Soundsystem culture reshapes abandoned spaces.

Through interviews with Soundsystem innovators and DJs, London Weekend Television's multicultural series Skin shows the transformation of culture and how Caribbean people, specifically Jamaicans, initiated and brought Soundsystem culture to a new environment. Later, the programme reflects on the hostility and over-policing these new cultural spaces had to contend with. Skin tracks these rapidly progressing club closures of Black clubs and environments that cater to Black audiences.

Soundsystem operators like Count Suckle (Wilbert Augustus Campbell) were vital in establishing Jamaican music in Britain. It was the soundsystems that first imported music by Millie Small, followed by Desmond Dekker and Bob Marley. The importation of this culture shaped Black British culture and broader tastes in Britain. Suckle's residency throughout the 1960s at the Roaring Twenties club in Carnaby Street exposed audiences to previously unheard reggae and ska. The nightclub innovators eventually became owners, as Suckle's Q club opened in Paddington, attracting soul musicians like Tina Turner and Marvin Gaye until its eventual closure and his retirement in 1986.

"There are a dozen or so clubs dotted around Inner London which, as entertainment centres, specifically attract blacks. Yet one by one, these clubs are having their licences curtailed or are being closed down. SKIN investigates whether the police and authorities are clamping down unfairly.
The resulting recent increase of illegal "blues" parties is also examined, and the history of the music West Indians have brought to this country is analysed"

TV Times