Notting Hill Carnival 2023: an oral history of all-female sound systems

With their tow­er­ing, cus­tom-built speak­er stacks blast­ing a myr­i­ad of Black sounds from the Caribbean and beyond, pump­ing out a bass so pow­er­ful that it seems to rise from beneath the tar­mac, trav­el up your legs and rat­tle your ribcage, sta­t­ic sound sys­tems are a fun­da­men­tal part of the Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val expe­ri­ence. This year’s car­ni­val marks the 50^th anniver­sary since their intro­duc­tion by Leslie ​“Teacher” Palmer, as part of a series of inno­va­tions that dras­ti­cal­ly grew the event and secured the fund­ing required to keep it going. Num­bers swelled from 3,000 at the begin­ning of the 1970s to near­ly 50,000 by the end of the decade.

Orig­i­nat­ing in Kingston, Jamaica in the late 1940s, sound sys­tems served as a means for young, work­ing-class peo­ple to occu­py pub­lic space and lis­ten to the music they want­ed to hear. The method: pack out a van with the nec­es­sary gear – gen­er­a­tor, speak­ers, a turntable – then bring the par­ty to the streets. Vin­cent ​“Duke Vin” Forbes, who arrived on this cold island as a stow­away in 1954, is cred­it­ed with set­ting up the UK’s first Jamaican-style sound sys­tem soon after, and played London’s under­ground cir­cuit of blues par­ties and she­beens that allowed the city’s grow­ing Caribbean dias­po­ra to con­nect amidst a back­drop of insti­tu­tion­al and street-lev­el racism. The Not­ting Hill riots of 1958, and Kel­so Cochrane’s mur­der by racists a year lat­er are reminders of the impor­tance of these spaces as com­mu­nal relief.

In 1973, when Palmer – a Trinida­di­an teacher who’d go on to serve as car­ni­val direc­tor for the next two years – intro­duced food and mem­o­ra­bil­ia stalls, Mas bands and sta­t­ic sound sys­tems to the cel­e­bra­tions, Duke Vin’s sound was one of six that played. ​“Mr Leslie Palmer saw that sound sys­tems were the voice of the youth,” says Linett Kamala, whose asso­ci­a­tion with Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val began in 1985, when she became one of the first women to DJ at the event as part of Disya Jen­er­a­tion sound sys­tem. ​“He was the one that real­ly lis­tened and didn’t ignore what young peo­ple want­ed. Back then, sound sys­tems real­ly were the only way you could hear the music you want­ed to hear. The radio wasn’t play­ing the music that young peo­ple were lis­ten­ing to. And the size of these con­struct­ed speak­er box­es allowed you to real­ly feel and expe­ri­ence music that you hadn’t heard before.”

While the intro­duc­tion of sta­t­ic sound sys­tems appealed to the youth­ful first gen­er­a­tion of British-born Caribbean peo­ple, it also broad­ened the scope of Not­ting Hill Carnival’s cel­e­bra­tion of Caribbean cul­ture by speak­ing direct­ly to the Jamaican com­mu­ni­ty. ​“I think it helped reflect the expe­ri­ence of all Caribbean peo­ple,” says Mar­i­lyn Den­nis, AKA Lady Ban­ton, a DJ and car­ni­val stal­wart who co-found­ed Mel­lotone sound sys­tem – the first all-women sound to play at car­ni­val in 1994. ​“To include that wider audi­ence, I think it was a pos­i­tive move, because sound sys­tems were our expe­ri­ence. It [car­ni­val] was some­thing that had to evolve to attract and include all of us.”

In the 1970s, reg­gae over­took ska and rock­steady as the dom­i­nant sound of carnival’s sta­t­ic sound sys­tems, roar­ing defi­ant­ly onto the streets of West Lon­don from sky-high speak­er rigs. It became the most pop­u­lar branch of Jamaican music both at home and in the UK, where its mes­sages of lib­er­a­tion res­onat­ed with a dis­en­fran­chised young Caribbean dias­po­ra, con­front­ed by racist ​‘sus’ laws and the rise of the Nation­al Front. In 1973, the year Bob Mar­ley and The Wail­ers released Catch a Fire, the genre entered car­ni­val with the intro­duc­tion of sta­t­ic sound sys­tems. ​“The var­i­ous gen­res of car­ni­val are all social com­men­tary. Soca, calyp­so, they all have their ori­gins in oral com­men­tary on what’s hap­pen­ing,” explains Mar­i­lyn. ​“And reg­gae music is the poor people’s gov­er­nor. To bring reg­gae on board, with all its social com­men­tary, was some­thing that had to hap­pen at that time.”

