Sonic Intimacy: Reggae Sound Systems, Jungle Pirate Radio and Grime YouTube Music Videos

‘Sonic intimacy’ is a key concept through which sound, human and technological relations can be assessed in relation to racial capitalism. What is sonic intimacy, how is it changing and what is at stake in its transformation, are questions that should concern us all. Through an analysis of alternative music cultures of the Black Atlantic (reggae sound systems, jungle pirate radio and grime YouTube music videos), Malcolm James critically shows how sonic intimacy pertains to modernity’s social, psychic, spatial and temporal movements. This book explores what is urgently at stake in the development of sonic intimacy for human relations and alternative black and anti-capitalist public politics.