Paper short abstract:

This presentation explores ‘catalytic signifiers’ through the cultural politics of black diasporic and popular music as it transitions from the 1970s and 1980s reggae dancehall, through 1990s pirate radio and 2000s YouTube music videos through the notion of “sonic intimacy.”

Paper long abstract:

This presentation explores ‘catalytic signifiers’ through sound, specifically the cultural politics of black diasporic and popular music as it transitions from the 1970s and 1980s reggae dancehall, through 1990s pirate radio and 2000s YouTube music videos. To do this it develops the notion of “sonic intimacy,” which refers to the ways in which sound conveys notions of presence, relation and shared understanding at odds with the visual and rational regimes of racial capitalism.

The sonic intimacies of the reggae sound system were important. The presence of people in the dancehall, shared understandings of racial and class oppression, the penetration of bass through the collective body, combined with the wisdom of reggae, produced a demand that exceeded the imagination of the racist state at that moment.

But what happened to those sonic intimacies and cultural politics as musics, tastes and sound technologies changed emphasis? While the intimacies of sound cultures – the atmospheres, feelings, vibes, hypes, and energies – are widely known and discussed, they are not often the focus of analysis, and this is not inconsequential for our understanding of alternative cultural politics today.

Moving sonic intimacies from the margins to the center of debate, this presentation will address: (i) what happened to the demand of the reggae sound system as it is transformed into the fractured fervour of jungle pirate radio in the 1990s, and then into the hyperlinked screen intensities and immediacies of grime YouTube music videos from 2010, and (ii) why hearing sonic intimacy as alternative cultural politics matters today.