By blending
music from across the black diaspora – the
UK, US, Africa and Caribbean – while facing down cyclical violence, the east Londoner has become a totemic figure in
British musicThe decade in music: read all the essays in the seriesWe were British kids raised in African hall parties. On Saturday evenings, in community centres turned banquet halls, we huddled by round tables and scraped jollof rice from our plates while Afrobeat and African highlife blared from heavy speakers. Vocalists floated over pulsing drums and jazz-tinged brass. The songs sounded like sunshine and our parents danced through the evening till the sky went pink.
I hear the hall party in J Hus. There is a softness in his songs, a feeling of grace and ease that casts me back to those summer dances in south London.