The year 1989 was a landmark in Black British music: Soul II Soul were on their way to conquering America and Sade had already become a global sensation, while A Guy Called Gerald and Nightmares on Wax had the entire Hacienda dancing to their tunes. It’s a fitting moment for Jesse Bernard (who was born in that year) to start his excellent memoir-cum-cultural history, Escaping Babylon. Structured like a mixtape, it skips between skits and short interludes of fiction and poetry, via the loose narrative of Bernard’s own life as he matures from naughty schoolboy (he was expelled for sticking rotten fish in the school’s radiators) to musical explorer, DJ and journalist.
Bernard’s musical education started in his parents’ car, with Mica Paris, Soul II Soul and Carol Wheeler a constant accompaniment. It continued with Craig David performing 7 Days on Top of the Pops in 2000, one of the first times Bernard saw a “distinctly British R&B” singer. Personal memories like this are described alongside interactions with the artists he’s met over the course of his journalistic career to build an argument about the origins and direction of Black British music. Former Saxon sound system emcee Tippa Irie’s observation that reggae is a tree and that all UK sounds are branches that spring from it informs his approach. Through Bernard we meet and engage with many of that tree’s descendants – from UK funky to grime, jungle and drill.
Escaping Babylon gives some dedicated – and long overdue – attention to Black British artists who emerged in the 1990s, particularly Lynden David Hall, a smooth operator who died in 2006 of Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of just 31. Bernard appreciates the talent and the tragedy of a man who could “embody the spirit of Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass with his own south London steez sprinkled on top”. He also correctly emphasises the importance of The Lick, hosted by Hall’s mentor, Trevor Nelson, and broadcast on MTV Base throughout the 2000s. The overall picture is one of Black British music growing into itself at the same time as the wider community was maturing, developing a deeper sense of its own history and future.
Bernard’s passion and knowledge of the subject make him an excellent guide to this period of reinvention. Some of his insights are revelatory, like his contention that Black British artists had to operate their own version of the Chitlin’ Circuit, the juke joints and dives African American artists were forced to perform in during segregation. And this wasn’t happening in the distant past, but the 2000s: Dizzee Rascal recalls venues like Le Fez in Deptford, the Stratford Rex and the Palace Pavilion in Romford as places where “you could get a shot but not make a lot of money”.
Parts of this legacy are still with us. Form 696, a venue-vetting document used by the Met to effectively ban Black music events in the capital, has been scrapped. But the police now scan the lyrics of hundreds of young emcees in order to mark them out as “gang” members. Bernard doesn’t zoom out to show this wider context, but then this is an “intimate history”, more about his experience of being a Black British man than an exploration of the external factors that have shaped his world.
This approach does have its flaws. There are frequent bold declarative statements that are only briefly explored before another idea, song title or skit enters the mix. The constant chopping and changing can leave arguments frustratingly underdeveloped.
Regardless, Escaping Babylon feels like an important contribution during another momentous year for Black British music. It arrives just after the Mobo awards celebrates its 30th birthday and at the same time as V&A East has mounted the exhibition The Music is Black: A British Story. With this ambitious, shape-shifting account, Bernard has added his own chapter to an increasingly rich history.
