Sonita Alleyne

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

My castaway this week is Sunita Elaine. She made history recently when she became the 41st Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, an institution dating back to the 15th century. She's the first woman to hold the post and, more significantly, the first black master of any Oxbridge college. She is however used to making change. She was the CEO and co-founder of the media production house Something Else, a company at the forefront of the digital revolution in broadcasting. She's a former board member of the BBC Trust, the London Legacy Development Corporation and the Radio Academy. Her media career grew out of a lifelong love of music, especially jazz, and her desire to find out what happens when you improvise isn't confined to her record collection. She says, I was always trying to make something happen for myself rather than waiting for someone to give me permission. You can't wait for people to notice you. You have to have agency. Sunita Elaine, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Sonita Alleyne1:39

Oh, thank you. Thank you very much for having me. Being here is harder than childbirth. Having to kind of pick your music for your life, it's really hard.

Presenter1:47

Well, just keep breathing. We'll get through it. It's going to be okay. So, let's start then with the importance of that idea of agency. What is it? What does it mean to you, and why does it matter?

Sonita Alleyne1:48

Well, that's true.

Sonita Alleyne1:56

Agency represents a lot of things. It represents that moment when you realize that your life is in your hands. It's the moment when you can look around you and you can see all the things that stack up against you and you still think your life is in your hands. It's about taking knocks and just thinking, okay, I've got a problem, how am I going to get around this one? It's so visceral, it's so embedded in us as human beings, I think, agency.

Presenter2:23

And was there a moment that it arrived for you?

Sonita Alleyne2:25

I think I've always had that kind of push, which has always been there through my childhood. I've been the kind of stalwart kind of standing there. Some would say a little bit stubbornly, but you know, just standing there going, right, I'm leaning in, I'm going for it. I think the moment for me was actually when I'd gone to Cambridge, I went there to do computer science. It was in the days when you couldn't do computer science for three years because it wasn't deemed to be something that you would study for three years. And I went there because I was really interested in artificial intelligence and very interested in philosophy. And I did philosophy for the first year. And when I got to the summer, I rang my parents and said, I'm going to stick with philosophy. I'm not going to do artificial intelligence. And it was one of those moments when you're imagining you're jetting off to MIT and that door is closing and you're opening a door where you don't know what's going to happen. That was quite exciting.

Presenter3:15

We'll come back to that. Your appointment at Cambridge made headlines. Why did you want

Sonita Alleyne3:19

The job. I wanted the job because I enjoyed my time at Cambridge, but it wasn't one of those jobs where you I went for it thinking I'm gonna make headlines doing this because that's not what life is about. You go for jobs looking at very, very practical issues like what's the community like that I'm going to be joining? Is it somewhere where you want your family to be for ten years? Is it a good adventure? And it's not about the buildings. Cambridge is very beautiful, but you don't talk to a fifteenth century wall, you don't do that, you talk to the family.

Presenter3:51

Person who works there. It's time to go to the music. It's been a tough task for you to choose your eight discs today, I know. Tell us about your first. What are we going to hear? And why has this made the cut?

Sonita Alleyne4:01

Well, this is Gary Bart's and the NTU troop I've Known Rivers. It's based on a poem by Langston Hughes. This is Made the Cut because it's a fundamental piece of music for me. I love jazz. Jazz has been a constant throughout my life. And this is about journeys that connect people. We all have them. We all take them. And for me, the notion of knowing rivers, rivers which kind of flow through the world that are really connected and that take you places. I think that's really, really excellent. And it's quite a melodic piece of music. I don't mind discordant though, because I think that sometimes in life's journeys you need a little bit of rapids, a little bit of unsettling. Too much smooth is not a good thing. So a little bit of rapids in your rivers and your journeys through life I think is very very important. And this for me is all about connection. Let's get in the canoe.

Speaker 24:50

Rivers I have seen

Speaker 24:52

And rivers I have known.

Speaker 24:55

Egypt and the World.

Speaker 24:57

And older than the blood I've known remember.

Speaker 25:02

I've known it before.

Sonita Alleyne5:05

All through Africa and North America

Sonita Alleyne5:11

South America and Australia.

Sonita Alleyne5:15

I've known them by.

Sonita Alleyne5:17

I've no river.

Sonita Alleyne5:20

I've known rivers in the north and the south. I've known rivers in the east and the west. I've known rivers all over the

Speaker 25:28

It's worth it.

