that's probably the most special thing. But it's also nice to see how many people outside of that bracket can acknowledge that something like that is needed, and sing along with us and celebrate what we were trying to portray in that song.

What have you got coming up for the remainder of 2023?

Georgia: We’ve got an interesting gig coming up in November supporting Sleaford Mods in Birmingham at the O2 Academy. When they asked us, we were mind-boggled. We weren’t entirely sure that their fans would want to hear our music, but we thought you know what, we're gonna do it anyway. I guess we'll just see whether they're receptive to what we're gonna bring, because I'm not going to lie, I'm not necessarily convinced. But it was nice to be asked, and they've been really lovely. It’s probably going to be a little bit of a challenge as well, not that other things aren't, but I think it's always interesting to go into spaces and do a style that's not exactly what people are there to hear, maybe looking quite opposite from who you're supporting. So, I think it's gonna be an interesting space to find ourselves in, and I'm quite looking forward to seeing how it goes down. It will be lovely to meet them as well, because they're very much doing amazingly right now and they’re Nottingham legends, so it's nice that they're so open, welcoming, and up for us supporting them.

@melonyxmusic

interview: Gemma Cockrell

photo: Daniel Hughes

Miniature MasterpieCes

words: Jonathan Doering photos: Willard Wigan

Since April, Dr. Willard Wigan MBE’s Miniature Masterpieces exhibition has been available to view for free at Wollaton Hall. As part of his ‘Disappearing World’ collection and Wollaton Hall’s transformation project, it displays sculptured pieces in the eye of a needle, never before seen on display. We delve into the exhibition in light of the life experiences that shaped Wigan into the artist who he is today…

A pivotal moment in Dr. Willard Wigan MBE’s life came in 1967, when his mother called him off the staircase to listen to a speech on television.

Born into an industrious, loving Jamaican family in 1957, Wigan struggled with undiagnosed Dyslexia and Asperger’s Syndrome at a school where the default attitude was harsh incomprehension. One teacher, frustrated that he couldn’t write his own name, paraded him from class to class, telling other students, ‘This is what failure looks like.’

Wigan was thrown onto his own resources: a fascination with nature, especially insects, and an innate artistic urge. These combined when he was upset by his dog digging up an ant’s nest. Seized by a desire to replace the ants’ home, he set to work with a razor and some wood chips to create his first nascent micro-sculpture, the first of many such ant houses. Willard’s mother instantly perceived his talents and preserved one of these houses in a box of family treasures. It is now the first item in his current exhibition at Wollaton Hall. Exceedingly small, but perceivable without assistance, this early work points the way to later tiny greatness.

The other twenty exhibits are only distinguishable as specks to the naked eye, but under microscopes are revealed in their miniscule glory. A mother tiger watches over her cub against the workings of a watch, denoting the limited time remaining to save our environment. Einstein leans against the inside of a needle’s eye, grey hair sprouting this way and that. My personal favourite is Robin Hood, a gift to the people of Nottingham after Wigan worked with underprivileged children at the Marcus Garvey Day Centre. Robin stands atop a multi-coloured woodland glade, bow aimed upwards. The sky, the image suggests, is the limit.

Back to that pivotal moment in 1967. By this time, Wigan would perch to carve on the staircase. His mother called him to watch Dr Martin Luther King addressing students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia about ‘Your life’s blueprint’. One key maxim offered was: ‘Number one in your life’s blueprint should be a deep belief in your own dignity…. Don’t allow anyone to make you feel that you are nobody.’ Sage advice for anyone, but custommade for a little boy struggling in the face of official derision. Another maxim concerned finding a sense of vocation: ‘When you discover what you’re going to be in life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you.’ Whether that vocation is large or small is beside the point: ‘If you can’t be a pine on top of the hill, be a scrub in the valley…. Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be the sun, be a star, for it isn’t by size that you win or you fail. Be the best of whatever you are.’

These words were combined with Wigan’s mother’s advice: ‘The smaller you make things, Willard, the bigger your name will become’. Every carving elicited praise and the direction, ‘Try to make it even smaller.’

Owing to his extreme academic difficulties, Wigan was a withdrawn student, pouring his energies into micro-sculptures. By now, he was carving images

of animals, as well as writers Beatrix Potter and William Shakespeare, into cocktail sticks, then destroying most of them so that no one could deride them. However, his dexterity also led to his creating excellent paper aeroplanes for his friends; their delight in these prompted him to finally show them some of these sculptures. Amazed, they spread word round the school, and their head teacher pressed Wigan to show him his work: instead of the expected ridicule, he was praised.

Illiterate and without formal qualifications, Wigan found work as a factory hand. Throughout this time, he continued with his inward journey, beginning to set his work within needle eyes: two camels in one, Mary holding Jesus in another. By that time, his mother was seriously ill, and these were the final works she would see. Her feedback remained consistent: go smaller, be greater. His work kept the wolf from the door, while Wigan worked creatively in his spare time. Finally prompted to go public, he began carving a lifesized sculpture of Shakespeare in Birmingham’s Corporation Street. A local businessman took notice, which snowballed into media attention, rolling Wigan ever closer to his artistic destiny.

He creates his tools and materials from found equipment and matter. An eyelash serves as a tiny jackhammer to chip a parish church out of a grain of sand, while dog hair works as a paintbrush. Shards of whisker and glass, flakes of gold and plastic, and chips of diamond and porcelain are choreographed into breathtaking works of art.

The process by which these elements are transformed is exacting. Wigan meditates before working, frequently spending between sixteen and eighteen hours per day crafting his work. It is necessary that he slows his heart rate alarmingly low (sometimes forty beats per minute) so as to reduce tremors, gusts of air, and any distraction potentially disastrous to the work’s successful completion, resulting in tremendous strain. He has remarked of his work, ‘I go through Hell’ to make it, yet the completed art and its reception repay him fully.

Having been told time and again that he would amount to nothing, Wigan takes great pleasure in demonstrating that even when there might seem to be little or nothing, there is generally still something of value, if we just take the time to look.

In Auguries of Innocence, William Blake exhorts us to ‘see a world in a grain of sand… hold infinity in the palm of your hand.’ Although these wonderful specks would be lost if held in the palm, anyone making the journey to Wollaton Hall to visit this remarkable exhibition can do just as Blake urged.

Dr. Willard Wigan MBE’s Miniature Masterpieces exhibition is on display at Wollaton Hall until the end of October 2023

@willard_wigan

GettinG hooked

Born out of a lockdown hobby, Nottingham premium knitwear brand Rose & Wül has since amassed an evergrowing following, with fans including the likes of TV star Claudia Winkleman. Each piece is hand-knitted by founder Nadine Rose out of luxurious cloud-like merino wool, using her bare hands instead of knitting needles for a super-chunky stitch pattern. We caught up with Nadine to find out more about her timeless creations and how the kindness of an unsuspecting stranger helped her discover her hidden talent.

All your pieces are fantastic, can you tell me how Rose & Wül all began?

I’ve wanted to learn to knit for as long as I can remember. Around seven years ago, I was working in Specsavers. Whilst serving a customer, I noticed on her notes it said that her hobbies were knitting. I mentioned that I wanted to learn to knit. When she came to collect her glasses, she brought a ball of wool for me, along with a pair of needles, and a little print-out ripped out from a magazine. They sat in my room in a box for years, until lockdown hit. I thought, OK, I've got all the time in the world now. I decided to pick them up, and it was only a couple of months before I had made my first piece.

