Southbound to Brixton

I: The Start of Your Ending

After months of oppressive rain, London has finally become hot and sunny. Though I loathe wasps and bees, to the point that even the faint sound of a buzzing can arrest the smallest of my actions, it is alluring to see them freely flying in the air. On days like today, it is hard not to wake up euphoric – in a city where sunshine and heat seldom work in tandem, the breaking of habit (and expectation) inspires one to see the world in a new, provocative way. It follows that my routine Saturday walk through the neighbourhood I’ve lived in for the past year would be no ordinary one – with the street no longer being filled with puddles and greyness, I was ready to observe my community in an entirely brand new light and in turn, potentially come to a new understanding of what this place meant to its residents.

A walk through Brixton can be many different things to many different people. The neighbourhood’s parks provide therapy to some whereas its hilly terrain creates the space for an exercise regimen for others. For elderly residents, a stroll presents the opportunity to exchange pleasantries with long-time shop owners and reminisce about the “good ole days” while younger residents leverage the sidewalks to put on an album in their headphones and imagine themselves in the centre of a film. Yet each of these characters share the common feeling that on a sunny day in Brixton, one’s senses are stimulated to their outermost limit. As people revel in the few hours of joy the day offers, a battle for space on the street creates chaos that threatens to overflow into something alarming but is always mitigated by an equally powerful counterbalancing force. So it is with that the cacophony of sounds that disorient me as I walk past the local tube station – an argument spoken in Jamaican patois gets drowned out by duelling street preachers who claim my soul is in jeopardy; the police sirens struggle for attention against the saxophonist; two children run past me, laughing at one another while their mother screams at them to come back. As I take a right down a quieter street, my nose picks up on the open air fish markets, with each shop offering a different rate for their fresh shipments. A jerk chicken stall further entices me to walk down Electric Avenue. I finally come to a rest at a coffee shop whose freshly roasted beans, in partnership with the smell of dry piss and cigarettes, fully complete my childhood memories of Seattle’s Pike Place Market.

Despite my nose working on overdrive, it is my eyes that capture the lasting imprint of this walk. Two discordant images occupy my view. On my right, parallel to the steps of the Brixton Recreation Centre where Nelson Mandela walked down by special request, flies a banner replete with pictures of important Black cultural icons for the community: CLR James, Bob Marley, Muhammad Ali. Though it must have been put up only recently, it is a concrete reminder of the past – that Brixton had been validated by a litany of leaders who themselves were the embodiment of resistance and rebellion; and that Brixton had been seen as a hub for Blackness and spirituality. And on my left, in contrast, stood what could be seen as Brixton’s future – Pop Brixton: a self-described “creative space for local, independent businesses,” a “community business park for the 21st Century” that in reality is a hodge-podge of “cool” dining options where middle-class young professionals – largely from outside of Brixton – spend their weekends socialising (some would even describe it as the epitome of yuppiness, though having eaten there recently myself, I will try not to reflect too deeply on the accusation). It is not simple poetry to say that in the space of 100 yards, the war over the soul of Brixton is playing out. Or is it?

The tensions elicited from this imagery is not lost on Steadman Scott, who has joined me at this coffee shop. For Steadman, however, the battle is overblown: Afewee is the past, Afewee is the future. I don’t care for all of this, he points to Pop Brixton, they cannot push me out. It takes about three minutes for Steadman to get through these few sentences as we are constantly interrupted by men and women who seek to fistbump him or to ask him how he’s doing. One teenager even bestows him a can of juice without saying much else. Behind the celebrity of Steadman lies a deeper purpose of activism and in a way, community organising. The aforementioned Afewee, which is Jamaican slang and roughly translates to “for the community, for us,” is the name of his football and boxing academy, situated in the Brixton Recreation Centre. If Steadman never played either sport, he would still have credibility amongst aspiring athletes. His intensely defined muscular frame, which fills out his tight black tank, defies what a sixty-something year old man should look like. He possesses a pair of steely eyes that are unrelenting in the way that they attack my own gaze. He is fluent in a vernacular pattern that came from listening to a lifetime of Marcus Garvey speeches. All of this evokes his core principles out of each of his pupils: passion, hard-work, discipline. It just so happens that he’s helped get 40 kids signed to professional football clubs – including Nathaniel Clyne – and trained English boxer AJ Carter, which is no deterrent in getting young kids to take him seriously.

