Steel and melancholia

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"Ever since I was 7 years old and first "played" with the Interactive Media of Encarta 97 Encyclopedia World Music on my computer, I became captivated by the sounds of Trinidad's steel drums. These sounds, perhaps through cultural associations, filled me with absolute joy. In the naive imagination of a 7-year-old Peruvian girl, the Caribbean was portrayed as a paradise brimming with life and carnival vibes. As a young girl just starting her percussion workshop at school, I dreamed of playing in a live steel pan band.
"As I delved deeper into the history of this instrument and learned about the colonization stories behind it, my perspective began to shift. On the one hand, working with recordings of steel drum music still evokes fond memories of an ever-happy past shaped by its presence in pop culture. Conversely, as a migrant, I felt compelled to share the stories behind the waves of migration from colonized lands to those of the colonizers.
"Now, using sample technologies from DAWs I can play along with this live steel drum band. I resonate emotionally and critically with the desire to preserve one's traditional culture, especially coming from a migrant background in the land of the colonizers. Despite facing structural racism and other forms of violence, I admire how the pan players infuse the grey skies with the vibrant colors of calypso and soca, even amidst the distant echoes and noises of Brixton's tube station."
Steel drums in Brixton reimagined by Ale Borea.
Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration.
For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration
Sunil060902, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons