Pan-African Resonance: Music, Migration, and Everyday Practice in London and Accra by Dr Alison Okuda brings new light to the role of music, community and pan-Africanism in African and Caribbean decolonization. Published in August 2026, the book examines how Caribbean and African musicians, students and professionals came together during the Windrush and Black British generations in London’s public and private music spaces, and how their socializing led to new music and organizations in postcolonial Ghana. It shows that pan-Africanism was experienced at many levels, from politicians and elites to educated and working-class individuals. The consistent presence and hybridity of calypso, highlife, reggae and other genres provided people with an everyday soundtrack of pan-African unity in both London and Accra.  

Dr Alison Okuda says of the George Padmore Institute (GPI):‍

Pan-African Resonance benefited from several collections at the GPI, including the ephemeral materials collected by John La Rose and the Caribbean Artists Movement files, journals and magazines. John La Rose was meticulous in his archiving of materials on many parts of the world, even saving just one issue of a newsletter or magazine. He may not have guessed that a historian from the US would use his ephemera for a book on pan-African music and migration, but his extensive collections hold many unique items about the larger Black experience. Anne Walmsely’s research for her book The Caribbean Artists Movement 1966-1972: A Literary and Cultural History was extensive and gave me insight into the work the organization did but also its lasting significance to its many members who she interviewed decades later.

Even beyond the collections I consulted for this book, I appreciated the close community engendered by the care of the La Rose family. Attending a holiday party in the close confines of New Beacon Books downstairs or a poetry reading in a local theatre gave me chances to meet trustees as well as Caribbean and African people who cared about the GPI and came out to support it as often as possible. I was able to interview several people who I met at various GPI-sponsored events, including Yvonne Brewster, Horace Ové, Akua Rugg and others.

The GPI is more than a unique community archive and educational organization — it is a welcoming home for immigrants, activists, poets and researchers. I spent countless hours in the reading room, but one day Sarah White invited me up to the attic to view a box of materials related to a film project that John and Horace Ové had worked on but never completed. Oftentimes, Archivist Sarah Garrod invited me to eat lunch with her and volunteers in the back office, and eventually she trusted me to help catalogue materials after I asked how else I could support the GPI. Trustee Sharmilla Beezmohun and I became quick friends and through her work across different sectors I’ve learned much more about contemporary Caribbean literature.

How to Purchase

Pan-African Resonance: Music, Migration, and Everyday Practice in London and Accra iby Dr Alison Okuda is available to purchase here. Use the discount code PAR30 for 30% off paperback and hard cover copies. Valid until 31 December 2026.

The Caribbean Artists Movement 1966-1972: A Literary and Cultural History by Anne Walmsley is available to purchase here.

Alison Okuda is an associate professor of history at Worcester State University, USA. She has published in Ghana Studies, African and Black Diaspora, and the African Studies Review, where her article ‘Black Power, Raw Soul, and Race in Ghana’ won the Outstanding Article Prize from the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora. Please contact the author at aokuda@worcester.edu with any requests.

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