Dear Jake (and other community activists like him), Remember you are an African. You come from a long line of Kings and Queens, of scientists and innovators, warriors, and peacemakers. Yet many Europeans will see you different - see you as a hustler, a big scary black male, a pimp or a knife wielding drug dealer. The colonial past of ‘Great’ Britain still haunts us today. Pervading all aspects of society, particularly and typically covertly - because Britain, you see, always assumes it knows best. Along with its European ‘conquerors’ it is the innovator of structural racism and oppression. Claiming lands for itself, raping, pillaging, and enslaving the people then offering the ‘warm’ hand of ‘civilisation’ to rid you of identity and your own history. But do not be fooled that this is in the past and we have moved on. No…the architecture of oppression is as alive and well today as it ever has been. Don’t just look to America as the ‘shiny’ example of black oppression because Britain is the original ‘master’. With its racially motivated school exclusion system, its gangs’ matrices, PRU to prison pipeline, its structures for mental incapacitation and not forgetting its racist and patronising press (and I don’t just mean the obvious ones folks), watch out brothers and sisters – the architecture of oppression - has a one-way ticket to hell with your name on it! Remember to hold you head high in the street, don’t be afraid if the cops stop you as you have armed yourself with knowledge of your rights so the officer in question will need to justify his racial profiling, When you are in the board rooms of decision makers and power players don’t be fooled into being the token black person with lived experience who can tick their equality box as you have every right to be in the room full stop. Your wisdom and intelligence will be overlooked because of the way you look but remind them that your ideas were your ideas not theirs. Remember what effect the trauma of oppression has on us. MRBCD240 The Brkn Record_12pp_booklet_120x120_v2_PRINT.indd 1 07/06/2021 18:01 Don’t let it divide us. Reach out the hand of partnership to your brothers and sisters otherwise competition and division will continue to be our Achilles heel and weaken us. We are not crabs in a bucket but champions on the playing field. Do for Self means more than just you. Remember to treat others like you would expect to be treated yourself – it’s an old adage, but one that speaks volumes. Your partner, your baby mother, is a queen, a manifestation of mother nature herself and, as such, should be treated so. Don’t let the architecture of oppression seep into the fabric of your home life, don’t let it twist a slow knife into your once happy heart for it will affect everything you do and think, if you let it. Don’t just be ahead of the game, be the head of the game. One thing that the system of architecture of oppression hates is when we claim our rightful place at the head of the table. This is where you will be most impactful. Sure, protest and if need be Fight the Power if it fights you but the devil is always in the detail and that means you need to know where the detail is and be able to shape it accordingly. You’re a polymath not a sociopath. You’re a lover not a fighter. You’re an uplifter not a destroyer. You’re a doer not a talker. You’re a thinker not a reactor. But most of all you are You and don’t let anything hold you back… JAKE MRBCD240 The Brkn Record_12pp_booklet_120x120_v2_PRINT.indd 2 07/06/2021 18:01 MRBCD240 The Brkn Record_12pp_booklet_120x120_v2_PRINT.indd 3 07/06/2021 18:01 This album, The Architecture of Oppression, created by Jake Ferguson is part of a long history and tradition of activism in Hackney that has helped to shape the lives of Black Britains – people of African and Caribbean heritage - for the better. It shines a spotlight on the structures of racism that have been designed to hold us back as the Global Majority. It is a window into the Black British experience and a barometer of the trauma that the state and wider society inflicts on us – if we let it! The Power of Music Throughout the 1970-80s, people of African heritage faced state-backed discrimination leading to mass unemployment, poor health outcomes, political disenfranchisement and inter-generational levels of social and economic impoverishment. The Rastafarian community, who were often the target of racist policing tactics, often led the way culturally and physically. They were our community guardians on the streets, leading the warrior charge against the racist skinheads1 and off duty police officers that would harass and publicly dehumanise our children and parents. Many of us, especially those of us with