Enjoy this fantastic mix of music and interviews that Chris Nott has put together. Chris is another friend of mine graduating from the Royal College of Art due to exhibit this full project between 20th and 30th of June. What’s more, me and Chris share an exhibition room- it’s gonna be a great show and anyone in London should make the time to stop by.

For now, enjoy his amazing sound piece…

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Multicultural London English: Innovation Starts Inner City: A Post-racial Fusion of Language

There is a ‘new’ title for the voice of the multiethnic, multilingual inner city sound of London; MLE (Multicultural London English) which is fast becoming the vernacular English of London, it cuts across ethnicity and race and people of all backgrounds share a repertoire which they can draw on in different ways.

However there are two sides to this difficult social subject. Violent riots broke out in Britain August 2011, researchers examined the messages relayed by rioters over social media. What they found was a heavy use of MLE and with Britain already being very class and accent conscious MLE was thrown into the spotlight, implementing it with the ‘underclass’ communities in and around London. The riots made MLE a real part of the public discourse.

Lindsay Johns, a self-defined hiphop intellectual, argues that the youths he mentors in London are trapped – linguistically, educationally, socially – by “ghetto grammar” and cannot “code switch” their way out. He describes a key issue from a linguistic point of view: “the inability of some young people to navigate between different languages, dialects or registers of speech.” Lindsay’s fear is that young people who cannot do so may be psychologically trapped with a restrictive language that is more for performance than reflection.

Through documentation, analysis and publishing I aim to show how (through visual, oral and written communication) language plays a huge role in our society.

Society affects language - Language affects society.

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This sound piece consists of interviews with residents of Tower Hamlets, Jonathon Green and Tony Thorne. In collaboration with Ben Wright.

Tracklist:

Cockney Translation - Smiley Culture
Xtra - Ruff Squad
unknown - Wiley
Eskimo - Wiley
Bow E3 - Wiley
I Can See You - Crazy Titch
Together - Ruff Squad
Functions On The Low - Ruff Squad
Wot Do U Call It? - Wiley

In the first of a series (I’ll post them all as they come), here is a short promotional film introducing you to one of this years Visual Communication students, graduating from London’s Royal College of Art. Enjoy the work of my lovely classmate, Rachel Taylor. RCA46: Meet Rachel Emily Taylor

If you’re in London, come and see the RCA show between 20th and 30th of June