That’s so lovely! How long did it take before you realised this was something you were actually good at?

When I first started learning, I remember the first little thing I made, and it was awful. I couldn't keep all my stitches on the needles to begin with. It was so bad. But I kept at it, and within a couple of weeks I was like, “I’m actually pretty good at this.”

So when did you make the decision to actually take it from a hobby to a viable business?

To be honest, when I realised I was good at it. I really loved it. I found it to be very cathartic and I thought to myself that I could do this all the time. Hours would pass while I’d be knitting and I wouldn't even realise.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the whole process of creating your pieces?

All my pieces are made using Merino wool. I get the roving which is essentially wool that has had nothing done to it. If you imagine cotton wool or candy floss, that’s what it’s like when it first arrives - it's really delicate and it just comes apart.

I then have to process it so it's strong enough to handle and knit. I think sometimes people think that you just get the wool in a ball, but that can't happen with roving. I have to wet the wool first and then take it to a launderette to dry it, as it doesn't fit in a normal machine. Once done, the fibres will stay together and then you can start knitting. The whole process is quite labour intensive, as the material is so heavy.

Is there a reason you use Merino wool over other wool options?

Merino wool has lots of great qualities; it’s non-scratchy, fire resistant, sustainable and hypoallergenic. Merino sheep are huge, with absolutely massive coats. Some people think shearing an animal is cruel, but they shouldn't have something so big and heavy on them. Merino wool also regulates body temperature, if you're too hot, it cools you down, if you're too cold, it warms you up. It's something that you can use all year round.

All your pieces are knitted using your actual hands, talk us through how that works.

I do have needles that are the size of rolling pins, but I don’t use those. When I first began knitting, I did use needles, but there’s something so rhythmic about using my hands. I find that with my hands it's easier to control and more comfortable. Your hands become the needles, you get to really feel the wool and work with it to create something great.

What kinds of products do you sell?

I do all sorts. It’s all fully bespoke but can be anything from blankets to cushions, scarves, pet beds, baby baskets or little baby sleeping bags. I've always got a million ideas running around in my mind. I’ve also got seasonal pieces too, such as the big woollen pumpkins and Christmas puddings. In fact, it was the Christmas puddings that went viral on Not On The High Street and Instagram, they really blew the business up.

As a business that predominantly sells online, how have you found it?

I do find it really difficult to be able to sell my products through an online platform. I'll admit that I'm terrible with social media, which for small businesses plays a big part in sales. It’s difficult because my pieces are all quite tactile. It’s something you need to see in person and feel, photos don't necessarily do it justice. Especially when it comes to fashion - it's a luxury. Nobody needs an oversized scarf for example, or a blanket necessarily, it’s something you buy because you think, “Oh yeah, like that,” or because you just want it. I’m absolutely aware that my knits are investment pieces but I make them in a way that will allow you to love them forever. Luckily knitting is something I love doing, so that gives me the motivation to keep going.

What do you think it is that sets your products apart?

I think being Black is one thing that definitely sets me apart. A lot of the time when people think of knitting, or somebody who knits, they have a preconceived image of what they think a knitter will look like. Perhaps an old lady sitting in a rocking chair, or even a hobby that’s just for people who are middle class, but I love that I’m getting the chance to dispel those myths. I’m showing people that knitting can be something different, it can be something a little cooler.

You're always aware of your Blackness. It's just not something that you can ever hide. From the outset, I have made sure that I’ve always been myself, I haven't policed anything that I've ever said. I’ve just channelled that, especially through my Instagram and people have resonated with that.

What has been your highlight?

Claudia Winkleman buying my pieces was definitely a highlight. In fact, she’ll be wearing one of my scarves during the upcoming season of Traitors which airs in January, so that’s really surreal.

That’s big news, how did that come about?

I've done a couple of bits with Holly Tucker, who was the founder of Not on the High Street, and her team found me and invited me to get involved in a couple of projects. I know that Claudia and Holly both follow each other on Instagram, so that could have played a part. However, Claudia ended up ordering from the Rose and Wül website directly. After that, Claudia started messaging me and ended up asking if I’d make a moss green scarf for her.

It just goes to show that you never know who's watching, I've always been a massive believer in that. You’ve always got to put your best foot forward, I think.

So what’s next for you?

I'd love to have my own studio space because this wool is so huge. At the minute I make everything from my home, but I don't live in a massive house. I'd love to have my own little workshop, then eventually have a little team of knitters. That's my long-term goal. I always want my pieces to be hand knitted, no matter how big I get, or how many people I hire. It’s something that’s really important to me. I’m currently working on a cardigan too, I definitely want to start doing more clothing in general.

So how do people get their hands on your amazing pieces?

Everything is made to order, I have colour charts on the website for people to choose the colours they want. Depending on the complexity, each piece can take anywhere between two to three weeks to turnaround. I love a challenge, nothing is too big, and I always love making new and unusual pieces. @roseandwul

interview: Addie Kenogbon

photo: Fabrice Gagos

HUMANITY PROJECT

Imagine a House of Citizens filled with a representatively selected jury of people who aren’t professional politicians, informed by the best expertise, sat atop government alongside the two Houses of Parliament (the Commons and Lords). This House would not be beholden to any manifesto or particular ideology, but steered by thousands of ongoing conversations around the country - inclusively, deliberatively, collectively making long term policy decisions based on the things we can all agree on. Sounds pretty far out right? Well that’s the plan for Humanity Project…

It’s a bright Wednesday afternoon in September when a motley group of artists, activists and seventy or so curious humans join a Zoom call.

Lined up to present were none other than musician-composer and British cultural titan Brian Eno, plus Lee Jasper (a former Senior Political Adviser to Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and member of Blaksox), Jamie Kelsey-Fry (secondary school teacher and ‘real’ democracy maverick), a group of Yale University politics researchers showing a ‘Constitution for the planet Mars’, and Extinction Rebellion Co-Founders Clare Farrell and Roger Hallam.

In the crowd attendees from Nottingham to Cornwall listen along excitedly, the chat box alive with messages, surprise speakers pop up from parallel international efforts. The topic? Back to that later.

This story is, first and foremost, about a local conversation. One amongst hundreds of such self-organised happenings across the country which centre on diverse topics that really matter to people. Thousands of these have already taken place around the world, and they aren't all that new, with their roots going back to at least 621 BC Athens.

As part of the thirtieth Nottingham Green Festival on Sunday 10 September 2023,

the public were invited to a ‘participatory democracy’ experience in the form of a Popular Assembly (or ‘Pop’ for short). Hosted by the volunteer-led Nottingham Climate Assembly, and five of us (mixed age, ethnicity, and gender) from Pop Notts, helped by facilitating the Pop.

