Basslines over goalposts, cricket club bhangra nights: the gatherings where British diaspora music really grows

<p>Away from the algorithm, the sound of multicultural Britain blossoms in sports halls and group chats, supporting community and inspiring the next generation of musicians</p><p>I don’t learn about music from record shops or curated playlists. I discover it on muddy football pitches in east London, with the smell of chips drifting from the van at half-time; in rented cricket halls in Bradford where there is always a giant urn of tea bubbling in the corner. The sounds that have shaped me as a Black British person aren’t designed by algorithms or commissioned by labels. They come from battered speakers balanced on trestle tables, bhangra basslines rattling the walls of community centres in Southall and WhatsApp threads buzzing long after everyone has gone home.</p><p>I remember attending a Somali football league in east London where the match ended but no one left. The players, still in muddy boots, piled into the clubhouse to eat rice from foil trays while a DJ wired up his decks at the side of the pitch. The final whistle had barely faded before Sneakbo’s The Wave ripped across the park, the chorus bouncing off the goalposts like an anthem and propelling players and families to move. A few weeks later, in Bradford, I was in a cricket club that had become a bhangra night. Aunties juggled trays of samosas and paper cups of tea as the floor shook to the pounding rhythm of British-Asian bhangra pioneers <a href="https://www.facebook.com/p/ALAAP-THE-BHANGRA-LEGENDS-100063484276017/?locale=en_GB">Alaap</a>’s take on traditional Heer Ranjha, a song older than most of the crowd but carried with fresh force through second and third-generations. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was unforgettable. And here, too, the loop revealed itself. Sport gathered the people, music deepened the connection, and that connection made space for the next track, the next party, the next young talent.</p> <a href="https://www.theguard