Like Lockdown Never Happened

Analyses how Black music and culture framed how we passed the time in the first 18 months of the pandemic.

When everyday life moved online during the COVID-19 lockdowns, music and art took on a renewed importance. For millions, dancehall, lovers rock, rap, grime and UK drill became the soundtrack to this pandemic time as geographic and sonic borders blurred and interwove.

Taking a deep dive into the Black popular music and culture that emerged during the pandemic, including Kano’s Newham Talks series, Steve McQueen’s BBC anthology Small Axe, and the Verzuz DJ Battle series, Like Lockdown Never Happened explores the way that Black joy and creative expression sustained us, shaping our experience of lockdown and helping us counter its isolation and restriction.

“This read becomes the metronome taking us on a journey through the musical asylum we created during lockdown. Dr Joy simplifies the complexities of Black music culture whilst carefully and consciously traversing its nuances. Joy continues to be a voice for the ends and a cornerstone for the Afro-diasporic community.”
– Zak Addae-Kodua, presenter of XConversation

White’s reflections on living through the Covid-19 pandemic offers an interlude of hope when we most needed it. She reminds us of the importance of contemporary Black music and its enduring capacity to make spaces for expression and potentiality for change despite the dangers of its commodification. Black music helped get us through this crisis, as it did with past crises and will do so again in the future.
– Rita Gayle, University of Birmingham, UK