The possibility of a creolised planet

Abstract

In this interview Paul Gilroy talks to Femi Oriogun-Williams about his love of folk music of all kinds. He discusses its songs of expropriation, suffering, soldiering, impressment and migration; its relationship to the countryside - often a dangerous and menacing place - and to Englishness, including English nationalism; and the role of Black performers inside the world of folk, including Nadia Cattouse, Dorris Henderson, and Dav(e)y Graham. He also discusses the cosmopolitan of musicians, and their appetite for music that operates across cultural and national boundaries; the plasticity, pliability and nomadic aspects of musical forms mean that Nina Simone can make a song by Sandy Denny her own, and Kathryn Tickell can experiment with South Asian sources; it allows songs to appear in many different versions, as with 'The Lakes of Pontchartrain'. The folk traditions of the Atlantic world exhibit all of the recombinant cultural DNA that went into them. This creates the possibility of reading the culture of the Atlantic world, North and South, with the idea of a Creole culture - and the possibility of thinking with a creolised planet in mind.