Sonita Alleyne5:28

Uh

Speaker 25:28

Yeah. I've sailed some and seen the rest I've known Ripper I've known ripper

Speaker 25:36

I've known rivers, ancient dusky rivers, and my soul has grown deep like the rivers, the rivers, the rivers, like the rivers I have seen.

Presenter5:50

Gary Barts and NTU Troop I've Known Rivers. Sunita Elaine. Both Cambridge and Oxford universities as a whole have been criticised for the low numbers of BAME students being given places. Now at Cambridge, black students now number around 3% of new undergraduates, 26.8% BAME students in total. Isn't a real change needed in the application process? What do you mean by that? The entrance requirement for students is three A stars, so won't that inevitably disadvantage students from state schools, in particular perhaps from disadvantaged areas and schools that don't have as many facilities as the counterparts of those kids who are privately educated?

Sonita Alleyne6:29

I think there's a conversation to be had around the fact that Cambridge is a bastion of excellence and actually you know people can meet that level. I think what tends to happen is that there's myths around Cambridge. To get into Cambridge at GCSE level, in old money terms, you need four A grades. I think what happens is that teachers then don't know that and then potential students who could think about going to Cambridge are put off because they think they haven't got their collection of nine A stars at GCSE. Is the interview a barrier do you think? From what I've seen, that Jesus, we've just been through our kind of interview process, the team there are really really good at trying to get the best out of people so I don't think it's a barrier. And we're also doing a lot of things where we're reaching out to look at children who are from communities of care, reaching out to students who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. They may not have got through the interview the first time but they go into an adjustment process which means that after they've got their A levels and often these are students who are coming out with four A stars, Cambridge then goes back to them and says will you still consider us? And it puts the power back in those students hands. So you think the onus is on the students as well? Every year there's a group of people in the UK who are 16, 17, 18. Every year the world is new for them and I think that if you begin to keep absorbing the stories from the past which basically say you're not there that is a self-perpetuating thing. I think that if the conversation is about look this is one of your five choices have a go I think that's that's fine and I also think that if the story is the atmosphere at an Oxbridge College is going to be different to the atmosphere when you go to a different university, a different business group. Well actually no it's probably not. There could be a few traditions which are a bit different but what you come up against as a young person going out into the world is probably the same. You might as well go for it.

Presenter8:27

There's been a lot of talk about the Stormsey effect. He funds two places for black students at Cambridge. Has that made an impact on the numbers applying?

Sonita Alleyne8:36

That uh the media talks about it.

Presenter8:38

Is that good?

Sonita Alleyne8:39

Good thing or a bad thing?

Sonita Alleyne8:40

Throughout my life, the media has influenced a lot. So sometimes journalists are kind of going, Well, what about Cambridge and Oxford, what are you doing? But actually, what's the myth that you're perpetuating by constantly saying, Oh, students are finding it hard, should you be lowering grades? No,'cause I think about the people I went through Cambridge with, they are brilliant, they're intellectually capable. And so no, I think we need to get more people to apply. We need to get more people to think, Yeah, I deserve that, that's what I should be doing. It's time to go to your sit.

Presenter9:13

Second disc. Why have you chosen it, Sunita?

Sonita Alleyne9:15

Well this is Minnie Ripperton Le Fleur. This takes me right back to my childhood. I was brought up in East London, Walthamstone, Leightonstone and I was very highly influenced by my brother and he was very much into jazz, jazz funk. There was a combination of his record collection, looking at my parents' record collection. My parents were quite keen on us doing a lot of education. That's why they travelled 4,000 miles from Barbados. And I think this track, I do remember playing it over and over again and really loving the production, loving the big drop at the time. Probably wouldn't have used that term, but noticing that and going, yeah, it's really big. There's a kind of expansiveness to it, which I think all 11 and 12 year olds should experience.

Presenter10:36

Minnie Ripperton and Les Fleur, all about the crescendo, Sunita Elaine. So as you mentioned, you were born in Barbados, lived there until you were three. You'd settled with your parents and two siblings in East London. How would you describe family life there?

