Paul Gilroy joins Marcus Miller for a conversation about sound, memory, and Black musical traditions. They explore the cultural resonance of bass frequencies and the sonic landscape of Bass.

Paul Gilroy—one of the most influential voices in postcolonial studies and a contributor to the publication Steve McQueen: Bass (2024)—joins world-renowned jazz bassist Marcus Miller, a key collaborator on the score for Bass (2024), for a conversation about sound, memory, and Black musical traditions. Together, they explore the cultural resonance of bass frequencies within Black music and the distinct sonic landscape of Bass. The work’s score emerged from an improvisational session led by Miller as bassist and bandleader, bringing together an intergenerational ensemble of musicians from across the Black diaspora under the direction of Steve McQueen: Meshell Ndegeocello, Aston Barrett Jr., Mamadou Kouyaté, and Laura-Simone Martin. McQueen’s decision to convene five musicians from diverse musical lineages speaks to the essence of bass music itself: a shared history, a tradition of expression that reaches where language cannot. Gilroy and Miller’s conversation moves across themes of collaboration, diasporic memory, and the emotional and political power of the bass. They reflect on how music gives shape to histories of displacement and longing, forging connections between personal memory, collective resonance, and sonic experimentation, guided by the question what it means to feel the bass.

The conversation is held in English.

Paul Gilroy is one of the foremost theorists of race and racism working and teaching in the world today. Working across disciplines, including British and American literature, African American studies, Black British studies, transatlantic history, and critical race theory.

Marcus Miller ist mehrfacher Grammy-Preisträger, Künstler, Produzent und Komponist, dessen bahnbrechendes musikalisches Werk sich über mehrere Jahrzehnte erstreckt.