Black people have had a lasting impact on the innovations and cultural memory of alternative (alt) rock music, a Cardiff University academic says.
In her new and free zine, Black Life in / and "Alt" Music Subcultures , Dr Francesca Sobande collaborates with the Museum of Youth Culture to examine the recent history, naming, and perceptions of genres and sub-genres, such as hardcore punk, alt rhythm and blues (R&B) and baddiecore music, in both the UK and US. She also considers the foundations of other types of music, including rap and yacht rock.
The zine reflects on rock's roots in R&B and the wider work of Black artists and musicians, while tackling how societal ideas about who and what alt rock is are affected by racism, sexism, and other oppressions. Examples include post-hardcore and metalcore music that heavily draws on call and response – a tradition that originates in much Black music and invokes a spiritual sense of communality, as well as the distinct role of vocalists in alt rock who harmonically hark back to Motown.
Dr Sobande, based at the University's School of Journalism, Media and Culture, said: "Black life and creativity have always been crucial to alternative rock music and the examples highlighted in this zine demonstrate that. Previously, I researched the digital lives of Black women in Britain. This included reflections on the relationship between music, media, the internet, and nostalgia. While thinking about my online experiences as a teenager, I wrote about mining Xanga for the latest 'noughties' emo and post-hardcore music demos, in-between wistfully browsing Fueled by Ramen band merchandise when Fall Out Boy had just started to grace the cover of Kerrang! magazine. Those memories mirror my longstanding interest in digital and pop culture portrayals of alternative (or alt) rock."
Building on that, this ongoing research project is centred on the recollections and representation of Black people on music genres such as emo, hardcore punk, nu metal, post-hardcore, and screamo.
Informed by Black musicians, artists, and writers whose work has highlighted dynamics between Black culture and alt music, this project has discussed the overlaps and origins of various sub-genres. The research, which incorporates photography, also addressed different ideas of what archives are and can be, while detailing different concepts of "cringe" and "cool" that circulate in music and online cultures.
Additionally, such research is informed by a visit to the DC Punk Archive in 2025, where Dr Sobande learned more about the history of DC hardcore. Insights from those archived collections shaped a "Letters to America" piece, " She Burns: The Heat of Black Women in Blues and Punk ", for the non-profit organisation Shuddhashar FreeVoice. A forthcoming essay in Folding Rock magazine will spotlight the related topic of emotions, solidarities, and hardcore punk.
Discussing the relationship between music, inequalities, and power struggles, Dr Sobande said: "There's a long history of sub-genres emerging and being re-named, so it's no surprise that new music categories keep appearing. Beneath the surface of constructed and contested sub-genre terms lie knotted class, gender, racial, and sexual politics which affect the experiences of Black people in alt music."
This project was supported by an AHRC IAA KEPSS grant from UKRI, through Cardiff University. Illustrated by Chris Lau Manson , the zine emphasises the significant ways that Black culture connects to alt music, including its emotional expressiveness and many different aesthetics associated with it.
