Rites of Passage: Bradford’s Sound System Stories is making Bradford’s sound system heritage and cultural legacy more widely known, better understood, and preserved for the future.

The Rites of Passage project, with support from the National Heritage Lottery Fund, gathers, preserves and shares memories and stories about how Bradford’s sound systems began, grew and changed over time. We highlight the significance of this musical heritage and acknowledge the roles of the people involved. We also pay tribute to the individuals who have made major contributions to sound system culture and practice in Bradford and far beyond. 

The Rites of Passage project celebrates and brings recognition to Bradford’s newly gathered sound system cultural heritage and musical legacy. Activities include:

• a documentary 
• a collection of oral history interviews
• an archive of historical imagery
• an authentically assembled sound system
• educational materials
• workshops and discussions
• events including Ladies Night
• and an international live streaming sound system link up.

“Our music and comradery were a release from the social injustices at the time.”

Especially when we struggled to find meaningful job opportunities and would be regularly harassed by the police and authorities. We would meet up most days with our posse – listening to music and socialising in someone’s house or a community centre. We would emotionally venture into the deepness of the music through the lyrics of the song, the bassline, or both – a state of meditation that was often heightened through the smoking of marijuana!

Along the way we learnt a wide range of transferable skills (practical and social / hard and soft) while involved in building and maintaining the sound systems. These include:

• the skill of joinery in terms of building the sound boxes

• electronics – understanding and repairing the amplifiers, electrical feeds and attaching equipment (e.g. microphones, jingle boxes, record decks, etc)

• MC-ing (i.e. DJing) / poetically dropping lyrics to the songs / communication and verbal presentation skills

• and of course, singing!

Rites of Passage: Bradford’s Sound System Stories is making Bradford’s sound system heritage and cultural legacy more widely known, better understood and preserved for the future.

We reached out as widely as possible and we acknowledge the generosity and trust offered by those people who supported this project’s vision and journey – more information here.

Marshfield Odsal Bankfoot Enterprise (MOBE), a registered charity that specialises in community outreach within Bradford, is leading this exciting heritage project.