Headz Zine Vol 1 Regions Uk Issue 1

HEADZ-zINe is a periodical output of the HEADZ Project. Taking the form of the fanzine with a critical edge, it challenges the convention of academic knowledge production and dissemination. HEADZ-zINe seeks to capture the personal, local, and communal histories of hip hop. HEADZ-zINe is foremost interested in the stories of its participants, and through a series of in-depth interviews and complimentary analysis of the artefacts and archives of hip hop, reveals a set of previously untold stories. HEADZ-zINe is created with much the same immediacy as a zine. It is produced within a period of weeks, is self-published and designed using standard domestic hardware and software. Although the topic addressed is historical, participants’ reflections illustrate the immediacy and closeness of this material to their current lives. True to the aims of the fanzine, HEADZ-zINe illuminates the histories of music culture which have previously been largely un-documented. These histories are told through the personal and collective stories of their participants. HEADZ-zINe is freely distributed, and the inaugural issue has been manufactured with a print-run of only 200 copies, in addition to being available in an expanded edition online. The zine presents a continued engagement with questions of knowledge production and dissemination. HEADZ-zINe has been developed in collaboration with practitioners and seeks to foreground their histories, thoughts, and ideas. We are interested in how hip hop offers practitioners a way of engaging with and knowing the world through music, artistic and dance practices. In this, we take hip hop seriously as a cultural form through which practitioners and fans learn, share and archive knowledge. Hip hop practitioners are both the creators of and thinkers about hip hop, they are local intellectuals. The principal focus of this zine is on the voices of hip hop practitioners themselves as they not only tell but theorise hip hop history. As accumulators of vinyl records, flyers, posters, photographs, and magazines ourselves we are interested in what these artefacts and archives can reveal to us about the creative acts of curating and remembering cultural history. We are interested in exploring how involvement in hip hop culture shaped the lives of practitioners and provided a space for creatively, imaginatively, and intellectually engaging with the world around them.

HEADZ-zINe is a periodical output of the HEADZ Project. Taking the approach of a fanzine with a critical edge, it challenges the convention of academic knowledge production and dissemination. HEADZ-zINe seeks to capture the personal, local, and communal histories of hip hop. HEADZ-zINe is foremost interested in the stories of its co-authors and through a series of in-depth discussions and complimentary analysis of the artefacts and archives of hip hop, HEADZ-zINe reveals a set of previously untold stories. When we talk about hip hop culture and hip hop history, we rarely talk about 50-year-olds from the far-flung corners of the UK – predominantly corners constructed of white majority space – where hip hop culture would never have been thought to have existed in the 1980s. However, as hip hop culture exploded across the globe it infiltrated the remotest inhabited parts of the world. This second issue in Volume 1 of HEADz-zINe focuses on pioneering hip hop practitioners and adopters from Devon and Cornwall. Much like the personal histories shared in issue 1 by those that grew up in the North-West of England, there are stories here of limited access to hip hop, and a shared sense of desire for fully absorbing the culture – or as much as could be absorbed – considering communication and societal practices of the era and the region’s cultural context. The hunger for knowing about hip hop and knowing hip hop became paramount in the lives of some young Westcountry people, and in this issue, the personal histories of twelve hip hop practitioners and adopters growing up in the provincial cities of Exeter and Plymouth, the local towns of Bradninch, Camborne, and Sidmouth, and the villages of Newton Poppleford and Buckland Monachorum are presented. This issue focuses on the formative and arguably most important decade for the evolution of provincial hip hop in Devon and Cornwall, 1983-1992. However, not all co-authors discuss this period, but rather have focused on specific periods of time within this developmental decade. Almost 40 years on from its arrival in Britain, this issue presents twelve conversations with its co-authors to demonstrate hip hop’s girth, reach and power. Furthermore, the narratives here also attest to hip hop’s influence on how it has shaped the lives of this issue’s co-authors, by equipping them with a creative and technological skillset, how to approach everyday life, or understanding their own personal histories and cultural identities – from The Westcountry to London to Tanzania to India to Pakistan – questioning forms of Englishness and Britishness.

HEADZ-zINe is a periodical output of the HEADZ Project. Taking the form of the fanzine with a critical edge, it challenges the convention of academic knowledge production and dissemination. HEADZ-zINe seeks to capture the personal, local, and communal histories of hip hop. HEADZ-zINe is foremost interested in the stories of its participants, and through a series of in-depth interviews and complimentary analysis of the artefacts and archives of hip hop, reveals a set of previously untold stories. HEADZ-zINe is created with much the same immediacy as a zine. It is produced within a period of weeks, is self-published and designed using standard domestic hardware and software. Although the topic addressed is historical, participants’ reflections illustrate the immediacy and closeness of this material to their current lives. True to the aims of the fanzine, HEADZ-zINe illuminates the histories of music culture which have previously been largely un-documented. These histories are told through the personal and collective stories of their participants. HEADZ-zINe is freely distributed, and the inaugural issue has been manufactured with a print-run of only 200 copies, in addition to being available in an expanded edition online. The zine presents a continued engagement with questions of knowledge production and dissemination. HEADZ-zINe has been developed in collaboration with practitioners and seeks to foreground their histories, thoughts, and ideas. We are interested in how hip hop offers practitioners a way of engaging with and knowing the world through music, artistic and dance practices. In this, we take hip hop seriously as a cultural form through which practitioners and fans learn, share and archive knowledge. Hip hop practitioners are both the creators of and thinkers about hip hop, they are local intellectuals. The principal focus of this zine is on the voices of hip hop practitioners themselves as they not only tell but theorise hip hop history. As accumulators of vinyl records, flyers, posters, photographs, and magazines ourselves we are interested in what these artefacts and archives can reveal to us about the creative acts of curating and remembering cultural history. We are interested in exploring how involvement in hip hop culture shaped the lives of practitioners and provided a space for creatively, imaginatively, and intellectually engaging with the world around them.

This first academic collection dedicated to popular music in Leeds - developed from the work of interdisciplinary scholars, drawn from a major public museum exhibition “Sounds of Our City” and built upon contemporary research. Leeds has rich musical histories and heritage, a long tradition of vibrant music venues, nightclubs, dance halls, pubs and other sites of musical entertainment. The city has spawned crooners, folk singers, punks, post- punks, Goths, DJs, popstars, rappers and indie rockers, yet – with a few exceptions - Leeds has not been studied for its scenes in ways that other UK cities have. In ways that the chapters explore, Leeds’ popular music exemplifies and informs understandings of broader cultural and urban changes – both in Britain and across wider global contexts – of the social and historical significance of music as mass media; music and migration; music, racialisation and social equity; industrial decline, de-industrialisation, neoliberalism and the rise of the 24-hour city. Charting moments of stark musical politicisation and de-politicisation, while concomitantly tracing arguments about “heritagising” popular music within discussions about music’s “place” in museums and in the urban economy, this book contributes to debates about why music matters, has mattered, and continues to matter in Leeds, and beyond.