Carol Pemberton: "…here was a black British group, because we're all born here, but we have parents from the Caribbean. Most of us schooled here, so most of our training in music was very heavily classically biased and whether we liked it or not, whether we were trying to sing the Caribbean folk songs, or sing a traditional African number, there was a very distinct English quality about it. So, when we went to Africa for the first time, people loved Black Voices, but we thought they loved us because we were continuing that wonderful, rich oral tradition. But no, they we're saying, oh, it's quaint to hear that the Englishness, the Britishness on, you know, Nkosi, Nkosi Sikelel’ and we were like, oh, no, that's not what we, we want. But it taught me something very, you know, unpalatable at the time and that is, wherever you are, you do take on things from that host community and whether I like it or not, there is something very British about what Black Voices brings, in terms of what it calls black music. No matter where we go, people will say that ‘Oh, I just love your Englishness’ We’re thinking, Englishness, you know, because we don't consider ourselves English in that sense."

Carol Pemberton: "Our first trip to Africa took us to Ghana, and the Cameroon, which I think, was probably the most humbling experience, because I'm one of the lucky ones in the group whose family, I have a family who are very interested in where we've come from, and tracing that whole journey of where we might have come from within Africa. And so, we know we are descendants of slaves from the West Coast, Ghana specifically, in Africa. We know that our slave owners, settled in Scotland, in England, and that's where the name Pemberton comes from. And I think for the other women, just, you know, having an experience of going to Elmina Castle, the whole Cape Coast thing and going down in the dungeons where people were held before they were taken across the seas, very emotional, very heart-rending stuff to experience that on your first trip to Africa. Cameroon was a little easier, because it's French speaking, I think it's a little bit more removed from us, but wherever we've been in Africa, it's always been an emotional roller coaster. And I think it's just because the whole experience of presenting music is different in Africa, people get involved, they will come on stage, they will dance with you. Whereas here, you're used to singing to people, in Africa, you sing with people."

Dr. Kai Barratt: "Calypso came out of the West African tradition, right? It's a call and response technique. In the Caribbean context it was used by the slaves to voice their opinion, to carry messages, you know, to speak about the Masters in a language that the Masters would not understand, right? It eventually evolved into what we call today, Calypso. It is usually a social commentary on political issues, on international issues, issues of the day, about women, about Trinidadian life in general."

Dr. Kai Barratt: "In the late 1970s, the late Lord Shorty or Ras Shorty, as some people knew him, he came up with this new form where he merged the traditional Calypso with East Indian music, right, because in Trinidad there’s almost about fifty percent East Indians. And he came from an East Indian village, that influenced his music, and the music was a faster pace, a more upbeat, you know, type of music.  And what he felt was that during that period, Calypso was on a decline, so Calypso needed something new and he believed that this, this more up tempo music was the answer, right? But, the Calypsonians of the day, the established Calypsonians, particularly the Mighty Chalkdust, they did not approve of this music."

Dr. Kai Barratt: "Another person that criticise the Calypso was, was Sparrow, right? And then what we see, it slowly became accepted, with a lot of artists taking on the Soca because it's, it was more popular at the parties and the fetes during Carnival. It was more conducive to dancing. And also it was conducive for tourists, they like it, they liked the Soca music. So, we see even Sparrow eventually jumped on the Soca bandwagon. So, in the 80s, we start seeing the beginning with Chris ‘Tambu’ Herbert, we see Sparrow and Calypso Rose. And today there are various forms of the Soca, you have Ragga Soca, you have Chutney Soca. There's a new one called Groovy Soca, which I think is like a R&B mix with the, so it's more slow, but not in the commentary, it’s a slower dance version. But today, I think that in the American hip hop, the Jamaican dancehall is more influenced in the Soca music, and the Soca music is becoming you know, very commercial."

Wayne ‘Poonka’ Willock: "Tuk music is indeed, a very Barbadian thing. We will admit that in other parts of the Caribbean, there are similar entities, string bands, street bands, Salsa [yea?], different names in different countries, and they play different rhythms. The unique aspect of Tuk band in Barbados, is the phrase structure of the rhythm, because it's not heard any other part of the Caribbean. There may be similar things going on, but the rhythm that we play is not played anywhere else. Likewise, if you go to, to say Grenada, or St. Kitts and Nevis, you hear their bands playing, they will not play what we are playing. They have, each island to me has a fairly unique representation of the mixture of African and military rhythms, because in, right throughout the Caribbean, where the military was involved before, and the slaves did not have access to their traditional djembes and the African drums, they had to find other ways of being able to reproduce their African feeling and experience amidst the European stuff.  So, in most of the countries, you have that mixture, you have the Tassa in Trinidad, and you have, even in St. Thomas, I saw in the Virgin Islands, a similar group of persons playing with a bass and a kettle, they hold the kettle differently. They play the bass differently, different types of rhythm, but those entities exist."

Wayne ‘Poonka’ Willock: "Even the characters that come along with the Tuk band are remnants of our African heritage. They are seen through the Caribbean, the Moko Jumbie, the Mama Sally, the Mother Sally, whatever you want to call her. The Shaggy Bear, the Witch Doctor character, the Steel Donkey, all these are things you hear about most of the Caribbean territories with different representations, but they all come from similar origins."  

Marjorie Whylie: "...most people think the Zion revival would have developed in 1860, and then they refer to ‘61 order as what is called poca, pocumina. Pocomania it used to be called because the British thought it looked like a little madness, and so on. So, it’s as I said, a vibrant, vital culture, and as with all cultural forms they’re constantly changing to suit the needs of the people. To suit their particular perceptions, and their level of development at a particular time." 

Marjorie Whylie: "….of course we are passing traditions that did not exist in one parish, across borders to another parish. So, naturally without the underlying supporting tradition, you will find that various movement patterns will change, emphases and impulses will change. So, you will have class one children who are 6 and under presenting the same forms as the adults presents, but naturally the bodies are accustomed and exposed to modern movement patterns. So, sometimes with the best will in the world, we see the changes taking place at that level, but there is a constant effort to maintain authenticity, while not stamping out creativity."

Neville Staples: "I've been into like The Specials from I was 17 and I got involved with them because I used to, again, I used to be at the youth club with our sound system and a couple of white guys and black guys used to be rehearsing in next door. But they were playing Reggae, but it’s kind of off Reggae like it wasn't like what would I call, black people Reggae. And it just sounded like a bit watered down Reggae and it sounded alright. So, I went to the next room with and asked them if I could just sit in and listen to them. Then from there, it led up to where I said to them ‘Can I come on the road with you? You know to help you with your equipment? Blah, blah, blah'. So really, I started as a roadie. Coventry Automatics, that’s what The Specials was named before. We had several name changes as well, and there's two black guys in the band at the time. But I guess we, being into Reggae, Blue beat, Ska and stuff, we were like the Reggae influence and then the white guys, Jerry, Terry, although they used to listen to a lot of Reggae as well, but it was that Punk era, the Punk music came from them and we just kind of blended it in."

Roddy ‘Radiation’ Byers: "Well, Hillfields was the sort of West Indian sort of area I suppose, at that time. But, all over really ‘cause Lynval Golding, our rhythm guitarist lived near the keyboard player in Radford, and Neville Staples, the black vocalist lived in Spon End, but it wasn't all totally sort of like one area, but that did seem to be the area where there was blues parties and stuff you know, more. I lived round there in Hillfields for about four years about that time. So, it'd be a case of sort of like, we all mixed a lot more, you know, it was Rastas and punk rockers at the same sort of blues parties, house parties and stuff you know."

Owen Wint: "A group of us used to go up a, a youth club called the Holyhead Youth Centre. And it was full of young black kids, couple of white kids there used to go there and started breakdancing from then. That's how we all formed, there's about four or five of us what started to get a group together and we wanted to breakdance So, from there that's how we formed Future Shock. The music what got us involved, it all started off from Afrika Bambaataa really. Zulu Nation, Zulu warriors, all that was the form of breakdance. And what started us off was like, we saw this group called The Rock Steady Crew, really on TV, and they first come over and they were doing breakdancing on telly. And it was just, it was on BBC Two, wasn't even on the main channel, it was on BBC Two. From then, we thought ‘Oh, okay, this is great, we must get into this.’ So, we started breakdancing, well trying to breakdance should we say. The music was so, inspirational, it was summat we never heard before. It was like original, scratching, we didn't know what scratching was, we just seen these people, Americans obviously, scratching on the turntable, So, we were just all down with this. So, we used to record it all, play it back, cause we didn't have the music actually at that time. So, we used to playback the music, record it and dance to it. That’s how we started breakdancing."