For the past thirteen years Nathaniel Coltrane has run Mimm (Music is my Motive) from the heart of Nottingham. Starting as a clothing shop, it has evolved into a community hub for the vast amount of creatives residing in the city. We spoke to Nate about his new project Our Yard: a detailed look into the history of sound system culture.
Despite being a staple of Hockley retailers, Mimm isn’t just a shop - throughout its many years Nate has also been heavily involved in event promotion, from large scale, all-day jazz events, to smaller intimate DJ sets. Weaving both of these together has culminated in a unique blend of music, fashion and art that is hard to find anywhere else in the city. Nate’s ethos is to help young people from all creative backgrounds, graphic designers to musicians, providing opportunities to build up their skills and confidence to help them use their talents to get real work.
Like many people, Nate spent the pandemic planning what to do after the lockdowns were eventually lifted. For him that was a rare period of self-reflection; not necessarily thinking about where to take Mimm, but how to use the skills he’s gained to explore his own heritage and musical journey - a journey which started in his own family. As a young child, his mum played him Bristol trip hop bands such as Massive Attack and Portishead, his dad was a huge jazz and Motown fan (so much so that his own middle name comes from legendary saxophonist John Coltrane) and his aunties would frequently attend reggae and lovers rock parties. His own personal tastes continued to develop with a notable moment being in the late nineties when his brother introduced him to garage, which then led him into discovering grime and dubstep.
Despite electronic music being a prevalent force in his formative years as a teenager, he never connected the dots between the different genres or thought about how intertwined they really were. Eventually his love for dubstep led him to look into the history of dub, along with artists such as Mad Professor - opening a new world and history he wasn’t previously aware of. Over time this curiosity has developed into Our Yard - a burning passion project that has had a substantial amount of planning and care put into it, even at these early stages.
Nate hopes that through the project he can introduce young people to the roots of music they love today (i.e. grime or jungle), and also to highlight how fundamental immigration was to sound systems and the culture around it - especially crucial now given how vitriolic the mainstream media circuit is to migration currently (and historically).
Our Yard provides a perfect opportunity to shine a positive light on immigration and counteract xenophobia. As a descendant of Windrush generation migrants, for Nate an important part of the project is exploring his own heritage and leaving a legacy for his children. “This heritage is British heritage now and it is open to everybody,” he tells me. Alongside being a personal project, he is glad to be able to highlight how fundamental immigration was to the foundation of sound system culture.
Still in production, Our Yard is setting up to be huge in scale: it begins in the early days of reggae and dub music in the sixties and seventies (which is the current focus of the project), going through decades in chronological order and eventually getting to modern day. Each period is mapped to a season which is planned out over the upcoming years. Not only is the content of the project colossal but so is the myriad of different forms the project is utilising: podcast interviews, radio sessions, live Q&As, clothing drops and live music are all part of the plan Nate has to bring this project to the people. Alongside that is the potential for a feature length documentary, which will be a collaboration between Nate and long time friend Curtis Powell (our featured contributor this month).
The first person to be interviewed for the project is Lloyd Coxsone: a Jamaican born sound system operator and record producer who has resided in the UK since the early sixties. Coxsone is one the oldest surviving people involved in early sound system culture and has provided a wealth of knowledge about both his own personal struggles finding work in a racist society and the musical developments in the late sixties.
After mentioning my own personal music background in punk music, which we agreed shares many similarities with rave culture, Nate spoke about another season one interviewee: Don Letts, who Nate claims is the “culture clash king”. A man who permeates through both punk and reggae cultures, creating a unique blend of the two with his shop Acme Attractions becoming a hotbed of interaction between these two subcultures. Both of these figures alongside other people such as: Lady V (V Rocket International), Mikey Dread (Channel One) and Dennis Bovell allow for real experiences to be shared to a wide audience of young people who might potentially be learning about this for the first time.
On top of these extensive interviews an upcoming part of the project is a street art mural which will be in Hyson Green, an area which has an extensive history of sound system culture: the old (now demolished) flat blocks of which frequently housed vibrant blues parties. The project is a collaboration between Nate and Philth, who both share the same heritage, and is part of New Art Exchange’s YOUnity program which celebrates Black History month and the 75th anniversary of the Windrush. The mural, and another art piece which will reside in the actual gallery, aim to pay homage to the impact these blues parties had on Nottingham: a city which still remains an incredibly diverse place for art, culture and music.
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