JWIL welcomes Isis Semaj-Hall to our first 2022 Twitter residency. She will dive into dub sound with a salute to the extra-terrestrial body of art that Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry left for us as listeners and viewers. Over the course of the week, Semaj-Hall (aka the Riddim Writer) will explore Perry’s 2019 Swiss Institute exhibit, the music Perry made in European sound laboratories, and Perry’s unique approach to production. Twitter-fans can look forward to Semaj-Hall sharing highlights from her recently published JWIL article “Dubbing Dub Poetry? Approaching Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Poetically,” because no Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry focus would be complete without a deep analysis of Perry’s stretched, warped, and layered lyrics. Finally, this residency also takes the time to listen beyond Perry and hear from other Jamaican sound artists whose works similarly extend how we connect to our ancestry and our futurity as aliens of one kind or another. Spoiler, there will be a Perry-Inspired Playlist.
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Isis Semaj-Hall is an assistant professor of Caribbean literature and popular culture in the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. As the Riddim Writer, she podcasts For Posterity where she has interviewed Caribbean writers, musicians, visual artists, and inspiring citizens. As a Caribbean storytelling advocate, she is co-founder and editor of the online magazine PREE: Caribbean Writing. With a commitment to opening-up access, her cultural analysis and critical scholarship have been published in both academic journals and in non-academic outlets. Her research explores identities in the reverb of dub aesthetics and the drum of word power.