The Pop was set in this Green Festival’s ‘Knowledge Garden’, where a variety of talks, stands, food and activities set up by local community groups were freely offered to whoever of the 5,000 or so guests passed by. Forty locals took part covering many ages and backgrounds, with friend of LeftLion Rikki Marr creating live illustrations of the discussion on a 6x4 foot canvas. On this hot and muggy day, refreshments and cooling watermelon was supplied to help create a convivial atmosphere and keep everyone cool. As facilitator, it was up to me to encourage people to commit to the principles of the conversation, help everyone feel confident in opening up, establish boundaries, and set the mood; “This is not a talking shop - this talk will be followed by action and publicity… It’s about listening, actively and caringly, and all being heard equally… Speak for no more than two minutes at a time”. The question was on breaking down barriers and getting our communities involved in 2024’s planned Nottingham Climate Assembly

The two guest speakers were given a brusk five minutes each to speak to the crowd; City Council Leader David Mellen explained his view of why the assembly - and a wide variety of participants from across city communities - was needed, while Nottingham Climate Assembly's Julian Marsh explained how the assembly would work. Then for a gloriously animated 45 minutes breakout groups of about eight people formed, and in the remaining fifteen minutes we came back together as a whole room to decide the three best ideas. I’ll tell you what those final three recommendations were later - because we need to go back to Brian Eno and co, and what we were up to on that Zoom call.

By humanity, for humanity

This ship on which my great hopes for the future have been sailing lately, and what our Pop Notts group forms the local end of, is Humanity Project...

It’s hard to fully explain Humanity Project in a short article whilst keeping things human, but think of it as a dynamo for democratic renewal; a multi-pronged ecosystem approach to upgrading our system, bringing together some of the most successful movement builders of recent decades.

As the name suggests, the project puts humans, and the care that we all hold for each other, at the centre of a whole new way of doing politics - at least, new to most of us in the Global North in recent history. And the most basic element of this model is exactly the sort of Popular Assembly we’re in the middle of hosting (in this piece, if you’re still following) in Nottingham.

What have Brian Eno and all these various massmovement builders got to do with it then? Well alongside being a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-r and ambient music pioneer, Brian founded the charity EarthPercent, and is a committed supporter of new forms of democracy that help deal with the crises we face.

As guest speaker on that Zoom call, Brian expressed the need to rethink the tired “arc of history” notion - the idea that we've arrived at the best possible form of government in our current corporate-friendly parliamentary and presidential Western democracies. He says any system must “always be experimental, always malleable and open to change;” the option of tweaking what we already have, or reinventing our structures completely, are subjects that “should be taught to our children… five to eleven year olds should be doing deliberative democracy.”

Another speaker on the call was Humanity Project core team member Lee Jasper, who has a forty-year track record in advocating, representing and organising British Black communities on the front line of the fight against systemic racism and injustice, via his work advising former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and as part of UK social movement Blaksox.

Speaking afterwards, Lee and I get onto how race ties into the project: “By working with diverse communities we are inviting them to positively shape Humanity Project's vision and actions” he says; “anti-racism is firmly embedded in this project”.

Inspiring, inclusive, informative art (taking in Black soundsystem culture amongst others, as well as quintessentially British influences) is at the forefront of the plan, helping these new Pops, and a new House of Citizens at the top of government, to reach communities who often feel left out of vital conversations. Lee says “this unique approach underlines our commitment to building genuine global inclusivity, and promoting a new approach to racial equity, environmental justice, and a fairer world for all”.

D.I.Y. Democracy

This is not our democracy as we know it, but one of “doing it ourselves, not having it done to us”, to paraphrase Jamie Kelsey-Fry, who has become an infectiously passionate facilitation guru since helping pioneer the first participatory ‘citizens juries’ in the 21st century, during the (global) Occupy protests at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2011. This London camp was one of over 951 in cities across 82 countries. Nottingham’s Old Market Square hosted its own Occupy camp, lasting six months. All were testing grounds for new democratic ideas, unified in calling out the inequities of our nominally democratic capitalist system. It may not feel like they achieved a whole lot in the short term, but new approaches to making decisions and acting collectively were fermented in these bold spaces, where facilitation became a robust, dynamic “craft”, as Jamie describes it. All much needed tools in the new participatory democracy frontier. Don’t we already have democracy? Well in the nineties, a pre-teen and impressionable me was assured it was ‘the end of history’, that ‘democracy’ - namely with a little help from the ‘invisible hand of the market’ - was perfect, and there were even naff songs telling us that things can only get better. Ideas like democracy and freedom were intrinsically linked in the minds of many to capitalism

words: Adam Pickering illustration: Ricky Marr

and markets, as though they were inseparable - but with a financial crash and woeful shortcomings exposed by Covid and Brexit now in the rearview, the shortcomings of our marketdemocracy became clear.

In our current first-past-the-post system we scarcely (unless we are in a marginal seat and happy with the choice of two or three parties) get a meaningful say over who gets to represent our area in the first place. Once voted in, politicians are in any case practically free to revert to their own (or their party’s) agendas - they can say whatever it takes to woo voters. Policies are often short-termist, and guided by big money donors.

Democracy has not always been so; many cultures, including indigenous communities that survive unbroken today had, and still have, far purer forms of democracy, and freedoms which don’t literally cost the Earth. They recognise the value of our natural systems without the need for impenetrably complex markets.

Our system shouldn’t be seen as a finished product, but an ongoing experiment in bettering lives. The challenges we face call for new ways of coming together, agreeing on things, and getting things done. So that’s what we’re working on.

A new common sense

Technology has matured since those halcyon nineties days… Thanks to the internet we are all able to inform ourselves of any topic we choose, providing we know where to look. Social media has given us all a platform, and no doubt helped many communities thrive, but it’s also created islands on which to shout, often along with people we noisily agree with. Unfiltered, this leaves a multitude of unusual intellectual hills to die on, and little in the way of progress.

Thankfully, the waves of real democracy are lapping at these shores. Assemblies are a machine for producing coherence, common ground and (most importantly) empathy between opposites. Sortition, that process which makes sure that the jury is made up of a reflective sample of citizens is vital too, especially at the national level. “Randomness ends corruption” says Clare Farrell, a fashion designer and one of the creative brains behind Extinction Rebellion and its sparky, punk aesthetic.

They often also produce brilliant and novel approaches, too. That’s why cities like Nottingham (and countries like Ireland) are going to the people to tackle big issues and bring grassroots solutions. Other local authorities like our near neighbours in South Yorkshire are too, as the region's mayor Oliver Coppard told the BBC this month "We are going to have to change how we live, work and travel. We simply can't tackle those big questions without listening to and learning from everyone".

For Jamie, the journey has often been emotional. “I wept every day in April 2019” he says at Extinction Rebellion’s first big London protests, which saw thousands of protestors bring parts of the capital to a standstill. "I saw close-up that each and every human in the room cared, and the world had the capacity for the love and the care we need. That’s what this is about”.

"Those without agency, given agency, are the bomb”, says Jamie. “You can look at individual problems like the climate crisis or cost of living, but it misses the point - the problem is with governance”.

‘Trust the process’ is something people in this space say often; putting your faith in the conversation itself is the first step towards putting faith in each other. The democratic dynamite is in the focus on active listening, with joy and love - paying real attention to what others are saying and being heard ourselves in kind. It's about the transformational feeling we get when we really commit ourselves to each other.

