Labour

Piece title: Labour
Artist: CAPSICUM
Album title: Capsicum: music against racism
Label: Marginal Frequency
Video directors: Aurora Foulds, David Vélez
2025
Audio mastering: Alan Jones

In this audiovisual piece, Supriya Nagarajan, the singer, wanders in an English forest and the alley behind a factory, portraying the many immigrants that had to move out of their countries experiencing uprooting, nostalgia and in many cases racism and xenophobia.

Location: Slaithwaite, England

Capsicum are:

David Vélez: composition, concept, research
Supriya Nagarajan: voice
Keeisa Sappho: piano, objects
Cyanching Wu; cello
Colin Frank: percussion
Sandra Allen; cooking
Ruchi Singh: cooking

Capsicum is an album created by a collective of immigrant artists and cooks living in the UK, led by David Vélez. Through a combination of food sounds and musical performances, the album honors the resilience of diasporic communities as they challenge racism, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination. The musicality of food sounds underscores the political significance of food for immigrant communities in the UK—the subject of research of this project.

Since the 1950s, Asian and Caribbean immigrants in Britain have faced violent discrimination, often targeting the rich, aromatic presence of their food. Acts of vandalism against restaurants and home kitchens by white individuals have been documented, alongside persistent discrimination from landlords contra diaspora tenants. In some cases, these immigrants have replied to prejudice and hostility by sharing their cuisine as a peaceful yet powerful response, evidencing the political prowess of food, capable of disarm the intimidator without the use of violence.
Paradoxically, as Asian and Caribbean dishes gained popularity, British politicians have attempted to claim intellectual authorship over some of them, exemplifying how colonialism undermines the cultural heritage of colonised communities to strip them of autonomy.