Sonita Alleyne10:48

My very first memory I remember was walking up the stairs. It's kind of typical two up, two down terraced house in Walthamstowe and the stairs being quite steep. I remember as a two or two and a half thinking wow I can't get my legs up the stairs and must have compared it to the stairs in Barbados in my grandmother's house. But all three of us shared the same bedroom. My parents had their own bedroom but they had a little side table and we'd climb on the side table, climb on the doorknobs of a cupboard next to it, climb all the way to the top of the cupboard and then launch ourselves onto the bed. And also I remember trying to catch pigeons in the backyard with a box and it was like one of those things you see on cartoons and it's like this big dust crazy wood.

Presenter11:27

Yeah, it would have been on T V at the time for sure.

Sonita Alleyne11:29

Breadcrumbs and a little cardboard box and a little string, and sitting there waiting for a pigeon. I didn't know what I was going to do with a pigeon in my bonnet. Hopefully, the pigeon's too wise to this kind of game. I'm still trying to catch them. And I remember I learnt to read before I went to school. At school,

Presenter11:37

Hopefully the pigeon

Sonita Alleyne11:46

When I first started, my Bajan accent was much stronger. I remember they put me in a special class and my mother got me out of it and she said, No, no, that's just the way she talks. And what were your feelings about that?

Sonita Alleyne11:59

Um it's the battles your parents have for you. I was quite aware of you know of being black from quite an early age actually and my parents, especially my dad, was always talking about what happened to them in the country when they they'd come over. It was quite strong on that. I think that you know as a parent you want to warn your children that this is coming. But I think for me

Sonita Alleyne12:22

It was taking that warning and saying I don't want that warning to box me in. I don't want that warning to make me think I can't do something. How did your parents handle it?

Sonita Alleyne12:31

Oh, they're quite formidable. My mum, she's a very, very practical person, a lot of common sense. It was difficult for them, but there was a whole sense of community of people who'd come over from the Caribbean. There'd always be someone popping in. So there was that sense of community. I think from my perspective, I felt very special because I could read because the head teacher would let me go in and pick my books and later on helping other people read. But also I had one person say to me, don't answer all the questions all the time. because the boys don't know the answers and that's really damaging. What do you mean? The boys? What's that got to do with it? So you get that realisation, yes childhood.

Presenter13:04

What

Sonita Alleyne13:08

goes away from you because you realize what the world is about.

Presenter13:12

Do you remember your first barrier that you came up against?

Presenter13:15

That's a good question.

Sonita Alleyne13:18

It's a good question because most times in life you you've overcome them because you're sitting there.

Sonita Alleyne13:24

So sometimes there's things that you can't do, but you just swerve around them. Maybe it's the the way in which my mind is wired. They cease to be barriers as they flow past you in the flow of time. You don't really think about the things that you you didn't do.

Presenter13:41

You said that as a kid you were aware of being black. What did that mean to you then? What did it feel like? How did that manifest?

Sonita Alleyne13:48

You know, just think about it. I was born in nineteen sixty seven.

Sonita Alleyne13:51

The backdrop to my life at that point was television.

Sonita Alleyne13:56

It was so important that I remember getting our first television and you weren't on it and when you were on it you were being disparaged.

Sonita Alleyne14:03

And did you notice it at the time? Oh yeah. At the time you were always watching a comedy show with a little bit of an edge to it. You know, what are they going to say? Is there going to be some sort of disparaging bit of comedy coming out about you? I think as you go through life you get very angry about it. I think as you get older kind of cope with it a little bit more. But there's definitely that, oh here we are again. And you have those moments all through life. You just cope with them better.

Sonita Alleyne14:26

Let's take a break for some music.

Presenter14:28

It's disc number three. Tell me about this one.

Sonita Alleyne14:30

Okay, this is LJ Reynolds Key to the World and this for me is a really big connection at the time. East London, Leytonstone, Lover's Rock. You know, slower reggae, but very melodic, you know, close dancing. We don't do close dancing enough, but maybe I don't go out enough. For me, the connection was Rudy Thomas' Key to the World. So you've got that connection from the Caribbean with reggae coming into be Lover's Rock, which for me was a very London thing. It was the music where I was accepted. It wasn't on the mainstream. But this is the LJ Reynolds, which is an American version of it. Again, a really, really big sound. Live music. Uplifting.

Sonita Alleyne15:22

Let's get together and give a big hand to the one and only L J

Speaker 215:28

Uh

Sonita Alleyne15:28

Uh

Speaker 215:28

Uh Riddle

Speaker 215:32

Mighty people

Speaker 215:37

Damn, I give you everything.

