Lambros Fatsis is a senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Brighton. His research interests revolve around police racism and the criminalization of Black music (sub)culture(s), fusing cultural criminology with Black radical thought. His writing on the policing of UK drill music won the first-ever Blogger of the Year Award from the British Society of Criminology and an Outstanding Research & Enterprise Impact Award from the University of Brighton. Lambros is also a member of the Prosecuting Rap Expert Network made up of scholars and experts in rap and Black youth culture, who act as defense experts in court cases that involve the use of rap as evidence. In May 2022, he was appointed as a trustee at the Brighton-based youth music charity AudioActive.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
By accident! Or perhaps as a result of devious stratagems and a fairly circuitous route… My decision to study in and migrate to the UK (I was born in Greece), was the excuse I gave my parents, the universities and funders—so I could spend my time in reggae soundsystems (mostly), jazz gigs (very often) and records shops (way too often).
So, I came to the UK in 2002 to study sociology as an undergrad first and a postgrad and PhD student later, with a two-year break—where I interrupted my studies to DJ professionally as Boulevard Soundsystem, with my base in Athens (Greece) but travelling fairly often across Europe to play.