Belfast is bursting with sound. Independent, original popular music creativity is audible everywhere: in its pubs and arts venues, open-air stages and repurposed buildings, bookshops and cafés. From new-folk to queer punk, and from afrobeat to experimental electronica, emerging musicians tell stories about Northern Ireland, their place in it, and the myriad routes that brought them here. And yet, this burgeoning creativity is doubly ignored. Academic research in Northern Ireland has disproportionately focused on performances of sectarian division, while the State disregards artists, Northern Ireland having the lowest investment in culture across the UK and Ireland. Reflecting on early findings from ongoing research within contemporary popular music scenes in Belfast, this seminar presentation will discuss how emerging artists use their voices to challenge mainstream understandings of local community, identity, and politics. Focusing primarily on musicians from minority ethnic backgrounds, as well as queer pop and rock artists, the paper will discuss some preliminary reflections on how musicians articulate alternatives against regional political conservatism, often referred to locally as a ‘land of dinosaurs’.

Ioannis Tsioulakis is Reader in Anthropology and Ethnomusicology at Queen’s University, Belfast. His research has focused on music labour and cultural politics in Greece. His monograph Musicians in Crisis: Working and Playing in the Greek Popular Music Industry was published by Routledge in 2020. More recently, Ioannis has been researching independent popular music and post-conflict politics in Northern Ireland. He is also an active music performer, ensemble instructor and arranger.