A cursory glance on the internet helps elucidate why the Academy was set up in the first place; it is the notion, familiar in DC, Accra or Sao Paulo, that for the poor Black man, sports is the way out. When children focus on positive activity, they stay away from gang activity or violent crime. What is less discussed in these articles is that Steadman came to the UK as part of the Windrush Generation – or what he calls the greatest generation that changed everything for Blacks in Europe. The Windrush Generation is a catch-all label that describes the large-scale migration by West Indians into Brixton (and Lambeth County generally) in the years immediately after World War II. While thousands of West Indians came to Great Britain during the War, either as volunteers in the armed services or as technicians for the UK’s man-starved war industry, the SS Empire Windrush brought the first large organised group of migrants – 491 in all, mostly semi-skilled male workers from Jamaica [1]. With the West Indian press catching hold of the successful sojourn, migration increased exponentially from 2,200 total West Indians in Britain in 1952 to 238,200 by 1961 [2]. For many, the major push factors were the overpopulation of the islands, its chronic under-employment and general low-wage levels. Yet it was the pull factor of Britain – and especially its free and compulsory education for children – that perpetuated the large-scale migration from the West Indies.

That a man like Steadman, and his family, would live in Brixton was by no means planned. He is quick to remind me that Brixton was never a Black community – while places like Railton Road would eventually become cultivated into pockets that resembled Africa, or Jamaica, where we felt free, the community had never really been above 50% Black. Instead, it began in the early 1900s as a hub for business and professional people “who lived in housing which are currently fashionable in Chelsea” today [3]. Yet, as housing depreciated, partly due to the Blitzkrieg of London [4] and partly due to the Victorian housing structure becoming “unfashionable,” Poles, Cypriots, Maltese and especially Irish migrants moved in. Having experienced hostility and discrimination in London themselves, these new migrants were documented as being more likely to accept Black people as lodgers than local landladies [5]. Hence the narrative begins to unfold.

It is quite fashionable to link Brixton and Harlem together. After all, as I write this, the Brixton-Harlem festival is in full effect. Both Steadman and I find the connection a bit facile and maybe even misleading. For him, a connection to the US is not exactly a compliment, with its culture of materialism and selfishness running contrary to his own ethos (who am I to argue?). Still, it is hard to ignore that in both communities, the machinations of the private rental market worked to confine Black folks into dilapidated housing. The narrative in Brixton can be brought to a quick formula: Black migrants arrive, White landowners worry their property values will decline, they sell quickly to Windrushers, often with high-interest mortgages or at a higher price than they would have asked for White prospectors (known locally as a “colour tax”). The housing, shoddy as it already was, would hold 20-25 people (in order to make rent) even though it initially was meant for two-three families [6]. West Indians took two losses in these deals: they inherited unfashionable, crumbling homes and did so at manipulative rates. In order to make ends meet, many of them immediately sought and secured employment. Though they were often blue-collar in nature – in the realm of transportation, janitorial, steel and coal production and the like – these jobs were the backbone of London’s recovery process after the war. Still, many Windrushers faced hostility from White neighbours that stayed in Brixton – resentful that Black locals were getting jobs at the expense of other White folk.

This is what Steadman’s adolescence consisted of. We couldn’t grow up. We had no jobs that gave us self-esteem, we encountered racists, there was no improvement. We stayed on the streets. And so, in 1984, after his most challenging stint in prison, Steadman Scott found his true calling in life. The purpose of life is how you treat your fellow human beings and how you live in your community. And over 13 years, he toiled, first in obtaining his sports licence and then the right to establish his Academy in Brixton. It is here, at the Rec Centre, where he can teach children the lessons he wishes he learned sooner, where he can inculcate a sense of spirituality and self-reliance, where he can give young Black men a sense of pride in their Jamaican history and traditions. It is a safe space in the deepest sense of the phrase. He has every right to disregard Pop Brixton. After all, he makes it clear to me that Afewee is the future because Afewee knows the past. Our history will always be here because we own the building. Afewee will create dreams for young people!

