A visual and sonic presentation by Eric Isaacson, founder of Mississippi Records, on global music scenes that struggled and endured under authoritarianism.
Eric Isaacson, founder of Mississippi Records, brings A People's History of Music to Norwich Arts Centre on Tuesday 17 November. It's a visual and sonic presentation that tells the story of global music scenes that struggled and endured under authoritarianism, drawing on Isaacson's own experiences to trace how music survives when the state is watching.
He ranges from Ethiopia, North Korea and Kenya to the USA and beyond, and the talk covers a fair bit of ground: DIY scenes, resistance to censorship, secret revolutionary messages hidden in pop music, and the relationship between New Age music and fascism. It's less of a lecture and more of a guided tour through the underground, with Isaacson introducing audiences to buried treasures of global punk, gospel, soul, blues and roots music. He's known for a humbly comical, singular style, so it's as much about the storytelling as it is about the records.
There's a good bit of history behind the man himself. Over the past twenty-three years, Mississippi Records has released more than 390 records and 165 mixtapes of DIY music from around the world. For its first seventeen years, the label operated with zero internet presence, released no digital music and ran a cash-only record store in Portland, Oregon, refusing all press enquiries and never appearing on social media. It still sold over a million records.
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The night starts at 7:30pm at Norwich Arts Centre, 51 St Benedicts St, NR2 4PG. Tickets are £12 concession, with a £10 supporter concession for NAC supporters, who also get 10% off at the bar; it's free for under 26s.
