“Wi Likkle, But Wi Tallawah”: Northampton Town Blacktivism and Matta Fancanta Black Caribbean Youth

“Wi Likkle, But Wi Tallawah”: Northampton Town Blacktivism and Matta Fancanta Black Caribbean Youth, 1970-85

20 February 2024

Speaker: Tré Ventour-Griffiths (Kingston University)

This talk ‘Wi Likkle But Wi Tallawah’ – small but sturdy – positions Northampton(shire) as a point of Black consciousness in the town and in the rural, centring the experiences of Black Caribbean youth by birth and descent. First coined in the 1970s, the term Matta Fancanta means “come guard yourself against self-destruction”. Known locally as MFM or Movement, Matta Fancanta defined a generation including through roots reggae, sports teams and professional development. The story of MFM is important as it inspired youth movements in other areas including Leicester, Derby, Manchester and London. This is one story of a wider post-war history of Caribbean Northamptonshire - a history based on 100+ oral history testimonies and limited secondary sources, including local news media, collated as part of a PhD project entitled ‘Northampton(shire) is the Place for Me: Creative Responses to Provincial England's Caribbean Diaspora, 1948-1985’(Opens in new window). This body of research will produce a piece of creative nonfiction about Caribbean communities in my home county, Northamptonshire, where my great-grandparents first arrived in Northampton Town (specifically) in 1962 from the parish of St John, Grenada. Focusing on the experiences of the young people whose parents settled in Northampton from Grenada, Saint Kitts and Jamaica, this talk will highlight the solidarity networks, communal spaces and organised resistance young Black people in Northampton(shire) built in their fight against the discrimination they faced from employers, the police and society at large.

In the talk it is mentioned that Trevor Hall/Ras Jabulani bought out Count Shelly Sound from his uncle Count Shelly. However, it was not only him, but came as a joint effort between Trevor, Dukku and Eddie White.