Speaker 115:39

Uh

Speaker 115:41

Uh

Speaker 215:41

Hide a key to your heart

Speaker 215:46

Girl, I'll make the fight stop. Then I'll give you love.

Speaker 215:52

And peace.

Speaker 215:55

Uh

Sonita Alleyne15:55

And love it, love it, love it, love it, more love. Plus I give you me.

Sonita Alleyne16:04

And I'll have

Speaker 216:05

Ah

Presenter16:10

L. J. Reynolds and Key to the World. Cine to Aline. Our teenage years are often a time of self-discovery. What were you about back then? Yeah.

Sonita Alleyne16:19

The

Presenter16:19

Boop.

Sonita Alleyne16:19

Music. I played the viola, went to orchestra. I didn't start performing and singing until I went to university and then for me going to Cambridge was a kind of microcosm of the world. You can reinvent yourself, you can try things, you can do things, you can perform for the first time. The adventure is starting and life sometimes is more exciting when you say yes. So talking of saying yes to things, how did you come to apply to Cambridge? Really good school, which was in Leightonstone. Really good head teacher and deputy head teacher. And they took us along to visit one of the girls who had gone to Cambridge already. She looked really happy. Now I remember the expanse and the beauty of the college. And so you think, yeah, this is a place I could fit. And then the process of going for Cambridge was exhilarating. There was a few of us who went for it, I think it was about five or six girls who did Latin, who had extra lessons in thinking. And it was that moment when you escape the blackboard. And by escape the blackboard, I mean that we still have a system where you're going through the process because you have to answer certain questions in a certain way to get your mark. But for me, that was the first time when someone said, what do you think? Everything you'd read, everything you'd watched, all your opinions, were able to say, you are now a free thinker.

Sonita Alleyne17:39

Welcome, welcome to the world of free thinking. For me that was an amazing process. I remember going up for my interview and the woman who became my supervisor, I just had a brilliant time for an hour with her. And whether or not I got in or not, I left that interview feeling really, really buoyant because we'd had a really good discussion. We talked about value, we talked about artificial intelligence and it just felt like I was noticed.

Sonita Alleyne18:08

Yeah.

Presenter18:08

We've got to go to the music. It's your fourth today. Tell us about this one.

Sonita Alleyne18:11

This is my typical Cambridge track. I went to Fitzwilliam. It was all about late night conversations, swapping of ideas, swapping of stories and swapping of music. When I went to Cambridge, I didn't feel people had my same musical journey.

Sonita Alleyne18:26

But then I was quite open to that sense of adventure and Tom Waits was introduced to me at that point and I love Tom Waits. I may be the first master of an Oxbridge College to have an album of the week on my notice board. My album this week is Rain Dogs by Tom Waits. But this is Martha. There's a real beauty to being able to capture an emotion and in one song tell a story which is so sad that it actually becomes beautiful and then you kind of think, yeah, you're a genius.

Sonita Alleyne18:55

Operator.

Sonita Alleyne18:57

Number please, it's been so many years.

Sonita Alleyne19:03

She remembered.

Sonita Alleyne19:05

Maro voice.

Sonita Alleyne19:07

While I fight the t

Speaker 219:09

There's

Speaker 219:11

Hello, hello, there is this martha, this is all.

Sonita Alleyne19:15

Old Tom Frost.

Sonita Alleyne19:18

I'm calling long distance, don't worry about the cost.

Presenter19:26

Tom Waits and Martha from the album Closing Time. Sunita Elaine, you arrived at Cambridge in 1985 as a student. What were your first impressions? For me,

Presenter19:37

It was

Sonita Alleyne19:37

The sense of

Sonita Alleyne19:40

Difference. I'm very sociable, and I think after the first term, I knew everyone in my year, and it was a sense of freedom. There was a moment when I thought there's two ways I can do this. I can go full on in the library, or I can go full on into life. So I did student politics, I did organising again on sort of the May Ball committee, I joined a band, I put myself out there. Marches, everyone should go on a march. South Africa, it was anti-racism. Those were the things that I was very concerned with at the time.

Presenter20:11

So you made a lot of connections, but you did mention earlier that Cambridge was by no means as diverse then as it is now. How was that for you?

Sonita Alleyne20:16

Snow.