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Steadman stood up, shook my hand and walked away. For the first time since living here, each face began to look distinctive; a memoir was imprinted on each droopy cheek and within each broken nose. Particularly amongst the elderly folk, I was curious what secrets they were holding in, what baggage they carried with them. People do not possess an objective essence; they make up what our worldview requires of them at that moment. And in the elation that I felt after speaking to a man who I had met by chance – a man who perhaps would not have been there on a routine day – I wanted more stories that taught me about redemption and reinvention. Is that not, after all, what this community had embodied? More importantly, is not the narrative of hope what I needed the most today? Afewee Academy itself was a testament to this: a building that resembled the castle of a mediaeval despot was transformed into an oasis for disenfranchised youth. Brixton, for all I now cared for, possessed the fertile seeds into which a Phoenix could rise from the ashes. This was at the core of its history and its best embodiment pulled a seat up next to me.

Me and Steadman. Man, he’s got a different story to me but the foundations are the same. He had to fight to get what he wanted. I had to fight. I always had to fight. Maybe that’s why I love boxing.

Georges, who has been my conduit into the South London boxing scene, is an enigmatic man whose large, overpowering frame (foregrounded by a set of broad shoulders that would belittle my own presence should the two of us ever walk side by side) does little to hide his gentle voice and big smile. Like most other men, Georges and I never needed to discuss our personal lives in order to have a friendly rapport with one another – our cordiality towards each other was predicated on keeping our conversations largely about the sport itself. Still, we both are shaped by an inexorable law of humanity: that we want others to actually hear what we have to say, from the seemingly trivial details to the hopes we find sustenance in. And so, with pride, Georges, still damp from a boxing session, has sat on the throne initially occupied by Steadman and begins to narrate the details of his life.

I had a good childhood, man. I was born in Belgium – it was a good quality of life. My dad was a diplomat, my mother was an accountant. But what hurt was to see my mom never get promoted in thirty years; she worked so hard, and White people always got put above her. It became hard for her to support us, it made me want to get out. I had to get out, especially because in Belgium, they look down on you if you’re Black. Following his girlfriend who had moved to the UK, Georges, without money or an ability to speak English, made a leap into the unknown. It was super tough to first come. I couldn’t express myself. I relied on the gym, on boxing, to give me peace inside the chaos and stress. While a few odd jobs helped Georges pay the rent, there was a deeper purpose that he was yearning to quench; one changes jobs, one moves countries for an often inarticulable goal that can only be perceived when seeing a great piece of art for the first time or in reading a transcendent novelist at the height of their literary powers. In Brixton, Georges felt that he was among kindred spirits and saw an opportunity for not just reinvention, but a freedom to shape his destiny.

In Brixton, you feel comfortable because you sense that they had to fight for everything. There’s a community here. To feel that he was in community, in a community of fighters, was to remind him of the value he provided to others and to the world at large. Boxing is my love. You have to find a way to not get hit and that itself is a survival technique. There it is right? Boxing is life, boxing is like MY life. By not getting hit, you also feel like no one is oppressing you. As a Black guy, when you box, you realise that you have an equal chance as everyone else … I have rights too. For OUR people, here in this community and as Black people, life is a struggle. But in boxing, like life, as long as you are resilient, work hard, and respect others, you can achieve anything and break away from what others think you can do.

He looks at Pop Brixton and smiles. We all need each other man. He sounds like Steadman. For both men, teachers of the same ilk, men who are determined to do what they love and help others, unity is central to their identity. So speaks one: Our story is about helping White people. The system's greatest fear is having melanin uniting with White. And the other: England has a lot of problems, but when you tell your story to a White man, they might actually care. It’s not like Belgium. There is room here in Brixton. There’s room for everyone. We’re all together. My questions have been answered. There is no war being waged for the soul of Brixton. If the history of this place shows a pattern of constant redefinition and reorientation, the Windrush Generation – through their fighting will ­– established a cardinal rule that still seeps through the cracks of the streets: exclusivity and separateness are a path towards irrelevance. Pop Brixton is no threat – it is, as one resident calls it, a “spaceship” whose target audience certainly is not its surrounding community, half of whom live in areas that are in the top 10% of the most deprived nationally [7]. That the market lost over £100,000 in 2021 is no surprise [8]. Its days are assuredly numbered. This is not karma, that’s too vengeful of a word for the local Rastafarians who are out in full force in the Saturday heat. It is much more elementary. Brixton has a different set of rules and well, as Mobb Deep put, “survival of the fittest, only the strong survive.”

II. “There’s a Riot Goin’ On!”

The battle between old and new was too nebulous of a narrative to insert into Brixton. My conversations had taught me that its heart thrived on maintaining an equilibrium between the two – new ideas, faces and cultures ensured that the neighbourhood would not become static, unlike many other parts of London. Nonetheless, there needed to be a deference for principles like “togetherness” and “peace.” There was still another line of inquiry, alluded to by Steadman in our conversation, that piqued my interest.

