I am a software engineer and artist based in Manchester, England. The main themes of my research are mathematics, culture, design, fractals, hip-hop, music, computing, computer science, ethnography and futurism.

My Fellowship is about how mathematics marries to repetition and pattern embedded in Black music, art and design. Hosting conversations on my platform about these under-explored topics extends them beyond compelling historical curio. Does this deep-rooted propensity for pattern and aesthetic algorithm build bridges toward maths and science? My Fellowship enables me to delve into this topic, travel to Nigeria to learn more and bring back what I learn in a series of talks in my local community and beyond.

What makes me care about this topic? The sampling of classic James Brown beats and basslines from the 1960s by young Black teenagers was not only funky, it struck me as curious. Here was a snake eating its tail. I recognised this as recursion: a classic computational pattern that is completely absent in any other kind of music, though not commented upon nor recognised as significant by either cultural commentators or scientists.