Sonita Alleyne20:18

It was very close to a sort of black students group, which I still have today. I think it's one of those places where you'd nod to people that you didn't know who were black. You're having a shared experience of being different and being here. So that was a support. Other communities for me were the jazz community. My first trip out of Fitzwilliam on my own into town was to go to the Cambridge Modern Jazz Club. I tried journalism as well. So I felt a difference, but I didn't sort of stay in that small, you know, I was doing so much other stuff and meeting so many different people.

Presenter20:49

And your subject was philosophy, of course. What did studying that give to you?

Sonita Alleyne20:53

I think the academic rigour of being able to analyse large pieces of text and drill down to what is the issue here, that's what philosophy gave me. Very, very practical.

Presenter21:03

Cool outlook in life. After your time at Cambridge, your first job was working in insurance. You were called calling. Oh, yeah. How and why? Well, philosophy.

Sonita Alleyne21:11

Philosophy is not like medicine or law. It's kind of like, oh right, the country needs 500 philosophers. So I didn't know what I wanted to do when I left Cambridge and just picked out a job. I'll go for that interview. Very random. I ended up going into this cold calling. And I have to say, it was a very good thing to do because it meant that you have to talk to anyone.

Presenter21:30

Because

Sonita Alleyne21:32

I think everyone should do a sales job. Any business job you do, I think that's a valuable thing to do.

Presenter21:37

We're going to have to take a pause in the conversation for some music now. It's your fifth disc. Why this one?

Sonita Alleyne21:42

This is Arrested Development in Tennessee. You talked about the fact that I started off in insurance. My career then led me to deciding to go for music and when I set up my radio production company in 1991, I was putting on gigs and events to get cash flow going. And Arrested Development were a big band that were there at the time. And this was one of the gigs that we put on. This is one of the albums I walk to. I like walking.

Sonita Alleyne22:09

And sometimes if you have to exercise, you think, oh, it's not about the walk, it's about the music. Although I am black and bright, problems got me pessimistic. Brothers and sisters keep messing up. Why does it have to be

Speaker 222:27

It's so damn tough, I don't know where I can go To let these ghosts out of my scum My grandma passed, my brother's gone I never at once felt so lumps I know you're supposed to be my steering wheels

Speaker 222:42

Spirit Yeah.

Sonita Alleyne22:43

So Lord I ask Uh

Speaker 222:44

Uh

Sonita Alleyne22:44

Uh

Speaker 222:44

Yeah.

Sonita Alleyne22:46

To be my guide and force the truth

Speaker 222:48

Straight.

Presenter22:50

Arrested Development and Tennessee. Sunita Elaine, you found work at Jazz FM. That was a station that was at the forefront of this new independent radio sector that was flowering in the early nineties. How did you get the gig there?

Sonita Alleyne23:02

In between cold calls, I had this moment when I just thought, do you know what? I'm going to spend a lot of my life working. I better do something that I enjoy. So I rang up jazz services, which connected jazz across the UK. Rang them up and said, hi. And really important cold call. Hello, I'm Sneeta. I want to work in jazz. Can you call me if there's something that comes up? What came up was working for a small jazz publishing company.

Sonita Alleyne23:26

That job came to an end. And then I remember being unemployed for a bit. And I went to a Cassandra Wilson gig, and then also went to a Jazz Against Apartheid meeting. And there was a guy there who was at both of those events. And he said, Oh, you look like a journalist. And I, of course, you know, having written a couple of things for the Student Union magazine, oh, yes, yes, yes, I am. Then he said, Oh, we're starting Jazz FM, you must come along for a meeting. That was when I got it.

Presenter23:51

Into Jazza Fermat.

Sonita Alleyne23:51

Uh

Presenter23:51

Yeah.

Sonita Alleyne23:51

Uh

Sonita Alleyne23:52

Yeah.

Presenter23:52

The recession hit the station in nineteen ninety one, and you were made redundant then. So you then pooled enough cash to form something else with some of your Jazz FM colleagues, so Jazz Nelson and Chris Phillips, five hundred quid each, I think. You built it up to be a very successful company. Looking back, what do you think was your most important contribution?

Sonita Alleyne24:11

Well, I think as a CEO, it was the risk-taking, getting to the crux of the matter that we sold creativity and how to move from radio into digital media. The first start, I think, was probably the radio station we did up in Edinburgh, Festival FM, time that the government were giving out restricted service licenses so you could run a radio station for 28 days. So now we'd call it a pop-up radio station. Before that, yeah. And you're sat in one little office going, how did we get notice? It was a community of people who were striving for something. It was a blank piece of paper. So I think that's what's exciting about that time.