One in three men of my generation have criminal convictions because of discrimination … Late at night, you had to hide from police if you were coming home from work. “The System” – which purported to grant a sense of equal rights before the law and a guarantee that one could enjoy simple pleasures in life unaccosted – did not serve poor, Black Brixtonians. Thus, if “The System” had little interest in conferring justice, let alone citizenship, to this population, they would create their own democratic institutions where conversation flowed freely without judgement, where local leaders were made and where conflict was litigated. Parliament was a five minute walk from my house: Follicles Barbershop.

Should one pass by Follicles on a Friday or Saturday, it would resemble one of Proust’s aristocratic salons. Rich and eccentric characters fill the shop, shouting about their woes with love; the vanguard freely pass alcohol amongst one another, sharing gossip about the football transfer market as they sip on a bottle of Heineken; Politics (with a capital P) are avoided but questions of ethics – as in, what is the right thing to do in situation X or in problem Y – draw the attention, and opinion, of young and old alike. In short, the barbershop both fuels, and is a respite from, day-to-day life for men of colour in Brixton. And like any aristocratic circle worth their salt, it is a cautious state of affairs when someone arrives whose presence is not personally known to any one else there.

Still, royalty are not above acts of hospitality (whether out of obligation or out of a need to camouflage their privileged positions) and so when Johnny, the Patron Saint of Follicles, saw me walk into an environment where I was diffident and out of my element – though still in genuine need of a good shave – he took pity on me. -Can I get a shave? I know I don’t have much here to work with but I could really use a good clean up. Johnny replied, with a heavy Jamaican accent that was loyal to his birthplace: -Yes, yes. We can do anYYYYthing you want. Just come whenever. And so, over the course of weeks, Johnny and I developed a kinship where, like teammates on a championship team, the unspoken preferences of the other were clear: he would trim my emerging monobrow without comment; I would show up only on Mondays or Tuesdays where business was most quiet; the ultimate action of payment would be done furtively through a handshake out the door rather than just handing over £7 to ensure that our engagements were not just transactional. While I had not been ushered into the salon’s most lively gatherings, I did receive the goodwill of a central member and upon asking him to share some insights with me about Brixton, he grinned, flashing his two gold teeth, and then nodded his head. Yeah, I’ve got stories. Come on Wednesday.

Life can arrange itself in very convenient ways. Sometimes the narrative you pursue comes right to you – and sometimes, it does so in such a way that it may actually be seen as a falsehood by others when you try to relay the course of events. For instance, while I had every intention of talking to Johnny about police-community relationships; after all, it would be relevant to talk to a man who had spent his adolescence in Brixton during the 1990s, when tensions may have been at their highest. It would turn out that the conversation would be centred around that topic anyways, for when I showed up at the doorstep of Follicles, Johnny was in a back and forth with a local policeman.

-You can’t talk to me like that. -Like what? Johnny responded. -Like that! Is this your car? Both men are standing next to a parked BMW that has taken up the entirety of the sidewalk. -Yeah, so what? The officer looks confused … have the laws changed recently? Is Johnny a diplomat? He looks to me for support but I offer him shrugged shoulders. My allegiances are clear. He sighs. Move your car before I issue you a ticket. -Bullshit, man. All's well that ends well.

When he returned from moving his car, he set up a chair outside and said little. He was upset. Nonetheless, after exchanging a few pleasantries and getting his commentary on what had just transpired, he began playing me a song, which he said would help you understand a lot of things here. It was a reggae song called “Police Officer,” sung by local icon Smiley Culture. Written in 1984, the song portrayed Culture’s interactions with a … well, a police officer. Generally humorous, it also was a meditation on the corrupt, sometimes vicious ways that police dealt with Black Britons. The song was a chart topper – a “Top 20 hit” – because it resonated with disenfranchised Brixtonians who saw their own interactions with the police mirror what Culture had articulated, and insinuated, in his song.