What makes Humanity Project really exciting and unique (the ‘HP Sauce’, get it?) is that it’s the first real bit of architecture built to make an inclusive form of grassroots democracy easier, and more fun to be part of. Then it aims to link together all of these assemblies to get them heard, in that new House of Citizens, as a counterbalance and guide to the ancient, crumbling Commons and the Lords. Finally… a practical route toward coming together around our collective needs and desires, visioning the world we all want to live in, and acting based on our commonality. Count me in.

Jamie always signs off with “Keep it lit!”, and after four months working together I think I’m finally getting it. Don’t just do democracy in a passive way, really do it - make it a party and invite everyone along.

On with the process

Did you know that HP Sauce was invented in Nottingham? Well you do now. Another fact is that it was based on an Indian brown sauce recipe, but I digress…

Back the Green Festival, after 45 minutes of discussion, the five different groups came back together to answer our central question: “How can we break down barriers to getting Nottingham’s community engaged in the Climate Assembly?”

As notetakers from each group read out their feedback a sea agreeing hands were waved, kinks were worked out, and with a touch of magic the mob of intermingling commoners, councillors, creatives, students, retirees and lost festival-goers settled on three recommendations:

1. Go and listen - meet people where they are

The Climate Assembly process should involve going out to communities, in person, to ask their thoughts on the assembly, involving a wide range of ages and demographics across all areas of Nottingham. Going to educational establishments, community and religious groups, and charities were all suggested as ways of reaching new and harder to reach people.

2. Accessible and engaging messaging Communicate to people in clear ways, pitch strong questions and potentially even court some controversy in how they get locals’ attention. Technocratic language should be avoided and language should be straightforward and human. Promote tangible examples of local climate action, and simple statistics. Funds to help make the event accessible to those facing the most significant economic pressures should be offered.

3. A real commitment from the council to act on outcomes

The strongest agreement from the room came on the point of NCC actually implementing outcomes of the assembly. This can’t just be another talking shop - it must invoke real change. It was felt that people won’t take the Climate Assembly seriously unless this is the case, and that people are far more likely to engage if they believe it so. This published piece is part of the promised follow up action to get those participants’ voices heard. And we hope they, for the sanctity of the process, the sake of local democracy, and for our collective struggle to turn back the climate crisis.

There’s an explosive sense of the big ‘what happens next’ about Humanity Project. As we journey along we find there are other massive projects taking place all around the world attempting similar democratic upgrades. If you ground yourself for a moment, you might just feel this new democratic tide bubbling up under your feet. Is it finally going somewhere? Can we really push the dial enough to rescue us from seemingly inevitable environmental, social and economic collapse?

Jump in the boat and find out my friend, it’s for us to decide... If not now, then when? If not us, then who?

To get involved head to nottinghamclimateassembly.co.uk, humanityproject.uk, or email adam. pickering@leftlion.co.uk for a chat about any LeftLion business (he is actually our Partnerships Manager too).

aCCidental poet

Getting in front of an audience and revealing your innermost thoughts sounds pretty daunting, but the rewards of speaking your truth are many. We spoke to Ravelle-Sadé Fairman about performing on stage, inspiring young writers and the purpose of poetry.

On your website you describe yourself as an ‘accidental poet’. What was the first accident?

My grandmother passed away in 2018 and I felt like I needed to commemorate her in some way. I was sat in Bulwell bus station and it just came to me in poetic form, that was the first time I'd written in many years. I ended up reading at her funeral, which I always say was like my first open mic!

I was also going through a shift in my life, understanding more about my own mental health, and I decided to write a poem about anxiety. I was sat on the tram in town, I saw this big flyer for the Nottingham Poetry Festival and thought ‘I might as well go see what it's all about’ - no intention of performing. In the break the organiser saw me jotting stuff down and said to me, ‘Would you like to get on stage?’ I thought, oh my gosh, not me. But I thought, ‘If I don't do it, I'm going to go home and kick myself’.

Was performing new to you, then?

It was definitely very new. I was sweating like mad - I don't think you realise before getting on stage how piercing the lights are. Performance was never really part of it, it's always been about sharing, making people feel like they're not alone. I think being a younger black woman (I was young!) getting on a stage and representing and speaking about mental health was really instrumental for me, because I wouldn't have had as many of the challenges that I’d had if other people were speaking about it, if people that looked like me were reflecting that back.

Have you spoken to people after your gigs that have said that it’s been helpful listening to you?

Absolutely, I see it as a mutual exchange. When people come in and give feedback, it’s reaffirming that I'm not alone and making other people feel like they're not alone. I've had people message me and say, ‘My daughter's not stopped writing since she's seen you on stage’. I think overall working with children in schools is a beautiful one because I get to come in and open up their imaginations and allow them to be themselves in a system which doesn't necessarily tell them it's okay to be yourself. You've got to cross the t’s and dot the i’s and I come in and say forget all of that, it's more about speaking from your soul. I’ve done quite a few workshops within schools - there was a girl that gifted me her poem after the workshop and her mentor came out and said, ‘She's just realised she's got dyslexia, we can never get her to write normally’.

You've done those workshops at the Nottingham Women's Centre, Youth Parliament, New Art Exchange, too…is that part of your mission now, to help create new poets?

I think when someone labelled me a poet I was very reluctant because I was like, I'm not a white middle-class man and I don't really feel like I'm equipped. I didn't see a lot of people that looked like me, but I think that going in and just understanding the power of my presence on a stage or leading a class…I had this little girl once when I was standing in front of the class. She walked in and she nearly tripped over a chair because she was just like ‘Are you leading our session’? That much disbelief. So it's not about how society defines a role, but whatever you decide that you want to claim, I think.

Is it quite important to you that you have quite an authentic voice when you write, that it’s your voice people are hearing?

Absolutely. I think it's quite hard being in a situation where you can understand the inequalities that are going on around you but not be able to do anything about that or feel like you can express yourself in any way. It's not always the case that it comes from me speaking about being a woman or being Black, but I think that naturally you start with what you can see first. And that's pushed me out into a lot of different spaces.

One of those spaces was at Nonsuch Theatre, where you produced a onewoman play - how did that come about?

The accidental poet situation! I was an associate for New Perspectives Theatre Company, we went for Arts Council funding and we all got a portion. I was the only poet. They said, okay, we've got the funding and I was like, ‘Oh crikey. What am I gonna do?’

I think that writing is kind of like journaling - you see the growth. I looked back over all of this work and thought it was showing me a journey that actually made a coherent story. I called it Adversity, Understanding, Enlightenment. I see it as a continuous cycle, you've got to go through something to get an understanding of it. And then you're enlightened by it. But then something else comes along!

interview: Andrew Tucker

photo: Tom Morley

I see it as a continuous cycle, you've got to go through something to get an understanding of it

Time waits for no man, as I discovered most viscerally when I left my SEIKO watch on the 28 to Bilborough. As the pink double-decker sailed out of view, I tried out all sorts of expletives to little effect - time is a big thing, too big to cram into language.

Like so many abstract concepts, the way we convert time into words is by using spatial metaphors: in English we face the future, we look forward (we hope) to the times that are ahead of us, and this all seems sensible and kosher.

But time is more vertical in China, where the past is above and the future is below. ‘Up month’, they say, meaning ‘last month’. The Yangtze river, academics tell us, may be responsiblepeople associate time with the flow of water downriver.

