Soulmaker: Sydney’s sound system roots
John ‘JJ’ Roberts is a Jamaican, born in the parish of St.Catherine. Nowadays he lives in Enfield, Western Sydney. If reggae in Australia is to have a mythological originator it could well be him. After migrating from Jamaica and living for a period in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the London he met his wife-to-be, Cheryl, an Australian.
Network Founder Introduction: Moses Iten
I’ve been a DJ/producer for two decades and that experience is reflected in my research and teaching. I currently teach event management at Deakin University’s School of Business and am the Managing Editor of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Music and Dance Culture. While my initial connection to beats and bass cultures began through involvement in hip hop, my passion for cumbia music led me to become fully embedded in sound system culture.
Network Founder Introduction: Di Rodger
I started to learn more about Hip Hop music and then Hip Hop as a culture, through friends, programs like RAGE and the early web. I would watch music video clips and write down names of songs and artists to check out. This was the Napster era when illegal downloading was a way to try new music.
Network Founder Introduction: Sudiipta Dowsett
The idea for the Beats + Bass Cultures Network is to create a platform to showcase artists, build connections and collaborations between practitioners, researchers, and practitioner-scholars. I see this as an extension of the work I have been pushing for, dreaming of, and building for a long time now and I am looking forward to this new chapter!