WritersMosaic: Music, When it hits.. You feel OK

This event will take place in the British Library Knowledge Centre Pigott Theatre and simultaneously live streamed on the British Library platform. Tickets may be booked either to attend in person or to watch online either live or within 48 hours on catch up. Viewing links for the online version will be sent out shortly before the event. 

‘One good thing about music’ sang Bob Marley is that ‘when it hits you, you feel no pain.’ But what is it about Black British music that makes it so defining, affecting and compelling? WritersMosaic brings together musicians, poets and chroniclers to explore the extraordinary heterogeneity of black music. They include the Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter Julian Marley, London-based duo An Alien Called Harmony who will be giving a dynamic duo performance of their eponymous EP, and the poet Carol Leeming performing Praise Song for Black Divas. The evening is hosted by the writer and cultural critic Jeffrey Boakye, author of Musical Truth: A Musical Journey Through Modern Black Britain.

Doors and Bar open at 18:00, and the event will start at 19:00. If you’re attending in person, please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event

Half price tickets available, Students, Under 26 and other concession groups. Discounts available for British Library Members.

Explore the full events programme for the British Library exhibition Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music (26 April – 26 August). 

Presented by WritersMosaic in partnership with the British Library, and in association with Brukout and The Playmaker Group.

Julian Marley is a British-Jamaican musician, songwriter, producer and humanitarian who received the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album for Colors of Royal, his collaboration with Antaeus. The son of music icon Bob Marley and Lucy Pounder he spent formative years in music with legendary reggae veterans such as Aston “Family Man” Barrett, Carlton Barrett, Earl “Wire” Lindo, Tyrone Downie and Earl “Chinna” Smith, leading to his debut album, Lion in the Morning in 1996 and global touring with his band The Uprising. He was a core contributor to Lauryn Hill’s classic The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, a collaborator on tours with other Marley family members in Ethiopia, Ghana and Jamaica and in 2009 released the Grammy Award nominated album, Awake, co-produced with his brothers Stephen and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley and recorded in Miami and the Tuff Gong studios in Jamaica. His 2019 album As I Am also received a for a Grammy Award nomination. Marley is a humanitarian and continues to build charitable missions and still contributes to the Ghetto Youths Foundation in the spirit of his father.

An Alien Called Harmony is a London-based duo consisting of poet, rapper and visual artist Nadeem Din-Gabisi and drummer, composer/producer and singer-songwriter Momoko Gill (aka MettaShiba). Nadeem Din-Gabisi’s work seeks to reimagine and investigate blackness as it pertains to his experiences as a British-born, second-generation immigrant of Sierra Leonean descent. Born in the UK, raised in Japan and California before returning to the UK as an adult, Momoko Gill is a composer, producer, drummer and multi-instrumentalist. Uniting as An Alien Called Harmony, their debut EP is like a message in a bottle from another galaxy – a hopeful and subtly profound exploration of the state of the world, from the perspective of two curious outsiders. Five tracks of Brainfeeder-esque cosmic world-building, An Alien Called Harmony offers an astute social commentary in the spirit of hip-hop innovators Shabazz Palaces. Animated by love and empathy, it holds a mirror up to the realities of mortality and conflict, forging a hybrid sound defined by sonic playfulness, spontaneous improvisation and just a little philosophical questioning.

Carol Leeming was awarded MBE as poet, playwright, and contribution to Leicester arts and culture. Carol is hailed as a polymath, a UK Cultural Olympian of 2012, a multi-award winning, multi-disciplinary artist in literature, performing arts and digital media.  Carol is a p/t lecturer at De Montfort University BA (Hons) Performing Arts Course, Contemporary Theatre Module, other roles include: singer-songwriter, musician, composer, actor, director, curator, visual artist, and publisher. Carol’s literary work features in The Cambridge University Companion to British Black & Asian Literature1945-2010.  Carol has been published in articles and anthologies, e.g. Oxford Women’s Journal: Women Black Arts and Brixton in the 1980’s.

Jeffry Boakye is a writer, teacher and music enthusiast originally from Brixton, London. He has a particular interest in issues surrounding education, race and popular culture. ?Jeffrey has taught English in London secondary schools and 6^th?Form colleges since 2007, previously working in journalism and copywriting, after graduating with a degree in English Literature. His first book,?Hold Tight: Black Masculinity, Millennials and the Meaning of Grime,?is recognised as one of the first seminal books about grime music, published by Influx Press in 2017. Black, Listed: Black British Culture Explored is his second major book, published under Dialogue Books in 2018. Boakye’s illustrated compendium Musical Truth: A Musical History of Modern Black Britain in 28 Songs was published in June 2021. He is also the co-author of What is Masculinity? Why Does it Matter? And Other Big Questions. He has also contributed articles and comment pieces to publications including the Guardian, the Financial Times and the Royal Society of Arts Journal. After moving from London in 2018 Jeffrey now lives in East Yorkshire with his wife and two sons.

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