Academic, writer and sometime guitar player Paul Gilroy has been chronicling the history of music in the Black Atlantic for nearly four decades, most notably via such landmark studies as There Ain't No Black In The Union Jack: The Cultural Politics Of Race And Nation and The Black Atlantic: Modernity And Double Consciousness. For Off The Page, he joined The Wire’s Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Tony Herrington, discussing how his commentary on the development of black music in Britain has elided with a wider consideration of the aesthetics and politics of black vernacular cultures through civil rights and beyond.

The talk was prompted by a playlist, amplifying how the changing character of black life in the UK is audible in the innovative music that's been made here, as well as how those sounds communicate and inspire the enactment of a better world than this.

The fourth edition of Off The Page, The Wire’s literary festival for sound and music, took place at Bristol’s Arnolfini, 26–28 September, and was coproduced by The Wire, Arnolfini and Qu Junktions. Audio recording by Gary Fawle at Events in Sound. Photography by Paul Samuel White.

Please note: Due to tech problems at the event, the audio on this recording cuts out for the first few minutes.