Presenter24:32

But this one before that idea.

Presenter24:45

It sounds like an adventure. I mean, you've built a very successful business career out of a love of culture that isn't necessarily mainstream. I wonder what lessons you've been able to learn from the creative people that you admire, those lessons that have been useful in the business world. What have you taken away?

Sonita Alleyne25:00

That you don't necessarily have to accept the rules, that the world isn't necessarily as it's given to you. We've been trained to accept rules. You go to school when you're three, you're running around, there's no gap between talking and thinking. We get to sit on a mat, thirty kids on a mat, and then you're taught to put your hand up to wait for someone to pick you.

Sonita Alleyne25:23

to speak. And I just think that maybe we're inculcating right from a very, very young age the need for someone to say, you can do it.

Sonita Alleyne25:33

and deciding that the world is a is a huge

Sonita Alleyne25:37

adventurous paint set for you to have a go at.

Presenter25:40

Let's have some more music.

Sonita Alleyne25:42

This is from that time and it was when I met my partner in life. I ended up living in Stoke Newton in a five bedroom house with a good friend Lynn Champion and her daughter Lauren, she was two and a half. And it was a party house. The time when you could have three sound systems in a five bedroom house, one on each floor. And this is from a band called Outside to Forgive But Not Forget. And this encapsulates that whole melting pot excitement of Stoke Newton.

Presenter27:13

Outside to Forgive But Not Forget. Sunita Elaine, you met your partner, James McCarthy, around the time that that track was released. The two of you have a son, Miro, and he's a teenager now. How did you adjust to motherhood, especially during what must have been a very busy time in your professional life?

Sonita Alleyne27:28

I did maternity leave for four months. I mean every woman has got their birth story. But I remember as well as packing stuff to go to the hospital for the birth, we had a big C D player and we had a bag full of C D s and music. It's really important, like what music will you be born to? That was the thing that was going through my head.

Presenter27:48

Did you get time to put any of the

Sonita Alleyne27:49

We did, we put on loads of music. I think it was maybe one of the most bizarre nights in the maternity ward because there was lots of free jazz being played quite loudly. And there was one point when it was, okay, enough. No more music. I'm just pushing, right? Even a jazz name. Eva has had enough. I don't want the music just giving me gas.

Presenter28:06

Even a jazz name has had enough.

Sonita Alleyne28:11

So yeah, so that was my adjustment to motherhood. It was a really interesting quandary because I remember thinking.

Sonita Alleyne28:18

Oh, you know, I had a child, I'll go back to my work, and they'll make him really proud of me, and your business will do this, and we'll do that. And then there was a point in which I realized that.

Sonita Alleyne28:27

He just wanted me to play Lego, you know. So, building up your business alongside the Lego? Yeah, that was a good period. I think at that point, we went on a business owner's course and brought in things like content management systems and really looked about how we sold and looked at the fact that we sold creativity and really expanded and took more risks. There came a point after about 18 years when I was like, okay, time to move on. But what I had done before that was get onto different boards because I'm quite interested in bigger issues around society. So, I was on the Department of Culture and Media Sport as an on-exec director, things like the National Employment Panel, which looked at the kind of welfare to work system. It's the beauty of being able to think on a bigger scale, think about issues, and take your philosophy with you into different areas.

Presenter29:09

Your work has taken you across the media, of course, in the independent radio sector. You were on the board of the BBC Trust twenty twelve to twenty seventeen, and diversity has been a big part of your life's work. How is the media doing in that regard now?

Sonita Alleyne29:21

Yeah.

Presenter29:21

It's

Sonita Alleyne29:21

Better. I think um

Sonita Alleyne29:24

Behind the mic or behind the camera, not so good. So in production? Still a lot of work to be done in production. A lot of work to be done in terms of the hierarchy, the decision makers. There's still a big way to go actually. So the public facing side better, but behind the scenes not? Yeah, but kind of better. But you know, when it comes down to the stories that are told from a working class perspective or from a woman's perspective or black perspective, you need to have more people in the mix creatively. You need to have more people in the mix in terms of power and economic power. For me, equality and inclusion are

Presenter29:29

Things that are work to be done.