And it’s all back-to-front for the Aymara people in the Andes, who like to keep things interesting. They call the future the qhipa uru - the back days - because what’s to come is unseeable. In the salt flats of the Altiplano Plateau, the future is behind them and they are facing the past.

I did find my SEIKO eventually, on the thick red arm of a bartender in a flat-roof-pub on Radford Boulevard. Many years had passed and I thought I had let it go, but if you are an English speaker, the past has a way of sneaking up on you.

@andrewtucker.creative

len's in FoCus

What kind of dinosaur has a huge vocabulary?

A Thesaurus

Len Garrison was born in Jamaica at the height of the second world war, the son of a teacher and a cabinet-maker. By the time he died of a heart attack at 59, his obituary in The Guardian called him “arguably the most important figure in the Black British community's exploration and understanding of its history”, and he was held in high enough esteem to have a bust commissioned in clay, for his face to adorn the notes of the Brixton Pound. In the years between, he had brought Black history out of obscurity in Britain and onto the curriculum. And much of this, the crux of his life’s work, was done here in Nottingham.

Garrison’s first passion was photography. He worked part time as a cinema projectionist in Clapham Junction, splicing together broken reels, and with the keen eye he’d developed he soon went on to become a medical photographer at Guy’s Hospital, while the West Indian Gazette regularly published his photojournalism. At London’s Institute of Psychiatry he soon spearheaded the new Medical Illustration Unit, documenting the variety of troubled minds that existed in the capital of the Sixties.

Garrison’s focus soon moved from photography to education and he earned a BA in African and Caribbean history, as well as an MA in local history. In 1971, he took a diploma in development studies at Ruskin College, Oxford, where he wrote a dissertation on the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica. Educated at a Chelsea grammar school and having gone on to reach the pinnacle of British academia at Oxford, Garrison couldn’t escape the conclusion that other young bBlack people were being failed within Britain’s schools: "given the right opportunity,” he said “[Black children] can become an asset to society.”

Finding the means to address this would soon become the main resolve of Garrison’s life. He co-founded the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton and, while working on his PhD, established the Afro-Caribbean Education Resource, ACER, becoming its first director. One of ACER’s several projects was the Young Penmanship award for creative writing, success in which was a huge spur onwards for the careers of many Black writers, including The Times current chief

theatre critic Clive Davis. ACER’s Black history educational packs were piloted in Brixton, and these were soon distributed in schools all over the country.

Garrison reminds us what can be done with a camera, a typewriter and a restless sense of conviction

Len Garrison was a man of scrutiny and sureness. “Every Black activist knew him,” writes the novelist Mike Phillips, “because he would turn up everywhere, taking photographs, making notes and collecting documents… he devoted himself to uniting the Black diaspora.” Garrison moved again to Nottingham in 1988, taking up the role of Director of ACFF, Afro-Caribbean Family and Friends. Here in Notts, he established East Midlands African Caribbean Arts, as well as Build, one of the first effective mentoring projects in the country. Not easily satisfied, he persuaded the King's Fund to back Timeout, a scheme for supporting the carers of orphaned and abandoned Black children. He was instrumental in exposing the story of George Africanus, a former Black slave who became a successful businessman in eighteenth century Nottingham.

Garrison’s single book of poetry, Beyond Babylon, written in 1983, gives an elusive impression of the man behind the words. “All is not lost,” he writes, “I have breath and the will to change my state of decay.” His determination was that Black history would not be relegated to the marginalia of the history of our nation, and the goal of this pursuit seems much closer now than when his career began. Len Garrison reminds us what can be done with a camera, a typewriter and a restless sense of conviction.

Writer, photojournalist, poet and activist, Len Garrison was one of Britain’s leading historians on Black history, with much of his work based here in Notts. We take a look back at his prolific career.

words: Andrew Tucker photo: Jaclyn Nash

Yello Yard’s Jowayne Marks and Mahalia Chambers have been slinging Jamaican patties and other Caribbean treats around Notts since 2020. Their unique street food pop-up journey started with a simple idea: to bring authentic Jamaican patties to Nottingham so we could all experience the real deal.

For those of you who don’t know what a patty is; it’s a flaky pastry filled with meat or vegetables with a mix of spices, often tinted golden with turmeric. Like a pie or pasty, but make it Jamaican - sounds right up our street!

Jowayne and Mahalia are champions for independents and have collaborated with many indie establishments in Nottingham to bring an immersive experience to the city and beyond.

This month we thought we’d try something a bit different, so we asked Yello Yard to share the recipe for one of their favourite West Indian creations - a Coco Jerk Chicken Deli. The sweet brioche-like coco bread pairs wonderfully with the aromatic heat of the jerk chicken. Serve with homemade and grilled corn on the cob to bring that summer feeling back, then go order yourself the real deal from Yello Yard to see how you fared.

Ingredients

Jerk chicken

1kg of chicken pieces

2 scotch bonnet peppers (adjust for spice)

6-8 green onions

4 cloves garlic

2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

2 tbsp ground allspice

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp each of black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp vegetable oil

Juice of 2 limes

2 tsp salt

Wood chips (for smoking, optional)

Coco bread

3 cups strong bread flour

1 packet active dry yeast

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup softened butter

1 cup warm coconut milk

Instructions

Jerk chicken

4. Make the jerk marinade by blending peppers, onions, garlic, thyme, spices, sugar, soy sauce, oil, lime juice, and salt.

5. Marinate chicken in the jerk sauce for at least 4 hours or overnight.

6. Prepare a grill with charcoal and optional wood chips for smoking.

7. Grill chicken over indirect heat, turning occasionally, for 4560 minutes until the internal temperature reaches (74°C).

Coco bread

1. Mix yeast, sugar, and warm coconut milk. Let it froth.

2. Combine flour, salt, butter, and yeast mixture to form dough.

3. Let dough rise for 1-1.5 hours.

4. Divide dough, flatten, add filling, and fold.

5. Bake at 175°C for 20-25 minutes.

6. Let it cool.

Assembly

1. Line the centre of your coco bread with a lettuce of your choice and sliced tomatoes.

2. Take your jerk chicken off the bone and load your coco bread.

3. Enjoy!

This month Yello Yard will be updating their online menu to introduce some new items that were only exclusive to their pop ups. Soon we’ll be able to have them whenever we are hungry, so visit yelloyard.com to stay updated.

RECOMMENDS

Skindred

Congrats if you managed to get tickets to this sold out show, we can’t wait to see their energetic fusion of genres on the Rock City stage this month. See you in the pit for some ragga-metal and tracks from their latest album Smile!

Thursday 19 October

Swear Blind

Alt-Rock three-piece Swear Blind formed in Nottingham off the back of over fifteen years of firm friendship and musical expertise. This special debut show at Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms is guaranteed to be a landmark moment for the band, having spent decades building relationships within the Notts scene.

Friday 27 October

ALT BLK ERA

Sister duo ALT BLK ERA have gone from strength to strength since winning Future Sound of Nottingham and opening the Splendour main stage in 2022. They headlined the BBC Introducing Stage at Leeds Festival and will soon return home for this very special show at Rock City BETA.

Friday 3 November

Ah Black History Month. The bittersweet 31 days of October. Please don't feel pressured to partake in events. It can feel forced and draining on your soul.

