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Being Poor is Expensive
The Sacred Cyphers UK Conference at the Roundhouse (4–5 October, 2025) brought together scholars, artists, educators and community practitioners for two days of rigorous and creative engagement with the cultural, social and spiritual themes emerging from Bashy’s Being Poor Is Expensive and How Black Men Lose Their Smile. The conference demonstrated how music, theology, social analysis and performance can converge to produce a rich interdisciplinary conversation about Black life in Britain.
The first day, held online, established the intellectual frame for the gathering. In their keynote, Monique Charles and James F. Broad opened the conference by situating Bashy’s work within wider debates on Black cultural production, political critique and community formation. Panels that followed explored the album through multiple analytical lenses. Papers by Shardia Briscoe-Palmer and Susuana Gyampoh Senghor examined the political significance of Black cultural figures and the implications of Bashy’s work for social work practice. Later sessions addressed questions of Black masculinity, cultural memory and the economic realities shaping Black British lives, with contributions from William Ackah, Mary Francis, and Kieron Blake. The day concluded by turning to questions of faith and spirituality, highlighting how Bashy’s narratives intersect with theological reflection and Islamic perspectives on Black consciousness.
Sunday’s in-person gathering at the Roundhouse expanded the conversation into a vibrant public forum. Alongside academic papers on education, theology, place and feminist responses, the programme integrated spoken word, theatre and film. Performances by artists including Nicole Campbell, Fuad, and Trybe House Theatre transformed scholarly reflection into embodied expression, while screenings and creative responses illustrated the wider cultural impact of Bashy’s work.
Across both days, a central theme emerged: the systematic pressures facing Black communities in Britain are not only economic or political but also cultural and spiritual. By bringing scholarship into dialogue with performance and pedagogy, the Sacred Cyphers conference modelled a dynamic approach to knowledge production—one rooted in community, creativity and critical reflection.
