[Music] 2023 marks the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire wind Rush the event which marks the beginning of the massive migration which saw hundreds of thousands of Caribbean migrants settle in the UK to rebuild postwar Britain despite reconstructing the country and contributing to the British way of life the windrust generation faced years and Decades of discrimination mistreatment and racism the Windrush generation deserve an Applause so to Mark the 75th anniversary of Windrush I'm going on a journey to explore the impact that the Caribbean society and Community have had on the UK West Indian
culture has undeniable presence across the UK particularly in London where Jamaican Patois contributed to an increasingly popular dialect called Multicultural London English also referred to as mle but what is Emily well it's something that happened I suppose after the second world war when when the people came over from Jamaica and other places in the Caribbean they then had kids or they brought their kids who then started sort of settling here and settling into the school system here and began speaking Cockney but they also developed something that's been called uh London Jamaican okay which is a
kind of version of Jamaican Patois as spoken in Jamaica but with a London Twang and then as time went on we're talking 60s 70s now people came in from other places particularly India Pakistan Bangladesh to start with so then the mix was no longer just a Caribbean and the local English is spoken in London it was then people who spoke other languages so you end up then with a Proto version of Multicultural London English so how has the Caribbean contribute to mle I think it's contributed in two areas one is slang so there's a lot
of slang that's used in mle it's it's used in music as well so things like wagwan mandem so that's the slang and that mostly comes from the Caribbean Jamaica probably but the other areas are pronunciation so for instance have a word like go uh I would say go uh London and won't say go and uh an Emily speaker might say a goal and a Caribbean speaker might want to say go as well so it's possible that that comes from the Caribbean I mean one one thing that's probably worth thinking about is the relationship of Multicultural
London English and black music in London um so they've been all sorts of genres scar Calypso dance hall and so on in London and Jamaica down through the decades until you get Grime with people like dizzy Rascal and so the language then it seems to sort of focused on the the sort of slang that's that's used in the Caribbean and also London would you say that best helps with the popularity of mle absolutely it has it's made it really quite Central in in people's minds even if they don't have a name for it they recognize
this way of talking not everyone sees Emily as a good thing what do you have to say for for people that look down on people like that I I guess about the best thing is to to actually try to educate people to understand that these dialects are dialects and are perfectly good kinds of language um and then to give people opportunities to to actually also to acquire Standard English which I think they do pretty much automatically anyway so you need to attack it from both ends I think but it's a really tough one has poor
alluded to one of the biggest driving forces in popularizing mle is music and British music is another area that has been heavily influenced by West Indian culture sound system culture and scarcity through into British culture in the 1950s and 60s but the Caribbean's influencers found a way to dominate the mainstream world through genres such as Grime dubstep DNB and even pop the Caribbean influence on British popular music is an area which has been studied in depth by Michael Riley the director of the black music Research Unit at the University of Westminster you've previously said that
Jamaican music has contributed a lot to UK pop culture what do you mean by that when we talk about Windrush they arrive before pop Caribbean black music has been here contributing to British popular music in a way that the wider public should understand I mean even the Beatles where they were rehearsing in Liverpool in the cavern you had a band called the shades who were one of our first acapella bats they're rehearsing alongside the Beatles so there's this relationship that's been there the whole time so what other genres would you say have been influenced by
the wind Rush generation without doubt all all genres sound system culture moved music from an indoor experience to predominantly outside listening experience so Rave culture we wouldn't have in the way that we have it without sound system culture the sound of the music in terms of the bottom and the bass is a outcome from the African Caribbean Community the remix is a phenomenon that comes out again of the culture even the language has changed because of the Jamaican vernacular and so forth we have British rap jungle drum and bass two-step UK garage Grime you know
drill It's Fashion it's dance it's language as well it's British cool it has a lot to be thankful for for this community being here so why do you think Caribbean music has been able to influence so many genres in UK perhaps one of the first reasons is it's English language based added to that what we have across the Caribbean is the first uh Cosmopolitan cities where you have a whole mix of cultures coming together in one space and being creative and that translates back into the colonial touring circuit if you like which has existed since