Though he had moved to Brixton in 1991 to live with his grandparents who were Windrushers, Johnny remembers that police would search randomly, they would touch you down for no reason. Everyone was angry with the police. It's a neat encapsulation of what the central grievances against the police were. A community-based report in 1981 highlighted that Brixton police’s methods were “more akin to those of any army [against the community] than anything else" [9]. There were two major causes of this, which anecdotal evidence gave support to. The first were “Stop and Search” laws where police literally had the power to stop and search a person if they have “reasonable suspicion.” This phrase had wide-latitude, where “in the majority of cases, it may be there mere appearance of the suspect, that he dresses shabbily, has long hair, or is black which gives rise to suspicion.” [10]

The second, and perhaps more notorious of the causes, was the use of Section IV of the Vagrancy Act, 1824 – known as the “sus” law – wherein people could be arrested “on suspicion of loitering with intent to commit an arrestable offence.” To obtain a conviction, it was only necessary to show that the defendant was seen to perform an act which aroused the suspicions of watching police officers and then another act which made police think the offence was imminent [11]. Brixton was a community James Baldwin would have sunk his teeth into – it was, in other words, “occupied territory.”

This was the backdrop for the 1981 Brixton Uprising. After months of low-level conflict between the police and residents, the perceived negligence of the police in protecting a stabbed youth became the catalyst for “scenes of violence and disorder … that had not previously been seen in this century in Britain" [12]. The Scarman Report, written in the aftermath of the three day Uprising by Lord Leslie Scarman, detailed that the damage was comparable to an air raid, with at least 324 casualties [13]. The Report also made it clear that at the centre of the protests was a “deeply frustrated and deprived” people who needed an outlet to call “compelling public attention to their grievances.” Yet, while Scarman saw racial disadvantage as a key to understanding the events, he would not blame a racist police force or racist police tactics – just “some officers” who had racial prejudice and others who engaged in “unwitting discrimination" [14].

Johnny exhales deeply. The police were hard on us. It was unfair. He does not shy away from talking about a very real part of the story as well. You see this street here, as he points ahead. This whole street was lined up with drug dealers and prostitutes. But we weren’t all like that. They just used to pat us down. -How did you escape? -I went to church. My grandma was big into that. And of course, the barbershop. I’ve been cutting hair for 27 years. We laugh here. We support each other here. It's positive energy. I did good by people and people did good by me.

Anything else, Johnny? Hey, I love having a good time. When you live here, you know how to have a good time. Now we were getting somewhere. I began to imagine that I had unknowingly bumped into Johnny at one of Brixton’s many clubs and bars during a weekend in Brixton. Maybe we had danced together at the Chip Shop, or were seated next to each other at the Prince of Wales, or I had stood in line with him at the Ritzy. Yet, whereas I saw the nightlife as an opportunity for hedonism, he and other long-time local residents saw it as a way to celebrate each other’s lives, identities and roots. Older Brixtonians had learned that amidst upheaval and adversity, they could dance away their constrictions. In turn, they had created an invaluable space for bliss – music provided a more jovial (though no less effective) form of rebellion for those who saw that street protests were not their thing.

It is hard to find this history within the contemporary nightlife scene in Brixton. Many of these places are trendy, quirky, spots that seek to lure suckers like me in with a promise of playing the Billboard Top 100 hits. Yet at one point in time, Brixton was the heart of British reggae music and had a global cultural reach. It was a place where Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Otis Redding, and the locally born David Bowie all actively sought to perform. Brixton’s music scene was spiritual and countercultural all at the same time. Still, if one looks far enough, lingering proof of the power of music remains. For example, a record store on the outskirts of Brixton is operating outside of its typical hours, just so that a coterie of elderly gentlemen can groove along to the hymns of Bunny Lee or “Scratch” Perry. They sing in unison despite their various levels of intoxication. These men may have led lives where they experienced the whole gambit of pain and suffering; equally, given the vigour in their voice and the heartiness of their laughs, it is hard to envision them as ever having shed a tear or worry about the future. They had each other in the past, present and future and it was music – music that was created to touch the soul critically coupled with souls that were created to accept music – that established, and then sustained, the bonds of harmony required to live a life worth living.

In this noble tradition Johnny invites me to a “Jamaican brunch.” If there is anything you must remember me for, it is this. Music, dancing, LOTS of people. You will have so much fun. Though I could not attend the brunch, I did want to know what the future holds for him. I may return to Jamaica. I may not. I want grandchildren though. I will raise them the right way. -What does that mean? I replied. -I grew up on nature, I built everything with my hands. These kids can buy anything now. They’re spoiled and so they become rude and unhappy. They can’t appreciate any of the small things anymore. It's sad to see. I will teach mine the old school way. So spoke Faulkner: the past is never dead.

