Amid the morass
of Brexit and continuous debates on immigration, a French museum has launched a
thought-provoking exhibition about music and migration.
The massive
show at Paris’ Musée de l’histoire d’immigration (National Museum of the
History of Immigration) “explores the close and complex relationship between
migration, music, anti-racism and political activism”, according to the
curators.
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| The poster for Paris-Londres: Music Migrations. |
It comes at a
time when “many European nations are turning inwards and succumbing to the
temptations of closed borders,” they add.
The exhibition
– “Paris-Londres: Music Migrations (1962-1989)” – runs until Jan. 5, 2020, and
was inaugurated ahead of the United Nations' International Day for the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, observed annually on March 21. The launch also preceded the
fourth edition of a one-week “Grand Festival” in Paris against racism,
antisemitism and anti-LGBT prejudice.
The show breaks
new ground by linking artistic movements in England and France that demonstrate
how “successive generations of immigrants in these two colonial powers used
music to stake their claim to equal rights, affirm their presence in the public
space, and contribute to the urban, economic and cultural transformations
reshaping” both countries, the curators say.
Most music
lovers are already aware of the influence that genres such as ska, reggae and
rai have had on popular music in Europe, and the exhibition details this impact
through an array of documents, videos and recordings. But it goes further by
highlighting how immigrant musicians played a crucial role in fighting racism,
with movements such as “Rock Against Racism” in Britain and “Rock Against
Police” in France.
“These two
stories have not previously been put together side by side in a postcolonial
way,” says Martin Evans, a professor of modern European history at the
University of Sussex, and one of the three international curators of the
exhibition.
“We really
wanted to look at how London and Paris reinvented themselves with the influence
of the new arrivals from the Sixties to the Eighties,” he said in an interview.
As the
exhibition puts it, a “wealth of musical styles linked with successive waves of
immigration transformed Paris and London into multicultural capitals” between
the early 1960s and the 1980s.
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| A section of the exhibition about Linton Kwesi Johnson. |
A significant
aspect of this immigration has been the global impact of Jamaican history and
culture, Evans said, particularly through the contributions of dub poets such
as Linton Kwesi Johnson, who was himself influenced by Martinican writer and
statesman Aimé Césaire.
“In doing this
exhibition, we discovered a lot of stories about links between artists and
activists in France and Britain,” Evans said. “So, a very important aspect is
uncovering these hidden stories”.
The curators
showcase more than 600 documents and artworks “connected with music”, including
instruments, photographs, concert posters, videos, costumes and other items –
many of which are on loan from institutions such as London’s Victoria and
Albert Museum and from the personal collections of well-known musicians.
Visitors to the
exhibition are greeted by black-and-white footage of people exuberantly
dancing, while a narrator explains the origins of the music that’s driving them
into paroxysm of delight. “This is ska”, taking Britain by storm in the 1960s
after its emergence “from the Jamaican sound systems of the late 1950s”.
Following this
introduction, and the familiar lyrics of “Sammy Dead”, the show moves into the
activist nature of music by London-based groups such as The Equals (the first
major “interracial” UK band, formed by Guyana-born Eddy Grant), who used their
song “Police on My Back” to highlight police harassment of immigrants.
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| A clip from The Harder They Come, among the exhibits. |
Meanwhile,
history lessons about the arrival and settlement of immigrants are included in
the captions to a host of memorable photographs, detailing how immigrants to England
settled in the inner cities while those to France inhabited the outskirts or
banlieues.
The Windrush
generation (which refers to Caribbean passengers on the HMT Empire Windrush in
1948 and their descendants) also feature here, with information about
recent scandals regarding the British government’s treatment of individuals and
historical documents.
In addition to
the visual displays, the exhibition boasts a “killer playlist” that features
ska, reggae, punk, makossa, rai, rumba, rock and other genres, and visitors
will be seen dancing as they listen to music through headphones or stand in
front of video clips of Millie Small singing “My Boy Lollipop” or Jimmy Cliff
belting out “The Harder They Come” from the iconic 1972 film of the same name.
On the French
side, one learns about African and North African musicians who changed the
sound of French music: Manu Dibango, Salif Keïta, Noura and Khaled, among
others. Meanwhile, the cross-border links can be seen in Serge Gainsbourg’s
reggae version of France’s national anthem La
Marseillaise – a recording that sparked outrage in certain quarters and
earned the singer death threats.
“Gainsbourg
used this music as a political vector,” says Stéphane Malfettes, the lead
curator, who’s in charge of the museum’s cultural programming. “He went to
Jamaica to record and was a big fan of reggae. In fact, France has always had a
link with this music.”
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| Lead curator Stéphane Malfettes. |
According to
Malfettes, concerts by reggae star Bob Marley and other artists drew thousands
of fans in France in the 1970s and early 1980s and provided a spur for the
later creation of France-grown reggae groups such as Danakil who perform
political music.
Some visitors
will find the political aspect of the music to be the most interesting part of
the exhibition, as it gives the background to Rock Against Racism – an activist
movement sparked by the “rise of the far right and the spread of racism in
political discourse”.
English
musicians Red Saunders and Roger Huddle launched Rock Against Racism in 1976,
following “murky racist proclamations from the likes of Eric Clapton and David
Bowie,” the curators state. The first concert was held in Victoria Park in the
spring of 1978 and attracted some 100,000 people, with groups including Steel
Pulse, The Clash and the Tom Robinson Band performing – “revealing the
often-overlooked solidarity between” rock, punk and reggae.
The movement
influenced activists in France, where Rock Against Police grew out of a
“proliferation of racist incidents and violence” in the late 1970s and early
1980s, “compounded by the success” of the far-right Front National in the
municipal elections of 1984, according to the curators. The exhibition
highlights the personalities and musicians involved, through footage, music,
photos and articles.
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| A poster for an anti-racism concert. |
As the
exhibition nears its cut-off point (1989), visitors also learn about other
landmark happenings that emphasised the “multicultural identity” of Paris and
London. Two such events were the huge SOS Racisme concert held in June 1985 on
the Place de la Concorde and the massive anti-apartheid show held at Wembley
stadium to mark the 70th birthday of South African icon Nelson Mandela, in June
1988.
“All these
stories push us to look at things differently,” says Malfettes. “We hope to
reach people interested in the music, interested in the movements and those who
may not know this background, especially young people.”
If there’s one
drawback to the exhibition, it is in the sheer range of objects and
information, which makes it difficult to absorb everything during a single
visit. Many visitors will feel the need to return for a second look, especially
regarding the musical connections – the punk and dub-reggae productions of John
Letts, and the “Asian underground sounds” of Asian Dub Foundation, for instance.
An irony, too,
is that this exhibition is taking place at the imposing Palais de la Porte
Dorée – which houses the history museum.
The building, with its ornately decorated façade, was constructed to host the
Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931 and was used for many decades to showcase the
“civilizing influence” of French colonialism. It has now, seemingly, changed its focus. –
A.M.
You can follow SWAN on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale.