In the 1980s, oth­er Black-built sounds like dub – reggae’s reverb-drenched cousin – elec­tro, hip hop, funk, lover’s rock and soul made them­selves heard too. Nor­man Jay’s Good Times sound sys­tem and The Mas­ter­mind Road­show sound sys­tem were ear­ly pio­neers of that son­ic expan­sion. Linett’s debut car­ni­val DJ set in 1985, which fea­tured exper­i­men­tal cuts like ​“The Word” by Junk­yard Band and Warp 9’s ​“Light Years Away,” was inspired by her ​“heroes” over at Mas­ter­mind. 

​“I was only 15 and had been prac­tis­ing with two turnta­bles, scratch­ing,” she remem­bers, laugh­ing. ​“Scratch Pro­fes­sor, the soul singer Omar’s younger broth­er. He was 11-years-old and had to wait to DJ after me. We were just kids, but we were help­ing make his­to­ry by bring­ing in that hip hop ele­ment. Pro­pelling the MC, the rhymes and all of that, it can be traced back to Jamaican sound sys­tem culture.”

Mar­i­lyn was ful­ly immersed in Jamaican sounds in the 1980s. As a car­ni­val rev­eller, she was drawn to Vir­go Inter­na­tion­al sound system’s reg­gae-focused site, and her own car­ni­val site, which she proud­ly describes as ​“all Jamaican,” is a joy­ful cel­e­bra­tion of the island’s music. She began devel­op­ing her skills as a DJ dur­ing girls-only ses­sions at her local youth club in Hornsey, North Lon­don, after dis­cov­er­ing a dou­ble turntable tucked away in a cup­board. In 1989 she formed Mel­lotone sound sys­tem with Julie Hen­ry, AKA Night Nurse, and they made their his­toric debut at car­ni­val in 1994 on Telford Road, where Mar­i­lyn still plays with her cur­rent all-women sound sys­tem, Seduc­tion City.

“We only played on Sun­day [in 1994], because that’s all we could afford, and we played out of this van,” she remem­bers. ​“We were play­ing away, doing our thing. And there was this guy. He took one look at us, kissed his teeth and car­ried on into Lad­broke Grove. We felt so embar­rassed. But I’d love to meet that guy now, because he wouldn’t even be able to get down the road, it’s so packed. Twen­ty-nine years lat­er and we’ve gone through all of the dis­mis­sive­ness because we’re women, and we’re still here.”

Con­front­ed with what she describes as ​“tox­i­c­i­ty” from some of her male peers, Mar­i­lyn has fierce­ly and unapolo­get­i­cal­ly cen­tred women through­out her career. ​“My site is one of the busiest there is, and it’s empow­er­ing for young women. It’s always been empow­er­ing, because it’s dri­ven by women,” she says. ​“Look on our web­site, it’s just one bag­ga gyal!”

Fun­da­men­tal to the vibe of empow­er­ment she’s cul­ti­vat­ed is safe­ty, which she believes is down to her inter­ac­tions with the crowd and the selec­tion of music she blasts. If Mar­i­lyn sees harass­ment in the crowd, she will call it out. ​“I don’t feel no way to stop music and do that,” she says. ​“If you wan­na drag up women and car­ry on a cer­tain way, then this place is not for you. I nev­er want a woman to feel uncom­fort­able on my site, where she can’t get rid of a man. I’ve expe­ri­enced it myself.” Since her daughter’s birth in the late 1990s, Mar­i­lyn has pro­mot­ed ​“clean dance­hall” music. ​“I don’t mind innu­en­do and I don’t mind swear­ing, but I won’t play slack­ness. If a young DJ on my site wants to play those songs, they need to find radio edits,” she explains. In dance­hall, ​“slack­ness” refers to the sex­u­al con­tent of some of the lyrics. ​“I think that’s helped me have the audi­ence that I have.”

Cen­tring women in sound sys­tem cul­ture and mak­ing sound sys­tems more inclu­sive spaces has been the dri­ving force of Linett’s jour­ney, too. ​“The rea­son why so many peo­ple were tak­ing pho­tos of me dur­ing my first DJ set was because I was a girl touch­ing records. It was going against the norm, which was that women didn’t DJ,” she says. ​“Women weren’t vis­i­ble in sound sys­tems. They’ve always been there, but per­haps they were the ones pro­vid­ing the fund­ing or work­ing and sup­port­ing their part­ners who were run­ning a sound sys­tem. But I’m very vis­i­ble as a woman in sound sys­tem cul­ture and I’m only still here because of my tenac­i­ty. So I’m always look­ing to bring more vis­i­bil­i­ty and cham­pi­on women around sound sys­tems, and cel­e­brate us.”

Through the Lin Kam Art Sound Sys­tems Futures Pro­gramme, Linett has pro­vid­ed men­tor­ship to some of the emerg­ing young women DJs in sound sys­tem cul­ture. Her first cohort made their car­ni­val debuts last year. ​“They absolute­ly smashed it,” she says proud­ly. She’s also helped open a gate­way to Black queer rep­re­sen­ta­tion amongst carnival’s sound sys­tems, sup­port­ing res­i­dent Disya Jen­er­a­tion DJ Car­men London’s idea to give Pxssy Palace a plat­form on their site in 2022. ​“Car­ni­val and sound sys­tem cul­ture is sup­posed to be about uni­ty, love and accep­tance,” Linett explains. ​“So any dis­crim­i­na­tion is out of sync with it.” At this year’s car­ni­val, Linett is launch­ing the Orig­i­nal Sounds Col­lec­tive with Guin­ness, to inspire more women to enter the scene. A host of women DJs men­tored by her will be play­ing with Dis­co Hus­tlers on Monday.

Now in her mid-30s, Lon­don began DJing at the age of 17, has bossed numer­ous Radio 1Xtra takeovers and is well known on the queer nightlife scene. She’s been a res­i­dent DJ with Disya Jen­er­a­tion sound sys­tem for near­ly a decade. ​“I’ve always felt wel­come with them, but last year I want­ed to do more for the Black queer com­mu­ni­ty,” she says. ​“I brought in Pxssy Palace – their DJs and dancers – and gave them set times. You could see the crowd change, with LGBT flags fly­ing around. It was mind-blow­ing and I think the rest of the crowd embraced it.” This was an impor­tant moment of rep­re­sen­ta­tion for Car­men and her com­mu­ni­ty. ​“The queer scene can be white-dom­i­nat­ed, so bring­ing a Black queer col­lec­tive to car­ni­val was real­ly spe­cial,” she explains. ​“I def­i­nite­ly felt noticed and accept­ed by my sound system.” 

Carmen’s pres­ence as part of Disya Jen­er­a­tion has devel­oped their site’s rep­u­ta­tion as a pro­gres­sive, LGBT-friend­ly space. ​“We’re not homo­pho­bic. There are sound sys­tems that do play homo­pho­bic songs and they don’t care,” she says. ​“We’ll nev­er play those songs. There is so much dance­hall music to choose from that isn’t homo­pho­bic. Or you can just play clean ver­sions of songs. We’re very con­scious of the music we play and how we’re per­ceived. And I want peo­ple from the queer scene to know this is a space for them.”

Over on Telford Road in 2022, Marilyn’s Seduc­tion City sound sys­tem was giv­ing a plat­form to the youngest girl to ever DJ at car­ni­val – 13-year-old DJ MLA. ​“That’s what car­ni­vals should be like – get­ting young peo­ple on the sys­tems, ready to evolve what we do and even­tu­al­ly take over,” she explains. ​“Hav­ing the foun­da­tion and the future there togeth­er is what it’s all about. And my girl is the youngest to ever do it. She tore it down!” 

MLA tapped into her mum and dad’s love of music, most notably dance­hall and soca, which orig­i­nat­ed in Trinidad and Toba­go and is the music of the road at car­ni­val. She taught her­self to DJ dur­ing lock­down. ​“At that time, she was doing a lot of online sets via Twitch. Mar­i­lyn came across her and recog­nised her tal­ent,” MLA’s moth­er Has­na explains. Plans were made for her to play a car­ni­val set in 2021, but the pan­dem­ic scup­pered those. ​“That gave her more time to con­tin­ue work­ing and per­fect­ing her skill.” MLA’s car­ni­val debut in 2022 involved play­ing on a mov­ing float first, where she dropped the soca anthem ​“One More Wine” by Machel Mon­taño. ​“That was my favourite song when I was in Year 2,” MLA says. She then legged it to Telford Road to make his­to­ry with Seduc­tion City. ​“On the sound sys­tem stage you real­ly have to play to the crowd, so you’ve real­ly got­ta read them. All eyes are on you. There’s pres­sure, but it’s good pres­sure,” she says.

In sound sys­tem cul­ture, pio­neers like Linett Kamala and Mar­i­lyn Den­nis have tire­less­ly plat­formed women in the scene, nic­ing up the dance across decades and kick­ing down doors for the next gen­er­a­tion to step through. With the likes of Car­men Lon­don and DJ MLA, women in sound sys­tems will con­tin­ue to bring the vibes at car­ni­val for a long time. ​“When peo­ple are enjoy­ing what you’re play­ing, it gives you a lot more con­fi­dence,” DJ MLA says. ​“You feel like you’re in charge. It feels very empow­er­ing.”

Fol­low Robert on Twit­ter.

Enjoyed this arti­cle? Fol­low Huck on Twit­ter and Insta­gram.