III. You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me

All roads lead back to Rome. Except at Brockwell Park. Occupying the southernmost part of Brixton, the park is a large space where each person’s interests can be satisfied without impeding on the happiness of others – skaters and swimmers have distinct gathering zones; a bachelorette brunch can occur without disrupting the Muslim man who is praying; a group of mothers are playing tennis while their children climb the monkeybars. A diverse array of life gathers peacefully on these grounds. It is all the more poignant, therefore, that the thirteen separate pathways of Brockwell intersect at one central point: the basketball court.

I had loved basketball in the same way Georges had loved boxing – each aspect of the game was a microcosm of the Universe, wherein life and sport merged into an all-encompassing philosophy about human nature. Similarly, its intimate environment – wherein the fast-paced nature of a game forces one to understand their teammates and opponents quickly – hastens the rate in which deep bonds are forged between seemingly dissimilar people. Basketball at the Park was no different. In days, I met, and ultimately came to love, a bevy of personalities who had, despite their unique charms, become anachronisms of every prior court I had enjoyed. I was finally at home.

There was Skinny, the self-appointed elder statesman whose self-aggrandising style of basketball did not necessarily match his skill set, which itself was endearing. There was Jasper, whose love for the game made him intensely focused even while stretching. There was also DeShaun, whose smooth style of play complimented his attractive persona in public. Then there was Rico, a whimsical and husky man who defied everyone’s expectations by being quicker and more elegant than anyone else who played (he unfortunately could not make a lay-up therefore negating all of his impressive gifts).

Spoiled? Rude? Unhappy? It was hard to reconcile Johnny’s weighty chastisement with what I saw in front of me each day. Sure, each of them came with their own set of baggage and degrees of coarseness but each also carried a sense of duty towards each other. Jasper, for example, spent his afternoons coaching ten year old kids who had aspirations of being college basketball players. He does not do it for money, popularity or prestige – it just stems from a sense of responsibility so intuitive that it registers as naturally as breathing does. Even more profound was that each of them demonstrated the traits of hospitality that were so apparent in Steadman, Johnny and other life-long Brixtonians; as if I were an esteemed guest entering their home for the first time, the youth I knew at Brockwell were gracious in bringing me into their social fabric. While this cemented my status as an outsider, a hovering bee that pollinates a flower only to return to its hive elsewhere, it also indicated that they were comfortable obtaining stewardship over Brixton, glories and scars alike. And like Akbar preparing to take over the throne from his father, these scions were becoming acquainted with the language of the people. At the heart of this terminology was the somewhat vague idea that was gentrification.

Brixton Market and stuff, it was basically all Black. Where I used to get my haircut, it was a Jamaican guy and he and my dad … they would always be blaring music. There was the Metoke House, where my mom used to get the Ugandan groceries that reminded her of home. These places just disappeared. Kemet is strikingly confident for a 19-year old. Despite only playing basketball for a year, he is clearly better than most other players I know. He has a face that is absent of imperfections, which is typical to only those who have spent many years in leisure. There is a serenity that accompanies his disarming smile and well-maintained shoes. Yet even though life seems to come easy to Kemet, there is a muffled melancholy in his tone when discussing how Brixton has changed. That’s the main issue that people have with the change in Brixton; these places we went to added character to the place. Now it's just generic.

Perhaps one of the most undervalued aspects of privilege is the ability to recall childhood memories. If a child who grows up near Chelsea were to return, after a long absence, they may see their favourite sweets store no longer there. Still, that building, protected by the city, remains intact and whose outline reminds the now adult of the after-school excursions at the store that they had with their sweet mother. For Kemet, with each barber shop or grocery store that dissolves, the line between imaginary and real in his memories becomes blurrier and blurrier. Was that specialty coffee shop always there? Did my uncle actually live in Brixton or did he always live further South? The trick thus played on the mind of an impressionable 19 year old is such that he potentially views himself as archaic, a retrograde who has no claim to walk these grounds. He is at risk of being pushed out culturally and socially. Should he persevere, stand up and then yell “this is my damn community, I belong here,” he may not be able to afford the price of admission. In a story familiar across London, long-time residents (many of whom are Black) are being priced out of the houses they made homes. What is astonishing in Brixton is the rate at which this has happened – in 26 years, prices for an average property in the community have increased by 800% [15].

No one knows this story better than Rico. Born and raised in Brixton, Rico is a walking encyclopaedia of our neighbourhood. His grandmother was a Windrusher and has lived in the same apartment since her arrival from St. Vincent in the late 1950s; his mother went to school here; his extended family are scattered throughout its four corners. Despite being only 21 years old, Rico has a story related to seemingly every street here. Not to mention, he is a local estate agent, giving him a unique vantage point to discuss the change in Brixton. You can’t afford to live here unless you have those high-end jobs. White college people never moved here before but now they’re here. Some people have to get pushed out to make room, and I know some that are resentful.

His eyes begin to gleam as he recalls some of his childhood memories, as if they were in the distant past. In a way, they are. While he tells familiar stories of barbeques and street parties, he also acknowledges the tribulations that Brixton put him through. There’s a line from a song I like. You start out with 40 or 50 friends, you end up with two. Everyone else I know is in jail or in a gang somewhere else now. Not a lot of people come out successful. He relays stories of local gangs and stabbings; he mentions how it infiltrated the school system, with people trying to test him. It was intense. You know, I used to fucking hate Brixton. My family member got stabbed three times here. I always wanted to leave.

However, like the great artists of the past who had turned their suffering into a beautiful painting or a stirring ballad, Rico turned his pain into a gift for selling things. I saw people do it the wrong way but I learned some lessons and saw a path to do it on my own. First it was charging people 50 pence to pump up their bikes. Then he graduated into selling sweets. Then it was clothing. I was always selling. But if Rico seemed more composed and mature beyond his age, it's because he had to take responsibility for his family as well. At 16, Rico decided to pursue a career instead of education and five months later, he secured a job that would allow him to take care of others. My sole purpose was just making sure my mom would be alright and comfortable. Her credit cards are paid off, she’s able to live her life now like she wants to.

One interpretation of Rico’s story is that for the disruption gentrification causes, it does ultimately “uplift” the local population with jobs and disposable income, cutting out the need for extrajudicial enterprises. Except that it never works like that. In 2020, the unemployment rate for young Black folks was 41.6%. In 1982, one year after the Uprising that articulated the poor conditions low-income Black folks faced, the same demographic had an unemployment rate of 41.8%. Rico is the exception that proves the rule. Still, he is also part of the chorus of long-time Brixtonians who are denouncing the changing nature of Brixton.

Where is my nan going to go? She doesn’t want to leave. This is her home, she’s 93. Rico does not mind change and notes that Brixtonians are, in fact, open to it. But what he laments, like Kemet, is the changing spirit of the place. It’s upsetting, I’ll be honest. There used to be 20 of us playing in the park together as kids, laughing and shouting. You won’t find that today, no one knows each other in the park. I get it, we had hard times, but at least we were in community with one another. That damned word again. Community.

We both laugh as we see a man jogging with his dog, going northbound, while an ambulance is racing past him, going southbound. There was no more perfect analogy. Rico and I are both ready to leave; he has a cousin’s birthday party to attend and I … I have to get my oat latte from the cafe before they close. Before I go, he stops me and says, without judgement or anger, just as a matter of fact. You’re the perfect example of how Brixton has changed. People smell the air, they hear the music, they get a good vibe. They love the energy … but they don’t know what’s been in the shadows and what our past is.

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My last week here in Brixton is inaugurated by the sound of clopping on the pavement. As I peek out the blinds of my apartment, the accompanying sight is a familiar one – the local Pentacostal church has organised a celebration of a life dearly departed. As the horses carry a hearse through the streets, no tears are shed, there is no sorrow in the air. It is just men and women who are elegantly dressed; they line the narrow street, laughing and hugging one another in the comfort that they had loved this man as much as they could and he had loved them with equal vigour. Accordingly, they can rest easy knowing that though the physical presence of a long-term resident has vanished, his soul will remain connected to the community they spent their life bleeding and sweating over.

It is a visual that stirs me deeply. Only days ago I had asked Rico if, despite his rocky history with Brixton, he could imagine himself living here for the rest of his life. I could’ve moved away some time ago but you know, with my nan being here, with my mother being here for so long, there’s a generational mindset. I guess I just like long-term stability. And honestly, there’s no other place in London like it. Prometheus is at his rock. The carriage with the hearse now passes my apartment and I cannot help but recall a quote from an old novel: “the dead man seizes hold of the living one, who becomes his successor in his own likeness, the perpetuator of his interrupted life" [16]. Though the first generation of West Indians in this community are beginning to transition from the Earthly realm onto the next, they are being reborn and reincarnated into their progeny. Rico is no different. Maybe he is even inheriting the spirit of this dead man in front of me today. Either way, he is committed to keeping Brixton true to its core principles.

