The Black British English Podcast

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A podcast by your favourite Creole Polyglot Ife Thompson talking all things Black British English, Language justice & joy and Black Language practices.

  1. 10 juin

    A Yoruba Museum Without Yoruba: Language, Erasure & My Trip to Lagos 🇳🇬🖼️

    In this episode, I reflect on my recent trip to Lagos and my visit to the John Randle Yoruba Museum, a space dedicated to Yoruba history and heritage, yet one that left me with a pressing linguistic question: Where is the Yoruba language? As a Lawyer who loves African languages , I went in expecting to see Yoruba not only represented culturally and spiritually, but also recognised as a living, complex linguistic system, one that carries history, identity, memory, and its global influence, including its role in shaping Afro-Creole languages across the Caribbean and Latin America. Instead, I was struck by what felt like a quiet absence. From the tonal richness of Yoruba, to its deep connection with musical speech and the Dùndún (talking drum) where language is encoded into sound and rhythm and the linguistic dimension of Yoruba felt under-centred in the storytelling of the museum. I also reflect on another moment that stayed with me: the framing of Nigerian Pidgin as “broken English.” For many speakers and linguists, this raises deeper questions about how language is classified, valued, and represented in institutional spaces. This episode is not just about critique but it’s also about asking broader questions: How do we curate African heritage without excluding African languages? And what gets lost when language is treated as secondary to culture? Join me as I unpack language, representation, and what I noticed in Lagos.

  2. 24 mai

    Silencing Patwa? My Thoughts on Jamaica’s Parliament Language Ban 🇯🇲

    In this episode, I share my honest thoughts on the controversy surrounding Jamaican Patwa being restricted in Jamaica’s Parliament. From culture and identity to classism, colonial influence, and accessibility. This isn’t just about language preference, it raises deeper questions about power, identity, class, and whose voice is considered “legitimate” in formal spaces.

  3. 3 mai

    Africa Stayed Multilingual… The Diaspora Needs to Catch Up

    In this episode, we’re talking about the power of language and why Black people across the diaspora should embrace becoming more multilingual. Across Africa, it’s normal for many people to speak 3, 4, 5 languages and some even 9 or more. That ability creates connection, opportunity, cultural pride, and unity. Meanwhile, many of us in the diaspora were disconnected from our ancestral languages through history. But now it’s time to rebuild. Imagine Black people worldwide connecting through Yoruba, Igbo, Swahili, Haitian Creole, Patois, St Lucian Creole and more. Language is power. Language is culture. Language is identity. The more languages we learn, the more doors we open together and the closer we become globally. Start learning today: Learn St Lucian Creole online free: https://www.twossaints.com/ Learn Yoruba and Igbo: https://lingawa.com/ #BlackDiaspora #AfricanLanguages #Multilingual #Yoruba #Igbo #Creole #PanAfrican #BlackUnity

  4. 26 avr.

    Babylon Can’t Name Wi - why all Black Languages are Creoles 🇯🇲🇳🇬🇱🇷🇧🇧🇬🇭

    This podcast episode is rooted in a Pan African understanding that language lives through people, memory, and relationship rather than through external classification. It moves away from the idea that speech must be measured, ranked, or validated by inherited Western frameworks. The word creole and similar labels are examined not as neutral descriptions but as products of particular histories that do not hold authority over how African and diasporic communities understand themselves. Across the African world and its many diasporas, ways of speaking carry philosophy, rhythm, ancestral knowledge, and community logic. These are not fragments of another language nor deviations from a standard. They are complete systems shaped by movement, survival, creativity, and continuity. This podcast centers those realities by listening to how people name their own speech and how meaning is created in lived context.

  5. 19 mars

    A Black Man was Recalled to a UK Prison for saying “My Nigga” ! Linguistic Injustice ⚖️🇬🇧 (PART 1)

    In this powerful and timely episode, I take you inside one of the many legal cases I have acted on where Black languages practices have been criminalised. In this case a Black man was recalled to prison simply for saying “my nigga” to a Black police officer while on licence. What followed was a wrongful prosecution rooted not in a fundamental misunderstanding of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Black British English (BBE). Drawing on my own experience as the lawyer who acted in this case, we unpack how linguistic context, cultural expression, and systemic bias collided with UK law and how the Crown ultimately offered no evidence and dropped the prosecution. We explore what this case reveals about freedom of expression, racialised policing, and the legal system’s struggle (or failure) to grapple with language diversity. Expect candid discussion about how everyday speech can be criminalised, why this matters far beyond one individual, and what this means for language justice and racial equity in the law. 📍 Read more about the case here: https://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/uk-news/2026/02/03/black-man-has-criminal-prosecution-dropped-after-he-called-black-police-officer-my-n-word/

  6. 18 janv.

    Why Gatekeeping the AAVE Term “Fed” Is Counter-Revolutionary

    In this episode, we unpack why gatekeeping the AAVE term “fed” when used between Black people across the diaspora is not revolutionary, but counter-revolutionary. For many Black people outside the United States, Black Americanness is often the most visible, and sometimes the only, representation of Blackness we encounter on television, in music, and across global media. That visibility has shaped shared political language, cultural reference points, and ways of understanding power, surveillance, and state violence. The term “fed” emerges from those realities which are not uniquely American, but deeply familiar to Black communities in the UK and beyond. This episode argues that being on code should never mean excluding other Black people from language born of collective struggle. The conditions that produced these terms like over-policing, monitoring, infiltration, and criminalisation are experienced across borders. When we fragment our language along national lines, we weaken our ability to recognise threats, build trust, and organise effectively. Liberation requires a shared political language. Not one that erases local specificity, but one that allows Black people globally to communicate risk, strategy, and solidarity with clarity. Rather than gatekeeping each other, the revolutionary work is building diasporic fluency and learning together, correcting with care, and moving with collective intention. Our freedom depends on shared understanding. And shared understanding begins with shared language.

  7. 14/12/2025

    🎙️ Clock It 🤏🏾🤏🏾🤏🏾: Black/Ballroom Expression in Sign Language 🖐🏾

    From ballroom culture to Yoruba sign language, Black expression is all about movement, rhythm, and style. In this episode, we explore how Clock It and finger-tapping gestures from ballroom culture have influenced Black sign language, and how Black people naturally use gestures to communicate every day. We dive into the history, the cultural connections, and the creativity behind these movements, showing that Black communication is as expressive as it is powerful. Get ready to see how hands, rhythm, and culture come together in ways you’ve never noticed before.

  8. 02/12/2025

    Code-Switching Is Political

    Code-switching isn’t just a habit; it’s a response to racial power. In this episode, we call out the denial of the “white voice,” explore how Black folks are pushed to alter their language for safety and survival, and argue that fighting for linguistic freedom is fighting for liberation itself. . This episode argues that language is not neutral—it’s a battleground. And choosing to speak in your own voice is a revolutionary stance.

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A podcast by your favourite Creole Polyglot Ife Thompson talking all things Black British English, Language justice & joy and Black Language practices.

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