As a woman of Caribbean descent, my spiritual journey, and my very open attitude to mental health and well-being, can be frowned upon by the community. We are brought up in holy spaces that promote faith, sing beautiful verses of belief, and pray to Prophets. And while this can be an uplifting experience, at times, we rarely acknowledge the very real and very serious issues in our culture when it comes to neurological problems.

Black adults have the lowest mental health treatment rate of any ethnic group, at six percent (compared to thirteen percent in the white British group). It can be difficult asking for help, especially when we fear the reaction and judgement of those closest to us, but it is the bravest and most important thing we can do to help ourselves when we are feeling the lower frequencies. A survey of over 500 people was conducted last year by Mind - the results are interesting but not shocking. Amongst them was the following: 31% asked said they had experienced stigma and/or discrimination from a health profession.

Engaging with a Black therapist can be beneficial, simply because they can relate to the intergenerational trauma, systematic oppression, stereotyping and racism. Taking active, daily steps to keep yourself fit and healthy, mentally and emotionally, doesn't require huge efforts. Writing three lines in a journal, five minutes of focused breath work, or a twenty minute walk in nature can help.

Our October affirmation:

“TAKING CARE OF ME UPLIFTS THE COLLECTIVE WE”

Until next time, my loves. Be safe, no fear and stay blessed. And remember, Black is beautiful ALL YEAR.

CECE Love X

@lovecelestene lovecelestene.com

A yard act to follow

For the past thirteen years Nathaniel Coltrane has run Mimm (Music is my Motive) from the heart of Nottingham. Starting as a clothing shop, it has evolved into a community hub for the vast amount of creatives residing in the city. We spoke to Nate about his new project Our Yard: a detailed look into the history of sound system culture.

Despite being a staple of Hockley retailers, Mimm isn’t just a shop - throughout its many years Nate has also been heavily involved in event promotion, from large scale, all-day jazz events, to smaller intimate DJ sets. Weaving both of these together has culminated in a unique blend of music, fashion and art that is hard to find anywhere else in the city. Nate’s ethos is to help young people from all creative backgrounds, graphic designers to musicians, providing opportunities to build up their skills and confidence to help them use their talents to get real work.

Like many people, Nate spent the pandemic planning what to do after the lockdowns were eventually lifted. For him that was a rare period of self-reflection; not necessarily thinking about where to take Mimm, but how to use the skills he’s gained to explore his own heritage and musical journey - a journey which started in his own family. As a young child, his mum played him Bristol trip hop bands such as Massive Attack and Portishead, his dad was a huge jazz and Motown fan (so much so that his own middle name comes from legendary saxophonist John Coltrane) and his aunties would frequently attend reggae and lovers rock parties. His own personal tastes continued to develop with a notable moment being in the late nineties when his brother introduced him to garage, which then led him into discovering grime and dubstep.

Despite electronic music being a prevalent force in his formative years as a teenager, he never connected the dots between the different genres or thought about how intertwined they really were. Eventually his love for dubstep led him to look into the history of dub, along with artists such as Mad Professor - opening a new world and history he wasn’t previously aware of. Over time this curiosity has developed into Our Yard - a burning passion project that has had a substantial amount of planning and care put into it, even at these early stages.

Nate hopes that through the project he can introduce young people to the roots of music they love today (i.e. grime or jungle), and also to highlight how fundamental immigration was to sound systems and the culture around it - especially crucial now given how vitriolic the mainstream media circuit is to migration currently (and historically).

is Lloyd Coxsone: a Jamaican born sound system operator and record producer who has resided in the UK since the early sixties. Coxsone is one the oldest surviving people involved in early sound system culture and has provided a wealth of knowledge about both his own personal struggles finding work in a racist society and the musical developments in the late sixties.

Our Yard provides a perfect opportunity to shine a positive light on immigration and counteract xenophobia. As a descendant of Windrush generation migrants, for Nate an important part of the project is exploring his own heritage and leaving a legacy for his children. “This heritage is British heritage now and it is open to everybody,” he tells me. Alongside being a personal project, he is glad to be able to highlight how fundamental immigration was to the foundation of sound system culture.

Still in production, Our Yard is setting up to be huge in scale: it begins in the early days of reggae and dub music in the sixties and seventies (which is the current focus of the project), going through decades in chronological order and eventually getting to modern day. Each period is mapped to a season which is planned out over the upcoming years. Not only is the content of the project colossal but so is the myriad of different forms the project is utilising: podcast interviews, radio sessions, live Q&As, clothing drops and live music are all part of the plan Nate has to bring this project to the people. Alongside that is the potential for a feature length documentary, which will be a collaboration between Nate and long time friend Curtis Powell (our featured contributor this month). The first person to be interviewed for the project

After mentioning my own personal music background in punk music, which we agreed shares many similarities with rave culture, Nate spoke about another season one interviewee: Don Letts, who Nate claims is the “culture clash king”. A man who permeates through both punk and reggae cultures, creating a unique blend of the two with his shop Acme Attractions becoming a hotbed of interaction between these two subcultures. Both of these figures alongside other people such as: Lady V (V Rocket International), Mikey Dread (Channel One) and Dennis Bovell allow for real experiences to be shared to a wide audience of young people who might potentially be learning about this for the first time.

On top of these extensive interviews an upcoming part of the project is a street art mural which will be in Hyson Green, an area which has an extensive history of sound system culture: the old (now demolished) flat blocks of which frequently housed vibrant blues parties. The project is a collaboration between Nate and Philth, who both share the same heritage, and is part of New Art Exchange’s YOUnity program which celebrates Black History month and the 75th anniversary of the Windrush. The mural, and another art piece which will reside in the actual gallery, aim to pay homage to the impact these blues parties had on Nottingham: a city which still remains an incredibly diverse place for art, culture and music.

@mimmstore

interview: Oliver Parker

photo: Curtis Powell illustration: Alex Black Design

out of t ime

GEORGE AFRICANUS

On 30 May 1834, the Nottingham Review published the obituary of a prominent and respected local businessman and property owner. Far from your average Georgian entrepreneur, George Africanus was the first known Black man to have made his home in Nottingham.

A former enslaved African man turned wealthy and influential citizen, like so many other victims of colonial atrocities, the details of his early life remain frustratingly vague. Were it not for his extraordinary later success, his story would have been lost to history altogether. From information woven together from local records emerges the tale of a remarkable man who, with a mix of belated good fortune and a determined spirit, overcame incomprehensible prejudice to become a Nottingham idol.

Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, as the great oceans began to be explored, intricate routes of passage began to form between Europe, Africa and Central America, primarily made by Portuguese, British, Spanish and French ships. These adventurous expeditions brought opportunity for trade unlike ever before: exotic new foods, fine fabric, delicious alcohol, tobacco, even the quintessentially British tea with sugar. All manner of luxury imports were brought to Europe and snapped up by the bourgeois, enriching the British economy and fuelling the Empire.

left behind along with his heritage, but he was baptised George John Scipio Africanus by the Molyneuxs. This was in reference to two victorious Roman generals dating back to the second century BC, Scipion and Africanus –the latter indicating the conquest of Africa.

On the 30th of May 1834, the Nottingham Review published the obituary of a prominent and respected local businessman and property owner. Far from your average Georgian entrepreneur, George Africanus was the first known black man to have made his home in Nottingham.

A former African slave turned wealthy and influential citizen, like so many other victims of colonial atrocities, the details of his early life remain frustratingly vague. Were it not for his extraordinary later success, his story would have been lost to history altogether. From information woven together from local records emerges the tale of a remarkable man who, with a mix of belated good fortune and a determined spirit, overcame incomprehensible prejudice to become a Nottingham idol.

In many references to George’s childhood, the Molyneux family are praised for their care of the boy – his time with them often referred to more as ‘adoption’ than servitude or slavery. But George’s own account is, of course, undocumented. The confusion and fear of the three-year-old child – his culture, language and family made instantly anonymous – is often overlooked in these historical accounts.

In many references to George’s childhood, the Molyneux family are praised for their care of the boy – his time with them often referred to more as ‘adoption’ than servitude or slavery. But George’s own account is, of course, undocumented. The confusion and fear of the three-year-old child – his culture, language and family made instantly anonymous – is often overlooked in these historical accounts.

words: Sophie Gargett

illustration: Christine Dilks

words: Lady M and F Dashwood illustration: Christine Dilks

Among these foreign objects of desire, transported on the very same boats, were enslaved people from faraway lands being ferried across to be bought and sold like cattle. Seized against their will, they were condemned to a life of backbreaking labour in the very plantations that fulfilled the increasing demand for these exotic imports. By the 1760s, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the slave trade, responsible for the enslavement and exploitation of an estimated 42,000 Africans each year.

Back on England’s shores, Black servants were becoming quite the fashionable addition to wealthy households. Enslaved people brought back from expeditions were sold at quayside auctions or at coffee houses in London. Seen as tokens of riches and refinery, they were as much used as decorative objects to complement the other exotic artefacts being acquired from ‘the east’ as they were for domestic labour. A large number who found themselves bought in these inhumane circumstances were children, favoured for their cuteness and ease of training, and it was in this way that George Africanus arrived in England.

Taken from his family in Sierra Leone, West Africa, around 1766, the young infant was given as a ‘present’ to Benjamin Molyneux (later Molineux), a wealthy gentleman from a prominent Wolverhampton family. His birth name was

Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, as the great oceans began to be explored, intricate routes of passage began to form between Europe, Africa and Central America, primarily made by Portuguese, British, Spanish and French ships. These adventurous expeditions brought opportunity for trade unlike ever before: exotic new foods, fine fabric, delicious alcohol, tobacco, even the quintessentially British tea with sugar. All manner of luxury imports were brought to Europe and snapped up by the bourgeois, enriching the British economy and fuelling the Empire.

Nevertheless, the Molyneuxs were somewhat apt to progressive attitudes and George had the luck of the draw compared to his counterparts on the ships and plantations. At a time when education was a rare luxury for anyone not born into wealth, and prevailing opinion stereotyped Black people as either morally or intellectually lacking, George was educated before becoming a servant for the family.

Among these foreign objects of desire, transported on the very same boats, were slaves from faraway lands being ferried across to be bought and sold like cattle. Seized against their will, they were condemned to a life of backbreaking labour in the very plantations that fulfilled the increasing demand for these exotic imports. By the 1760s, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the slave trade, responsible for the enslavement and exploitation of an estimated 42,000 Africans each year.

Nevertheless, the Molyneuxs were somewhat apt to progressive attitudes and George had the luck of the draw compared to his counterparts on the ships and plantations. At a time when education was a rare luxury for anyone not born into wealth, and prevailing opinion stereotyped black people as either morally or intellectually lacking, George was educated before becoming a servant for the family.

In 1772, with George aged seven, a legal judgment declared the status of slave inadmissible on English soil, leaving many former slaves destitute and homeless. Meanwhile, George was apprenticed to a brass founder, paving the way for his later life of independence. Once free to travel and work as he pleased, George left Wolverhampton for greener pastures, and our next reference of him is in Nottingham, where he spent the remainder of his life. the portrait we are left with is of a resilient and resourceful man. But

In 1772, with George aged seven, a legal judgement declared the status of ‘slave’ inadmissible on English soil, leaving many former slaves destitute and homeless. Meanwhile, George was apprenticed to a brass founder, paving the way for his later life of independence. Once free to travel and work as he pleased, George left Wolverhampton for greener pastures, and our next reference of him is in Nottingham, where he spent the remainder of his life.

Back on England’s shores, black servants were becoming quite the fashionable addition to wealthy households. Slaves brought back from expeditions were sold at quayside auctions or at coffee houses in London. Seen as tokens of riches and refinery, they were as much used as decorative objects to complement the other exotic artefacts being acquired from ‘the east’ as they were for domestic labour. A large number who found themselves bought in these inhumane circumstances were children, favoured for their cuteness and ease of training, and it was in this way that George Africanus arrived in England.

Taken from his family in Sierra Leone, West Africa, around 1766, the young infant was given as a ‘present’ to Benjamin Molyneux (later Molineux), a wealthy gentleman from a prominent Wolverhampton family. His birth name was left behind along with his heritage, but he was baptised George John Scipio Africanus by the Molyneuxs. This was in reference to two victorious Roman generals dating back to second century BC, Scipion and Africanus – the latter indicating the conquer of Africa.

omitted throughout is George’s own voice...

Why George chose Nottingham is unclear, although based on the Molyneuxs’ ties to the area it is believed he had occasion to pass through in his youth. A town thriving on industry, laid with wide boulevards and many beautiful gardens would have seemed attractive. But this splendour would have been matched by much difficulty for the first black man in town. It would take a strong, determined and charming character to build a life here, but George did it with aplomb.

In 1788 George married a local lass by the name of Esther Shaw at St Peter’s Church in the city centre. While the marriage between a black ex-slave and a white woman would have undoubtedly been a controversial event, no first-hand accounts of the stigma that might have met the happy couple exist. Although the match was lengthy and prosperous, tragedy followed as all but one of their seven children survived to adulthood.

Why George chose Nottingham is unclear, although based on the Molyneuxs’ ties to the area it is believed he had occasion to pass through in his youth. A town thriving on industry, laid with wide boulevards and many beautiful gardens would have seemed attractive. But this splendour would have been matched by much difficulty for (possibly) the first Black man in town. It would take a strong, determined and charming character to build a life here, but George did it with aplomb.

In 1788 George married a local lass by the name of Esther Shaw at St Peter’s Church in the city centre. While the marriage between a Black ex-enslaved man and a white woman would have undoubtedly been a controversial event, no first-hand accounts exist of the stigma that might have met the happy couple. Although the match was lengthy and prosperous, tragedy followed as all but one of their seven children survived to adulthood.

While Esther is listed as a milliner, George is recorded as having several occupations such as waitering, labouring, and his primary trade of brass-founding. In 1793, the pair opened Africanus’s Register Office for Servants, an agency for domestic labour within Nottingham.

This venture provided the family with a comfortable living and a chance to take control over their fortunes. It

While Esther is listed as a milliner, George is recorded as having several occupations such as waitering, labouring, and his primary trade of brass-founding. In 1793, the pair opened Africanus’s Register Office for Servants, an agency for domestic the labour within Nottingham.

appeared that at the time of their marriage licence, Esther was unable to write even her own name, suggesting that George probably taught his wife to read and write, allowing her to run the office while he perhaps worked the posts they could not fill.