I, for one, the transient outsider, am exceptionally grateful. When I roam in Central or North London, I often feel a sense of isolation. In these areas, the Individual reigns supreme; there is no need to look at others on the sidewalks, let alone smile at them. The tall, opulent buildings are opaque in their purpose, only leading one to imagine what actually lies behind those walls. I am not very creative and thus feel perpetually excluded from belonging.

This is not the case in Brixton. From the boxing gym, to the barbershop, to the basketball court, Brixton has always been about finding a way to create a synergy amongst disparate parts, about incorporating unique characters into a whole without having them sacrifice their autonomy. Here one quickly recognises that the battles on the street are less about asserting dominance over another than it is about highlighting that everyone has a right to stake their claim on these hallowed grounds. This does not make the community good nor bad, beautiful nor ugly. But it does make Brixton real and honest.

Spending weeks talking to residents young and old of this community, I have come to the conclusion that many of them do not lament the fact that “outsiders” are finding their way into Brixton – in the legacy of altruism that defines the West Indies, this community rejects gatekeeping. What they lament is that these same “outsiders” see Brixton as an amusement park, an experience to be had or a ticked box on their way to accrue the credentials necessary to call themselves cosmopolitan. I myself have heard it from some colleagues: “I’m glad to have done my one year in Brixton but it was time to get out.” In this framework, there is no desire to invest into Brixton – the shopkeepers are just channels to receive flowers, the houses are just vessels to protect one from the cold, and the buses are just there to arrive at an end-destination.

Unfortunately, as life takes me out of London, I too will have only done one year in Brixton before I must leave. Yet in this short time, I have been indelibly shaped. Through the unapologetic sounds and odours that proliferate through the air, I have learned that good music and good food are prerequisites for a good life. And through the conversations I have had with its residents, I have been reminded that simplicity counts a hell of a lot more when trying to attain happiness than anything else. I am a testament to the fact that Brixton, as London has come to know it, will last. The neighbourhood’s power lies in how it absorbs others through its sheer charm and gracefulness, making one yield to its peoples and ways of life. Money doesn't buy you respect here, it won’t even buy you peace. Only one’s inner spirituality can do that. That’s what defines Steadman and Georges; it’s what carries Johnny’s crown at Follicles; it is the lessons Rico and Kemet have gathered at a very young age.

I am set to take in one final moment here, only to catch sight of that banner by the Recreational Centre again. The aforementioned Faulkner quote should be stated in its entirety … “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” To see Muhammad Ali on that banner makes me think of a story that perhaps encapsulates Brixton’s past and future. Ali, then Cassius Clay, had come to visit in the 1960s when he turned to ask a man, “what is so special about Brixton?” The man responded, “Champ, the thing that is so special about Brixton is that you are here.”

So it goes … so it goes…

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Citations

[1] Patterson, Sheila, Dark Strangers: A Sociological Study of the Absorption of a Recent West Indian Migrant Group in Brixton, South London. 1963.

[2] ibid

[3] Scarman, Leslie, The Scarman Report : Report of an Inquiry. 1981.

[4] “Mapping the WWII Bomb Census – Explore the London Blitz.” Bomb Sight. The National Archives, n.d.

[5] Patterson, Dark Strangers.

[6] ibid

[7] Chris McMillan, “Gentrification, Pop Brixton, the Battle of Brixton and ‘The London Dream,’” Brixton Buzz, August 18, 2020.

[8] “Loss Making Backers Leave Multi Million Pound Debts Whilst Pop Brixton Remains in the Red,” Brixton Buzz, February 5, 2022.

[9] “Final Report of the Working Party into Community Police Relations in Lambeth,” Final report of the working party into community police relations in Lambeth § (n.d.).

[10] ibid

[11] ibid

[12] Scarman, The Scarman Report.

[13] ibid

[14] “Margaret Thatcher's Criticism of Brixton Riot Response Revealed,” BBC, December 30, 2014.

[15] Luke May, “The Gentrification of Brixton 40 Years on from the 1981 Riots,” Mail Online, April 12, 2021.

[16] Marcel Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah, In Search of Lost Time vol. 4 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021).