Sonita Alleyne30:03

about the ability of people to thrive economically and personally, to be able to go for jobs, to see a career and a trajectory for them which is there for the taking if they want to go for it. And I think that's that's the problem sometimes with the media. We don't have enough people around the board table.

Presenter30:19

Let's have some more music. It's time for your seventh disc.

Sonita Alleyne30:21

What have you got for us? This is definitely the Miro disc. Anyone who's a parent will know that glorious, glorious moment when they take their afternoon nap.

Sonita Alleyne30:34

Come on, let's just be honest about it. The afternoon nap is just really good. I remember I used to play Cassandra Wilson to Miro and hold him in my arms and he'd go to sleep. This particular track is Last Train to Clarksville and it's a monkey's track, but she totally makes this her own.

Sonita Alleyne30:51

Take the last train to Clarksville And I'll meet you at the station

Sonita Alleyne30:58

You can be here by 4.30 cause I made a reservation, no be slow.

Sonita Alleyne31:07

No no

Sonita Alleyne31:10

Oh no no no!

Sonita Alleyne31:14

Cause I'm leaving in the morning

Sonita Alleyne31:17

And I must see you again.

Sonita Alleyne31:20

We'll have one more night together till the morning brings my

Presenter31:25

Cassandra Wilson and last train to Clarksville. Sunita Relaine, your college, Jesus, is part of Cambridge, which is largely publicly funded and a global brand with an enviable reputation. What do you think is the key to maintaining its prestige, particularly after Brexit?

Sonita Alleyne31:43

Oh, I think it's five hundred years of prestige. It's gonna be okay. It's such a strong foundation. I think also one of the keys is the alumni. As you get into a community, you realize that the community stretches back through time. The things you do help it stretch forward and lay the foundation for it going forward.

Presenter32:02

And what about Brexit? What do you think are the main challenges that it will bring?

Presenter32:07

Form filling.

Sonita Alleyne32:10

Is it really hard because you talk about challenges, but then people don't talk about the challenges over the short term, or the long term, or the medium term? Well, tell us.

Sonita Alleyne32:18

For me, it's the challenge of making sure that people realize that it's something that's happening, and you can either see it as a kind of wall that you've hit, or you see it as something that's there, and then, okay, how do we go around it? Maybe that's the business person in me. You want a little bit of certainty, but there's challenges from an academic side in terms of research grants from Europe, etc., etc. But I feel very positive. You have to build a community from a position of positivity. You know, it's happening. Let's just get on with it. Sunita, it's time for your final disc. What is it and why have you chosen it? This is Marvin Hannibal Peterson Swing Low Sweet Chariot. And if you see me in Jesus walking around with a big smile on my face, this is probably going through my head. This is a great, great track. It's got Deirdre Murray on cello. Who doesn't love a little bit of jazz cello? It's just brilliant.

Presenter34:03

Marvin Hannibal Peterson and Swing Low Sweet Chariot. It's time to cast you away to the island then, Senita Elaine. You will be able to do some reading, because we'll give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and of course a book of your own. What would you like?

Sonita Alleyne34:17

I'll probably take Michael on Darti and Coming Through Slaughter. The language is amazing and the story is incredible.

Sonita Alleyne34:24

And it's one of those books I read most years. We can also offer you a luxury item to make your stay more enjoyable. What would you like? I would like to take

Sonita Alleyne34:34

A genie in a lamp that works in the confines of my island. Ah. Presumably to generate wishes. Well, like a little house, swimming pool. It's one object. Yeah, it's not digital, it's just a genie in the lamp. That would be great. But a house is pretty practical. A genie could be.

Presenter34:50

A tea could be could be classed as practical item, arguably.

Sonita Alleyne34:53

Yeah.

Presenter34:53

Well, it's an imaginative item. On that basis, we're going to allow it.

Presenter34:58

Thank you. Yes, the genie is yours. Of course, I have one final question to ask you, and I think it might be the most difficult one of all for you, Sunita. If you had to save one of these eight discs from the waves, which would it be?

Sonita Alleyne35:11

Very, very difficult. I think I'm gonna go for Miny Ripperton Lefleur.

Sonita Alleyne35:15

The genie would actually give me a really really good sound system and I would just play it really loud all across the island at various times. I think that's the one I would go for.

Presenter35:24

Sunita Relaine, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much for having me.

Presenter35:42

I hope Sunita will be very happy on the island. I do suspect her imagination will be put to good use. As she said, she's a huge jazz fan. Well, over the years, many jazz greats have been cast away, including Dave Brubeck, Humphrey Littleton, Cleo Lane, Louis Armstrong, and Jamie Cullum. Back in 2001, Sue Lawley cast away the saxophonist Courtney Pine. So let's go back to your school. Recorder to clarinet to saxophone. And you started to play. Were you playing outside school in bands? What were you doing?

Speaker 236:13

Yes, I started playing with a Harrow Youth local big band, which the ultimate aim was to be in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra.

Presenter36:20

Uh

Speaker 236:20

Um

Sonita Alleyne36:20

But this was sort of Glenn Miller style.

Speaker 236:22

Very much Glenn Miller, Stan Kenton, that kind of stuff. Where did you play? Um, we played at ex servicemen's clubs and that was a a real education, you know, kind of Bernard Manning kind of humor, that kind of place. And for me, being a young black man,

Sonita Alleyne36:22

Thank you very much, Glenn.

Sonita Alleyne36:24

What

Speaker 236:35

In that environment. I mean, I didn't get any trouble or anything, but it was just interesting playing music and seeing the functionality of music in that environment.

Presenter36:43

But as well as the big band, you were playing in jazz.

Speaker 236:47

Um I was doing the jazz kind of thing and I was doing like a popular reggae kind of thing at the same time. And I ended up literally at the age of sixteen being a professional musician. And it was it was very interesting because I was on the road getting twenty pounds on the weekends and coming back falling asleep in school.

Presenter37:06

I was going to say, you were at school as well, so how how could you cope?

Speaker 237:08

Okay,

Speaker 237:09

It was very difficult and um

Presenter37:09

Yeah.

Speaker 237:12

My music teacher said, Well, you are a professional musician, so you may as well leave school and and continue, because this is what you want to do anyway.

Presenter37:16

Yeah.

Presenter37:18

But difficult for your mother to accept, because I think your mother would have had, you know, different ambitions for you.

Speaker 237:23

Well my mum is very much into the educational thing and music wasn't a part of our family culture. She wanted you to be a doctor didn't she? I was supposed to be a doctor, you know, s for some strange reason. I think she saw me in the garden decapitating worms, sending them up to space or something and thought, Oh, he could be a a surgeon or something.

Presenter37:28

She wanted you to be a dog. I was

Speaker 137:30

Yeah.

Presenter37:41

So how did you persuade her? Because as you say, you know, you were very well behaved. You were the boy with the knobbly knees and the shiny satchel.

Speaker 237:48

And the BSO.

Presenter37:49

Right, exactly. So how do you suddenly persuade this this mother, who's obviously quite dominant in your life, how do you suddenly say to excuse me, I'm not going to do this education thing?

Speaker 237:58

Well, for my exams, my O levels, I failed every single one, except music.

Speaker 238:03

Every single one and I think that's when it hits her that I'd made up my mind that I wanted to be a musician. You know, and also my mum seeing me going out with these rusta men and being associated with that music didn't take it seriously. She used to lock away my saxophones. Did she? And she would say, well, you'd better go and do the show with the Harry Youth Big Band and not go on the road and earn twenty pounds with this reggae band. So she was very worried for me.

Presenter38:28

Courtney Pine, talking to Sue Lawley. Next time, my guest will be Radio 2 breakfast show host, Zoe Ball. Do join us then.

Speaker 138:51

If you're listening to some other podcasts, then um stop now and listen to a good one, because The Infinite Monkey Cage is back for a new series and we're doing loads of things, aren't we, Robin?

Speaker 239:00

We're going to be dealing with the science of laughter, conspiracy theories, coral reefs, quantum worlds and finally UFOs. I love UFOs. It's also, by the way, the UFO one available to watch on iPlayer. In fact, all of the series that we've done are available on BBC Sounds.

Speaker 139:13

I must say though I wouldn't I wouldn't bother with the first series. I don't think it's very good.

Speaker 239:17

I wouldn't bother with the first two. Yeah. But we were played by different people then, I think, weren't we? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 139:18

Yeah.

Speaker 139:21

Yeah, yeah. Melbourne Bragg was you and um

Speaker 239:23

You were Debbie McGee. Debbie McGee. Braggan Magee. Now that is a 1980s T V Detective series that I will be making.

Speaker 139:25

Demi McGee