Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture

This is an excerpt of a full length episode currently only available to patrons. To become a patron and support what we're doing from £3 per month, head to www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

Continuing our ongoing patrons-only reading series, Tim picks up where he left off in his 2004 book 'Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture 1970-1979'. I'm sure you'll all have heard him reference the book the show, and many of you will have read it, so here we present a reading series of the book to compliment the Love is the Message project.

In Chapter 1 part 3, we hear about the original parties thrown by David Mancuso in his home at 647 Broadway. Tim describes the make up of the crowd, the lengths David went in preparing for the party, his innovations in décor, and the freedom people found dancing there.

Thank you for your continued support of the show - we couldn't do it without you.

Expect to hear much more from the book in the coming months, as well as more patrons-only content and a new series of the main show.

Tune in, turn on, get down!

In this week's episode Jeremy and Tim focus on the birth of Reggae in Jamaica. Beginning with the island's first popular music, Ska, we hear how the music of Alton Ellis and Desmond Decker transformed into Rocksteady, with it's slower pulse, rootsy feel and serious lyrical turn. Set against the backdrop of Kingston's high crime rate and Rudeboy culture, Tim and Jeremy recount how this music took on the feeling of suffering and anguish many Jamaicans experienced in their lives. We hear how these musicians began to look less to America for their musical inspirations than to the island's Mento folk traditions as the Reggae sound began to crystalize in the late '60s.

Also in this episode, we are introduced to the pioneering producer and performer Lee 'Scratch' Perry (more from him next episode), explore the emerging link between Reggae music and Michael Manley's socialist People's National Party, and consider the problematic gender and sexual politics of a genre so focused on emancipation and liberation. Join us next time as we dive deep into Dub...

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Alton Ellis and the Flames - Girl I Have Got A Date

This is an excerpt of a full length episode currently only available to patrons. To become a patron and support what we're doing from £3 per month, head to www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In this week's episode Tim and Jeremy turn their attention to the island of Jamaica. They recount a history of Jamaica as a British Colony and the liberation struggles that grew up in the face of Imperial rule, including the work of Marcus Garvey, the Back to Africa movement, and the eventual socialist prime minister Michael Manley. We hear about the emergence of Rastafarianism in the early Twentieth century, considering the importance of Zion or a promised land to the Rastas, their development into an anti-colonial vanguard, and the role of Indian mystical and religious rites on their own spiritual practices.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.  

Tracklist:

Books and Films:

This is an excerpt of a full length episode currently only available to patrons. To become a patron and support what we're doing from £3 per month, head to www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In this week's patrons-only episode we conclude our two-part interview with Black Feminist scholar and music critic Daphne A. Brooks. Following from our previous show, Daphne disucsses some of the contemporary figures in her new book Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound, including Janelle Monáe, who along with the Wonderland Arts Collective engage in an act of intellectual worldbuilding around her music, and the deep archival searching of jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant. With reference to Beyoncé Tim, Jeremy and Daphne consider to what extent we are living through an ascendent period of Black feminist consciousness and discuss the way such Black female megastars are held in cultural production.

We also took advantage of speaking with Daphne to ask her about the Harlem Cultural Festival, the so-called 'Black Woodstock' which the excellent new film and firm LITM favourite Summer of Soul documents, as well as to commemorate the recent passing of two titans of Black cultural writing, Greg Tate and bell hooks. We are so grateful to Daphne for being so generous with her time, insight and humour.

Daphne A. Brooks is William R. Kenan, Jr. professor of African American studies, American Studies, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Music at Yale University; she is also director of graduate studies.She specializes in African American literary cultural performance studies, especially 19th century and trans-Atlantic culture. She is a rock music lover and has attributed her research interests in black performance to being a fan of rock music since a very young age.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Tracklist:

Janelle Monáe - Make Me Feel

In this week's episode Jeremy and Tim complete their three-part study of African music by looking at the flows of musical influence across the Black Atlantic. They explore how diasporic sounds reflected back on music being made in African nations, including the heavy Latin rhythms found in the Malian Super Rail Band and the fingerprint of Duke Ellington on the Ethiopian Jazz of Mulatu Astatke.

Tim and Jeremy also investigate how state subsidies in aid of building national culture affected musical production, flesh out the geopolitical background these independence movements took place against, and dedicate a long discussion to Manu Dibango and his talismanic record, Soul Makosa.

Tracklist:

Books:

This is an excerpt of a full length episode currently only available to patrons. To become a patron and support what we're doing from £3 per month, head to www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In this episode Daphne talks with Tim and Jeremy about the writers, practitioners and 'organic intellectuals' who have created a new discourse around Black female sound, taking in figures such as the writer and collector of field recordings Zora Neale Hurston, the writer, journalist and singer Pauline Hopkins, and the writer and playwright Lorraine Hansberry. They dig into what it means to hold precious these forgotten figures, affectionate writing praxis, and the relationship between curatorial or archival work and contemporary music making. In part 2, coming in a fortnight, we will hear about some of the contemporary artists featured in the book, including Janelle Monáe and Beyonce.

Daphne A. Brooks is William R. Kenan, Jr. professor of African American studies, American Studies, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Music at Yale University; she is also director of graduate studies.She specializes in African American literary cultural performance studies, especially 19th century and trans-Atlantic culture. She is a rock music lover and has attributed her research interests in black performance to being a fan of rock music since a very young age.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Tracklist:

Books:

In this week's episode Tim and Jeremy continue with the second part of their mini-series on the music of '60s and '70s Africa. They start with an exposition on the ideas put forward in Paul Gilroy's seminal book The Black Atlantic. With reference to a variety of historical theorisations of the experience of Black people since the period of slavery, we hear how Gilroy offered a diasporic understanding, showed the moderness of black cultural production, and opens questions of why music ended up paying such a central role in the culture of North America, Europe and the Caribbean.

Jeremy and Tim then turn their attention to Nigeria in the early '70s. We hear about the titanic influence of Fela Kuti on world music, how he exchanged ideas and influences with James Brown on his 1970 tour of Africa, and how the length of the records of the Afrobeat sound he pioneered lent themselves to the emerging dancefloors of NYC and beyond.  Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are authors, academics, DJs and audiophile dance party organisers. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1997, teaching together and running parties since 2003. With clubs closed and half their jobs lost to university cuts, they’re inevitably launching a podcast.  

Tracklist:

Books:

This is an excerpt of a full length episode currently only available to patrons. To become a patron and support what we're doing from £3 per month, head to www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

Tim and Jeremy also discuss the guitar innovations of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the singular force of Afrika Bambaataa, Prince's fusion of electronic and rock sounds, while closing out on two contemporary artists - Janelle Monáe and Moor Mother - who's self-conscious use of cybersoul and Afrofuturist tropes ring true today.   

Tracklist:

In this week's episode Jeremy and Tim expand their series on Afro-Psychedelia with a multi-show exploration of the music of Africa, beginning today in the 1960s. They discuss the contested and shifting conceptualisations of Africa through history, the emergence of Marcus Garvey and Pan-Africanism, Paul Gilroy's seminal book The Black Atlantic, and the production of the specific relationship between Black Americans and Africa as a form of identity.

Jeremy and Tim look at the national liberation movements of the mid-twentieth century, starting with Highlife music in Ghana, Congolese Catholic chorales, and two legends of South African music and activism - Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba - including their improbable meeting in a musical production of King Kong. Finally, Tim and Jeremy link up Babatunde Olatunji's seminal album Drums of Passion with psychedelic currents already explored in the show like the Grateful Dead, John Coltrane, Santana, and the dancefloor of the Loft.

Tim and Jeremy look at the national liberation movements of the mid-twentieth century, starting with Highlife music in Ghana, Congolese Catholic chorales, and two legends of South African music and activism - Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba - including their improbable meeting in a musical production of King Kong. Finally, Tim and Jeremy link up Babatunde Olatunji's seminal album Drums of Passion with psychedelic currents already explored in the show like the Grateful Dead, John Coltrane, Santana, and the dancefloor of the Loft.

Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are authors, academics, DJs and audiophile dance party organisers. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1997, teaching together and running parties since 2003. With clubs closed and half their jobs lost to university cuts, they’re inevitably launching a podcast.  Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Tracklist:

Books: