If our lives were to be fictionalised, what musical form would accompany their screenplays? That’s the challenge Queenie author Candice Carty-Williams shared with London-based producer, Swindle. For #IT2024 Jacqueline Springer, Curator, Africa & Diaspora: Performance at the V&A explored creativity and collaboration with this all-star In Conversation With…
Showrunner, culture writer, and author of Book of the Year Award winning and Sunday Times bestselling Queenie, Candice Carty-Williams is a force to be reckoned with, having worked with multi-hyphenate producer and composer Swindle on soundtracking her original drama, Champion, and her novel Queenie which was adapted for TV. Joined by the inimitable Jacqueline Springer (Curator of Africa and Diaspora: Performance at the Victoria & Albert Museum), the conversation travels through musical characterisation, creative expression, and “horizontal” collaboration through the lens of music and fiction, an insightful and authentic exploration into what it means to put sound to scene.
There’s a question of autobiography that seems to persist through fiction, particularly in contemporary works, and more often found in novels written by women. This is something that Candice experienced following Queenie’s publication, with the public and press more broadly assuming that Queenie was semi-autobiographical simply because the character, like Candice, was female, Black, and British. Jacqueline references an interview that Candice undertook for The Guardian on the subject of gendered assumption and judgement; “if Ian Rankin wrote about any particular subject, erectile dysfunction, for example, they would not presume that it was him”. And she’s absolutely right – we would not.
“Did you feel like it was reductive to presume that your creativity came from just being able to self-excavate as opposed to writing original ideas?” Jacqueline asks Candice, who responds with an articulate and reasoned answer. “I think with women in general, people think that everything must come from a place of feeling, rather than a place of intelligence or understanding. There are so many characters that I write from the perspective of in Queenie, there are like 20 people. How can I be just this one person if I can write 20 different people in the same way?”
Moving into the musical characterisation of Queenie as a fictional person, Swindle speaks to how he started writing music for Queenie. “It was almost like making a playlist for her – I was thinking, ‘what would she be listening to?’ And then began building that up”. Expanding on his creative process, Swindle shared how he would put scenes on and just sit at the piano and play. “It’s not typical of every score that I’ve worked on, but because this was written so well I would just let my fingers play along”.
When it comes to the practical aspects of writing for TV, Queenie isn’t the first project that Swindle has worked on with Candice. Champion was what Candice described as her “love letter to Black British music”, an original series with a full cast of characters who all have a unique relationship to music. “And music in itself, is separate”, Jacqueline adds, “music is a tool of freedom for some, and it’s used to weaponise for others”. In the context of Champion, music has what Jacqueline describes as a “dual characterisation”, a tool used both by the human characters, “as well as performing part of the backdrop”, and something that had a blissful six months of music production behind it.
“We were blessed with the time to gather our thoughts and try different things with Champion”, shares Candice, whereas Queenie had an altogether different timeline. “We had like six weeks, so each episode was made basically a week before”, Swindle shares, “we’d watch it, write it, finish it. It was really chaotic”.
“The relationship between the music and the picture has to be the same”, Swindle continues, “when I’m working on a record, the song is king, and the music there to support the song, and the decisions we make are to present the idea in the best way we can. With TV, it’s the same, except the story is king. Or Queenie…”
When considering the rhythm, speed, and pace of the soundtrack, Candice discusses how she organised the energy. “In the first episode, everything was like 140 BPM, because I felt like she was always running from herself, and then we kind of slowed down as we got to the end. For me, it was about matching her emotions and speed of her mind, and making sure the music was the soundtrack to all of that. It would be across different genres, but it was always kind of the same feeling.”
Moving from conversation to questions, an audience member asked Swindle about how to navigate collaboration before the money and funding comes into play. Swindle speaks from experience; “some of my biggest collaborators were people just in the proximity of what I was doing. There’s a community feel, where people just collaborate with their friends, and the more they do that, people start to poke through and all of a sudden those collaborations become more valuable”.
This kind of “horizontal networking” is becoming more and more prevalent across the creative industries, with young people making the most of their peers on the same level. “In the beginning I was really just working with people that have common goals and common interests. It depends what you want – because sometimes before I’d want to work with an artist who’s maybe a bit further ahead because it might help me in some way, but what actually is probably more helpful and healthy for everyone is that the people on this are on the same level and willing and able to collaborate”. It’s sage advice, and something people are beginning to take heed to. Look across, not above.
Another audience member poses a question to Candice about finding their practice and exploring new means of creative expression. “Know your worth and know your work”, Candice shares, “if I decide I’m going to do something, I’m going to know everything about it because no one’s going to ask me anything that I don’t know the answer to. I’ve sat in a room with a lot of older white male executives who were desperate for me to trip up, but that’s never going to happen. When you go in equipped like that, you’re halfway there”.
We tied up the conversation with a question of self-confidence, self-identity, and the age-old tale of imposter syndrome. “Does it still affect you, even where you are right now? How do you deal with that?” Candice answers in light of the stage she is sat on; “you just have to lean in. For talks, for example, you just have to think; there might be someone who needs to hear what you have to say, and that’s how I’ve got through every single talk that I’ve done, and I’ve done so many.”
Swindle takes a different approach, “when it comes to music, I haven’t felt that for a long time”, he continues, “one thing I know is that, yes, lots of people have imposter syndrome, but there are also a lot of imposters in music. It’s not a fair game. Sometimes in certain parts of the industry I’m like “I really grew up in this, playing music, I’m from this,” and it can be frustrating watching people rise who I know are imposters.”
“I’ve come to notice a pattern that at a certain point in someone’s upward trajectory in their career that they’ll feel that imposter syndrome – people who care and want to be better feel it, and it’s not always a bad thing. It’s almost a sign that someone’s going to do well”.
To reframe a state of insecurity as an opportunity for success, is to be authentically engaged in the practice of creativity. Candice, Swindle, and Jacqueline’s conversation captured a pocket of the music industry that produces an incredible amount of joy in audio-visual entertainment. Soundtracking TV is something you can witness, too. Watch Champion on BBC and Netflix, and catch Queenie on Channel 4 and Hulu to see Swindle and Candice in action.
Words: Elsa Monteith. A Brighton based writer and broadcaster working in and around the arts and on the radio waves.Subscribe to Elsa’s Discontented newsletter here.
Photography: Laura ‘Hyperfrank’ Brosnan & Anthony Wilde
