Paul Nataraj // Dub in A Tea Cup

Dub in A Tea Cup is a response to two essays by Henriques and Hall and my research work for the project ‘Migrant Memory and the Postcolonial Imagination’ which investigates memories of partition and migration in the UKs South Asia diaspora. In these interviews there is a common thread which supports the idea, posited in both essays, that the migrant experience creates a doubling of identity, in-between-ness, a positive complex cultural instability, a ‘where do I fit in?’ This piece uses reggae intros, recorded from my record collection, together with personal reflections on the migrant experience. These two elements combine through the transformative space of the echo, and are never allowed to settle. Hall writes, ‘I am the sugar at the bottom of the English cup of tea’, to get the full flavour you have to stir that sweetness in. - Paul Nataraj