This blog is an archive and is no longer active. We post fresh stuff on our Goldsmiths website here, and you can also find us on social media:
Sound System Outernational
Sound System Outernational is an ongoing initiative of practitioners and researchers, in association with Goldsmiths, University of London, dedicated to recognizing, stimulating and supporting sound system culture worldwide. There are more sound systems in operation round the world then ever before, more women’s sound systems, more aficionados, more practitioners and more interest across different countries round the globe. Goldsmiths is located in SE London, a historic center of the capital’s sound system culture.
Sound System Outernational creates spaces for dance and discussion. We organize events to bring together:
- Practitioners and researchers: we believe the ways of knowing of a popular culture and the knowledge systems of the academy have a lot to learn from each other
- Past, present and future sound system culture: intergenerational conversations strengthen our culture and ensure its future
- Technologies, aesthetics and politics: to understand the culture’s numerous forms, styles and media of creative expression
Sound System Outernational 6
Our sixth event will be taking place in Sao Luis, Maranhao, Brazil, in April 2020. Call for papers and more here
https://www.gold.ac.uk/sound-system-outernational/call-for-papers/
Skin Deep Magazine
Our friends at Skin Deep Magazine are preparing the paper release of their Food issue:
The launch will be taking place at 5 PM— 9:30 PM on Saturday 17th February at Platform Southwark and will include music, conversation with contributors, performances and lots of delicious food. THE FOOD ISSUE features essays, artworks and reflections on your uncle’s recipe, nourishment, digestion, health & superfood fads, medicine, anti-diets, fast food, food waste, food histories, fishing, farming, class and access, and much more.
Tickets are £7, £9, £12, depending on what you can afford, and include a brand new copy of the print issue. Buy your ticket here.
If you can’t afford a ticket for whatever reason, send an email to editor@skindeepmag.com and we’ll hook you up.
For additional info visit the Facebook event page.
twitter: @tweetskindeep
insta: @skindeepmag
Strictly Vinyl Program Up and Running
After a great deal of hard work and the support of many, many friends and supporters, we are proud to share the final program for Sound System Outernational 4: Strictly Vinyl!
Full program here:
SSO 4 Vinyl Weekender!
Coming very soon full Strictly Vinyl Saturday 13th Conference programme!
Sound System Outernational #4 Vinyl Weekender: four days of good vibes 11th to 14th January 2018
In the midst of the current “vinyl revival” it is important to recognize the hugely important role that the Jamaican sound system played in turning the domestic record player into a musical instrument in its own right. In Jamaica sound system culture re-purposed the gramophone, taking it from the middle class living room out onto the street to be enjoyed by the community. In the Bronx this became hip-hop, across the world the performance art of DJing was born along with rave and club culture. The vinyl medium – 12” singles and 45s – has been central to this. Now an appreciation for the value of the “vinyl sound” is only increasing in a world of digital music files. The SSO#4 Vinyl Weekender pays respect to where this sound comes from.
Sound System Outernational celebrates this phonographic achievement of global proportions with four days of discussion, demonstration, films and other events from 11th to 14th January 2018.
Sound System Outernational 4: Strictly Vinyl
Strictly Vinyl
Sound System Outernational # 4
on Saturday 13th of January, 1pm to 4 am, Goldsmiths, University of London
Strictly Vinyl is a one day and night meeting of minds and bodies, practitioners and researchers, learning and dancing from reggae sound system scene. Come to enjoy, learn and share your knowledge and experience, research, techniques and appreciation of vinyl culture.
Strictly Vinyl: Call for Papers, workshops, films, demonstrations, and more.
**Deadline for proposals is Thurs 30th November: please send in proposals here **
Continue reading “Sound System Outernational 4: Strictly Vinyl”
Sound System Outernational in Volume!
Volume!, a French academic journal of popular music studies has put out a special issue on Jamaican music, with a contribution from SSO’s own Brian D’Aquino, Julian Henriques, and Leonardo Vidigal:
This paper explores an innovative practice-as-research methodology that brings popular culture practitioners and aficionados together with academic researchers in the shared space of symposia on reggae sound system culture. As organizers, we describe what made the symposia different from the normal academic conference in terms of the range of participants, discussion topics, workshops, demonstrations, exhibitions, film showings and the sound system sessions from Roots Injection and Young Warrior. In a self-reflexive fashion some of the outcomes of the events were considered to be the intergenerational conversations, the support for women-led sound systems and the recognition and encouragement that the practitioners of the popular culture said they felt they were receiving from the academic institution of the university. This can be identified via voice recordings and social media comments as a mutual strengthening of the research culture and the sound system popular culture itself.
Read the full text here: http://volume.revues.org/5249
Reggae Research 2: Sound System Outernational at the Global Reggae Conference at UWI!
Sound System Outernational researchers are heading to the Global Reggae Conference at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica! There will be a research panel, and there will be both a screening of “Weapon is my Mouth” and a dance courtesy of Ba-Ba Boom outta Naples.
Global Reggae Conference
February 9-11, 2017
Dancehall, Music and the City
Reggae Studies Unit
Institute of Caribbean Studies
The University of the West Indies, Mona – Jamaica
For artistes, industry practitioners, researchers, academics, and fans… The Institute of Caribbean Studies and the Reggae Studies Unit at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus announce the fifth biennial Global Reggae Conference under the theme “Dancehall, Music and the City”. This conference is being staged at a time when we celebrate Bob Marley’s birth and the very foundation, the space – dancehall – through which the world has consumed seven distinct musical genres in mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, nyabinghi, dub and dancehall. This conference also comes at a time when Kingston celebrates its designation as a creative city for music by UNESCO in December 2015.
http://www.mona.uwi.edu/marcom/ecalendar/events/6530
SSO Panel and Events at Global Reggae Conference
Borders, Limits and Listening: sound system research methodologies
Reggae Research
After decades of neglect from research funders we are pleased to learn that 2017 promises a several events – in which some the SSO crew are taking part
Reggae Research Network Symposium
This Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded network is a joint initiative between the Translating Cultures theme and the Connected Communities programme, and is open to researchers and partners funded under those areas, as well as to the wider academic and music communities. The network’s programme of activities explores the neglected important popular music, political, religious culture of reggae.
Three events are being held over the next 12 months:
25 January 2017 – an initial symposium at University of East Anglia, Norwich, scoping the field.
19 May 2017 (tbc) – a symposium at Liverpool University, in association with the Institute of Popular Music.
Autumn 2017 – an industry, musicians and researchers conference in London…
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/newsevents/events/calendar/reggae-research-network-symposium/
SSO presentations at Reggae Research Network Symposium, 25th January:
Sound System Outernational 