DJ ‘Big Joe’ Jose DaMoura on DJing the Black Atlantic
Written by Ruby Erickson // Inspired in conversation with Cândida Rose Baptista and Jose DaMoura
An initial version of this episode, its transcript, and its show notes was published online in 2024, courtesy of ORKKA International.
Abstract.
In 1993, Paul Gilroy published The Black Atlantic, a landmark work which theorized Blackness as the product of an Atlantic interculture (Roach 1996) between Africa, Europe, and the Americas forged by “routes” of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Musics made in this “Black Atlantic” tradition, Gilroy argued, gain their unique character from ongoing exchanges across this African diaspora interculture. Gilroy’s insights into Black Atlantic musical creativity have since blossomed into a conversation about how Black diaspora subjects have used sound technology to connect and innovate across time and space. Drawing on work that demonstrates how Blackness and sound are often ignored in the design of the digital, I argue that the intermediary sound technologies and interlocutory social dynamics involved in collaborative podcasting offer an opportunity to theorize “Sonic Afro-Modernity” (Weheliye 2005) anew. Co-hosted by myself and a community scholar and leader, the 45-minute podcast episode, “Sonic Intercultures, Turntable Interfaces,” delves into the Black Atlantic sound technologies of the New England Cabo Verdean diaspora by engaging with the practical expertise of Jose “Big Joe” DaMoura, a retired radio show host and DJ. The lively, accessible audio recording is supplemented with a downloadable transcript and citation-rich show notes. Over the course of the episode, we explore Black diaspora uses of sound technology in a nonlinear fashion : we debate the role of radio DJs as cultural and sonic intermediaries, explore how Cabo Verde’s musical variety reflects its intercultural Black Atlantic position, and discuss how DaMoura has revised his turntable interfaces over the years. I contend that, through use of a digital, sonic medium and the collaborative mode, our podcast episode – “Sonic Intercultures” – places music practitioners, community leaders, and theorists on even epistemic ground. By way of a methodological intervention in normative ethnographic practices, I propose that those intermediary conversations which often inform single-authored music scholarship balance academic rigor with public reach.
Episode Description.
In this episode, Cândida and Ruby interview Joe DaMoura, also known as DJ Big Joe, who has worn many hats in the Cabo Verdean / American community: host of the radio show Cape Verdean Afro Beat, live DJ, President of the Cape Verdean Museum, and documentary filmmaker. Topics of interest include: how the Black Atlantic history of Cabo Verdean music can help us make sense of newer genres like cabo-zouk, Kriolu rap, and Cabo Verdean reggae; whether or not DJing can be considered “live music;” and the technological modifications that Joe has made to his turntables, from cassette to computer. The conversation digresses into such topics as: what it’s like to DJ for teenagers at age 50; Big Joe’s ideal playlist; and radio listeners dancing in their living rooms.