the 1800s so there's a familiarity with this music coming in with a language that people understand would you say there's other areas in the Caribbean that probably need to have more recognition where you when you you're talking about the music well absolutely I mean the anyone I'm from my parents are Jamaican so we used to look at all the other Islands as the smaller Islands so gotta be careful but I mean if you're from Barbados you're from Trinidad Antigua any of the other Islands you might have the argument to say look we contributed to and
Calypso Carnival is a big part of that that narrative I mean it's the biggest street festival in Europe there is an argument to say they should have more of a say be more profiled in that conversation what do you think it would look like without that wind Rush generation's impact how important would you say that it is celebrated like we are doing and like we do year on Year we're talking about 75 years and so it's important I think to reintroduce these contributions in a way that uh a contemporary audience can understand but it's also
recognizing the people that previously contributed and celebrating them in a way that's loud and visual so that this system uh can't get away with what it's trying to do office speaker to Michael it's clear to see the effect that Caribbean culture has had on British popular music however it's not the only aspect of West Indian life that's hit the mainstream world in the UK as Caribbean cuisine is popular with many Brits up and down the country these days you're never too far away from Caribbean restaurants such as original flavor in Brixton which is opened by
South London Brothers Craig and Sean mcanuff since 2016 they have been elevating Caribbean cuisine in the UK through cookbooks TV appearances and fun YouTube videos so this journey started in your grandmother's kitchen did she ever tell you stories about how the UK was when she first came she came to this country in 1956 it's really tough for her you know and she actually found a place around here where she brought up seven kids it was seven kids yeah after the war Caribbean restaurants was mainly for West Indie migrants to have like a hub what would
you say places like this is for people in our society now exactly the same thing so it goes on the ethos of the Caribbean culture you know I mean family get together when there's a get-together there's a lot of food and when there's a lot of food there's a lot of people as well as Jamaica's models out of many one people which means you know a different people from all around the world coming together and that's what Jamaicans kind of did they kind of embraced different Cuisines and cultures and brought into our their food that's
what we do at Mark house bricks in our menu it's amazing what makes Caribbean cuisine different to any other culture Caribbean food is definitely the best food because it's not just a taste it's the love that goes into it it's starting Sunday dinner on Friday night you know what I mean going to the market and having a relationship with the Butcher and the fish monger and the vegetable man it's like a story nowadays you're seeing celebrities you're seeing Master Chefs delve into you know making Caribbean food where do you draw the line between cultural appropriation
and cultural appreciation I guess it all depends do you ever see anything for your life that's not how you make oxtails that's not how you make jerk chicken jerk chicken that has a base seasoning right you have the pimento the Scotch bonnet um the time you know the garlic things like that those are like the five main ingredients everybody hasn't got that yeah basically you've gotta respect where the food's coming from because a lot of of hurt and pain and strife has come from why we make certain dishes came from like places in terms of
slavery where you would give it like discarded parts of meat so thrown away vegetables and it's inspired our people to make like Saturday soup it might not be the most Pleasant thing but it was what they were had access to and it made it into a real um delicious dish so aside from Jamaican food whatever Caribbean Cuisines do you like truly um doubles always loved those I think when the first time we made it bro we were like wow this is like that's like straight competition yeah straight competition for fried dumpling like in terms of
fried Dominion in terms of our favorites yeah it's all quite similar but I just have different names a bit so yeah um we Jamaicans have saltfish fritters and they Trinity or Asians like fish cakes I'm hungry now right now guys I appreciate you for sitting down with me I can't wait to see what happens with the original flavor you guys have done so much already but I can't wait to see what the future was and thank you thank you language music and food are just three ways that the Caribbean markets have helped shaped everyday life
here in the UK West Indians and British culture have merged in ways that didn't seem possible 75 years ago and one of the biggest ways this happened is something that is Monumental in Black British culture and that is Notting Hill Carnival that happens annually in West London where people come from all over the world millions of people to celebrate the food the sound and The Vibes of the Caribbean culture that is just another undeniable example of how dominant the Caribbean culture is in the UK foreign