This venture provided the family with a comfortable living and a chance to take control over their fortunes. It appeared that at the time of their marriage licence, Esther was unable to write even her own name, suggesting that George probably taught his wife to read and write, allowing her to run the office while he perhaps worked the posts they could not fill.

With business comfortable, George was able to buy the family home in 1829 along with a plot of land adjacent to develop more properties. With this most unusual gains for a man of his position, George acquired an entitlement unheard of for a black man, and indeed, the vast majority of society – the right to vote. He became an active member of the local community as a landlord and officer in the Watch & Ward, a local policing organisation to quell civil disturbances and rioting. Upon George’s death in 1834, Esther continued the family business, which survived a further thirty years until her death.

In piecing together George Africanus’ story, we are missing a vital detail. Reports of George as a servant, a businessman, a community member and family man can be assembled, and the portrait we are left with is of a resilient and resourceful man. But omitted throughout is George’s own voice, with no chance given to express his personal experience of this seemingly seamless integration into Western society. As a pioneering black man within Nottingham, George’s presence would have in many small ways undoubtedly advanced a local acceptance of other races. Articles from the Nottingham Journal that were published one week after the fight for the abolition of slavery was finally won in 1834, report numerous services of thanksgiving followed by jubilant celebrations across the county. However, we cannot say the same for his culture, which would have sadly remained largely unknown and misjudged, even to George himself. That he had the skill and boldness to make a success of his life here is admirable, but the heinous cause by which he came to be here should not go unforgotten or excused.

With business comfortable, George was able to buy the family home in 1829 along with a plot of land adjacent to develop more properties. With these most unusual gains for a man of his position, George acquired an entitlement unheard of for a Black man, and indeed, the vast majority of society – the right to vote. He became an active member of the local community as a landlord and officer in the Watch & Ward, a local policing organisation to quell civil disturbances and rioting. Upon George’s death in 1834, Esther continued the family business, which survived a further thirty years until her death.

The Dilettante Society, The Chameleon Arts Cafe, Monday 11 April, 7.30pm, free. All welcome – the more the merrier.

facebook.com/thedilettantesociety leftlion.co.uk/issue77 29

In piecing together George Africanus’ story, we are missing a vital detail. Reports of George as a servant, a businessman, a community member and family man can be assembled, and the portrait we are left with is of a resilient and resourceful man. But omitted throughout is George’s own voice, with no chance given to express his personal experience of this seemingly seamless integration into Western society.

As a pioneering Black man within Nottingham, George’s presence would have undoubtedly, in many small ways, advanced a local acceptance of other races. Articles from the Nottingham Journal (published one week after the fight for the abolition of slavery was finally won in 1834), report numerous services of thanksgiving, followed by jubilant celebrations across the county. However, we cannot say the same for his culture, which would have sadly remained largely unknown and misjudged, even to George himself. That he had the skill and boldness to make a success of his life here in spite of what he would have faced is admirable, but the heinous cause by which he came to be here, and the omission of George’s own voice, should not go unforgotten or excused.

GeorGe’s own account is, of course, undocumented. the confusion and fear of the three-year-old child – his culture, lanGuaGe and family made instantly anonymous – is often overlooked in these historical accounts

BEST OF THE MONTH

Goose Fair

When: 29 September - 8 October

Where: Forest Recreation Ground

How much: Free

Another famous Nottingham event, we’re sure you know by now that Goose Fair is an unmissable occasion on the city’s calendar. With more than 250 rides and attractions and thrills aplenty for all ages, Goose Fair is one of the largest travelling funfairs in Europe and has been staged annually in Nottingham since at least 1284. New rides this year include the TipTop and Xcelerator, as well as lots of returning favourites.

Nottingham Robin Hood Beer and Cider Festival

When: 11 - 14 October

Where: Trent Bridge Cricket Ground

How much: £15 Robin Hood Beer and Cider Festival, Nottingham CAMRA’s flagship annual event, is returning to Trent Bridge cricket ground this year. The 2023 festival will feature an expanded range of beers, brewery bars, ciders, entertainment and caterers. It will also extend across additional concourse areas, with extra seats available within the venue, including access to the pavilion, and new hospitality packages will be available along with prebookable tours of the pavilion.

Oktoberfest On Tour UK: Nottingham

When: Sat 14 October

Where: Binks Yard

How much: From £13.45 Germany’s biggest beer festival is shipping 10,000 litres of authentic German beer to Nottingham’s Binks Yard for what will be the biggest beer festival in the Midlands. Experience Authentic Bavarian culture with a live Oompah show and a funky Bavarian DJ providing the entertainment, so don’t forget your Lederhosen - there will be prizes for those who are best dressed!

Casino Zero

When: Wed 18 October

Where: Nottingham Playhouse

How much: £15

Our very own former editor Bridie Squires is putting on a one-woman loop station play based on her experiences working in a Nottingham casino, as the headliner of Amplify Festival 2023. Bizarre, poetic humour runs through this tale of loss, punctuated with melodic, loop-station soundscapes, crafted live with casino props. It is a tale of minimum wage, grief and addiction, highlighting the social issues of gambling culture, and caricaturing the industry through the eyes of a female, working-class writer from Nottingham.

Hockley Hustle

When: Sun 22 October

Where: Various venues

How much: £11

Hockley Hustle has been around since 2006, so we’re sure you’re familiar with this one by now. For just £11, get access to over thirty venues and 350 acts, with all proceeds going to local charities Emmanuel House, Base 51, SFiCe Foundation, B’Me Cancer Communities, and Imara. At the time of writing this, the lineup hasn’t been released, but by the time you are reading this it will all be available online and you will likely be drawing up your schedule for the day as we speak.

Robin Hood Adventures

When: Sun 29 October

Where: Nottingham Castle

How much: Free Celebrate Nottingham’s famous outlaw Robin Hood, with a day dedicated to him! Included in the admission price, you can travel through the Castle tunnel into Robin Hood Adventures where you’ll sit back in a forest clearing to experience the ballads of Robin Hood on the round storytelling screens. In the dedicated gaming spaces, you can fire your longbow in a digital archery competition or spar with Little John in the depths of Sherwood Forest.

Halloween Outdoor Cinema

When: 29 - 31 October

Where: Wollaton Hall & Deer Park

How much: From £10 Adventure Cinema brings thrilling outdoor cinema experiences this Halloween. Bring a blanket or camping chair, wrap up warm, and watch classic Halloween films on a giant cinema screen under the stars! Fancy dress is highly encouraged, plus there will be a spooky soundtrack to enjoy before the movie with specially curated songs for witches, ghouls, ghosts, vampires, werewolves and humans alike. Films include Hocus Pocus, The Lost Boys and Scream.

The Nottingham Comedy Festival

When: 3 - 11 November

Where: Various venues

How much:

We know this one is at the start of November,o0 but we thought we’d be kind and give you some advance notice so you can plan ahead. The Nottingham Comedy Festival is back for its fifteenth year, taking over various venues across the city. They pride themselves on supporting local, national and international comedians through all stages of their careers, and they are proud to announce their new stage LOL-GBTQ dedicated to LGBTQ+. Full details are available on their website.