Union Black explores how Black British music cultures — in particular underground rap as a form of alternative Black music — function as a site of identity formation, cultural memory, and community-building within contemporary Britain. Through the production of three music videos incorporating documentary elements, the project investigates how sonic and visual practices articulate lived experiences shaped by race, diaspora, gender, and structural inequality.
The project is structured as a trilogy, with each chapter focusing on a different artist and a distinct aesthetic approach. The first adopts a documentary-driven mode, using intimate cinematography, interviews, and observational footage to establish an artist's perspective. The second shifts towards a more stylised music video format, with choreographed performance and controlled lighting. The third introduces visual and narrative disruption — fragmented structures and layered sound design — challenging cultural norms both from traditional West African frameworks and ideas of Blackness within a predominantly white British society.
Filmed on Blackmagic digital cinema cameras and edited in Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Audition, the work draws on Paul Gilroy's concept of the Black Atlantic and Kodwo Eshun's understanding of Black music as a form of speculative and sonic futurism.