Caribbean heritage were denied a platform to articulate our concerns in the mainstream media, so instead, we turned to music to do so. Through a burgeoning network of independent record labels that had escaped the apolitical trappings of “ska” and “one love reggae”, artists like The Abyssinians released tracks like “Declaration of Rights” in 1972. Their message: “Get up and fight for your rights my brothers, Get up and fight for your rights my sisters”, resonated with us. We knew as Africans in the UK we were part of a global diaspora, often with one foot in Britain and another in our former enslaved and colonised territories. Songs by artists like The Abyssinians and our civil rights campaigning cousins in America like Nina Simone, Curtis Mayfield, Mahalia Jackson and Gil Scott Heron reflected upon a legacy of similar struggles afflicting all our families across the world. Although written about the violent conflict between the people and police in Jamaica, classic tracks like “Police and Thieves” by Junior Murvin in 1976 were imported into the UK and spoke of our experience too. MRBCD240 The Brkn Record_12pp_booklet_120x120_v2_PRINT.indd 4 07/06/2021 18:01 In this way, the genre of roots reggae gave voice to our collective political concerns. It also schooled many British based musicians of the various creative forms radical resistance to oppression could take. In 1982, “The Message” by the seminal rap group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five led the way for Chuck D to characterise his influential hip-hop group Public Enemy as “black America’s CNN”. But none of this was new. The stream of uprisings that occurred across the UK in 1981 was a turning point for the nation. It is crucial to note that they did not occur in a political vacuum despite being depicted in the mainstream media as “riots”. These spontaneous explosions of urban social movements were a definitive memorandum on institutional racism that found the British state guilty of all charges. You see in 1971, Fela Kuti, the father of Afrobeat, had visited the UK to perform and record his “London Scene” album. Fela, who was inspired by the Black Power movement after visiting Los Angeles in 1969, used his craft to promote political radicalism. Prior to this, the live music presented at the annual Notting Hill Carnival since the 1960s had long infused Diasporic African culture and spirituality with politics through Calypso and Soca, to name a few genres. As a result, another transformation was taking place in UK music studios. Inspired by how an international community of African artists had utilised music as a force for healing and political unity, they started to express their concerns and aspirations in distinctly British terms. In the absence of a Motown and the resources required to manufacture polished romantic odes, they created Lovers Rock. A genre that often spoke of the importance of self-love, political organisation, and unity against racist oppression. Tunes like Brown Sugar’s anthemic Black Pride in 1977 included lyrics that expressed being “proud to be of the colour god made me”. The track would become a hit on sound systems across the UK. Indeed, Caron Wheeler, one of the Brown Sugar members, would later join the UK group Soul II Soul and have a stream of international hits starting in 1989 with the classic track “Keep on Moving”. Moreover, Caron’s solo follow up album “UK Blak”2 articulated the exclusion and political silencing of those with African heritage living in the UK. MRBCD240 The Brkn Record_12pp_booklet_120x120_v2_PRINT.indd 5 07/06/2021 18:01 It is crucial to remember that all of this occurred against a relentless backdrop of brutish policing, which saw “SUS” laws introduced. This legislation supported the racist harassment of young and elderly members of the African heritage community alike, on the streets and in their homes. Then, following the indifference of the British Government, monarch and media to the deaths of thirteen young people who had lost their lives in a suspicious fire at a party in New Cross Fire on the 18th of January 1981, over twenty thousand people of African heritage took to the streets on the 2nd of March. The Black People Day of action was a mass, peaceful protest mischaracterised by the Sun newspaper as “The Day the Blacks Ran Riot”. However, the community slogan “Thirteen Dead, Nothing Said” failed to motivate the authorities to take their grievances seriously. Moreover, the police launched a racist investigation that targeted the families of those that had perished. With tensions enflamed, by the 10th of April 1981, the community rose up in righteous rage through a stream of uprisings starting on the streets of Brixton.