Subtitles (313)
0:08We humans have stopped listening.
0:12Wow, you all really listen to that.
0:15But it's true.
There's a language out there
0:17that we all know how
to communicate really quite well,
0:19but we’ve tuned out of.
0:21One we’re innately fluent in,
yet forgotten how to hear.
0:24I truly believe the key
to solving many of our crises as humans
0:28is relearning to listen to this language.
0:30What I'm talking about
is the sounds of nature.
0:34I want to take you all
somewhere real quick, if that's alright.
0:37I want you to close your eyes
0:39and make a mental note
of how you feel right now.
0:42You can be happy from the week, stressed.
0:44It is a Wednesday
in the middle of the week.
0:46Charmed already from my London accent
0:50Now close your eyes and open your ears.
1:16Different, right? A bit better,
maybe slightly more relaxed.
1:20I saw quite a few smiles
playing across people's faces.
1:23You were just transported to West Papua.
1:25That beautiful melody
was a hooded butcherbird,
1:28which, believe it or not, is carnivorous.
1:30Didn't think predators
could sing like that, right?
1:36Is it that you're all
nature geeks like me?
1:42But it's probably because
we're all evolutionarily hardwired
1:45to nature's sonic language.
1:48See, we're so hardwired to it,
1:50so much so, the birdsong,
choruses of birdsong,
1:55the percussion of insects,
the symphony of amphibians
1:57has all been shown scientifically
2:00to trigger your
parasympathetic nervous system,
2:02aka make you feel relaxed.
2:04You probably also noticed
you were in a forest
2:06and a tropical one at that.
2:09It might seem obvious to mention,
2:10but that was just
from you using your ears.
2:13Look at you flexing your fluency already.
2:16It's possible the birdsong
makes us feel relaxed
2:20because it's been ...
2:23a genuine signal from Mother Nature
that there's no predators around.
2:27But it can't be all relaxing.
2:33Hearing this from an unseen lioness
near you in the dark,
2:36trust me, triggers a cascade of fear.
2:39But one that's also practical
and proportionate.
2:42Eerie, unusual silence
does the same thing.
2:45It's no wonder that we're seeing a rise
in anxiety in cities.
2:49We may be unknowingly subjecting ourselves
to an evolutionary stress.
2:55See, nature sound does something to us.
2:57It's often hard to put into words, true,
3:01but our nervous system understands it
like a remote control.
3:05Blindfold on, I bet I could put any one
of you in a biodiverse environment,
3:08and you'd be able to tell me
if it was dawn.
3:17The middle of the day.
3:35That coo right there was a potoo,
3:37which is a crazy word
worth looking up when you get home.
3:40Each of these was recorded in the exact
same place in the Amazon rainforest.
3:44The more biodiverse, the easier it is.
3:47There's an even deeper level.
3:49There are still First Nations
trackers alive today
3:51that can tell you
there's an unseen predator
3:53moving through the forest
in a northwest direction,
3:56just from the change in birdsong.
3:59Our ancestors were polyglots of ecology.
4:04To listen was to know.
4:06Inattention was
literally life-threatening.
4:08Our ancestral grandmothers
and grandfathers
4:10lived in an attentive relationship
4:12to the songs of other species,
4:14contributing to conversations
that span back millions of years.
4:19But that fluency is still in you.
4:22Why, for our entire evolution,
4:24listening has been
a big part of our compass.
4:27But now we turned that off.
4:30It's no wonder that we lost our bearing.
4:33So what's this got to do
with solving crises, Louis?
4:38Now my path to standing before you
here today is an unusual one.
4:43I'm not exactly from a place
abundant in natural charms.
4:47Born and raised in grimy old north London,
4:49more common to hear sirens and music --
4:51good music, I might add --
4:56my love of music led me
down the path to becoming a musician.
4:59But I'm standing here today
as a massive nature geek.
5:06Even though I grew up in a city,
5:08I've always been fascinated
by nature from day dot.
5:12Yet it was something that me
and my friends had the least access to.
5:16Yet many of us had ancestry
from nature-rich places.
5:19For a long time I felt
5:21that these two worlds
I had to keep separate.
5:25How would you market a rapper
5:28that can talk to you
about the complexities of h
5:31with a full-blown degree of zoology?
5:33But during COVID,
my amazing mom and sister
5:38really persuaded me to combine the things,
5:43a couple more swear words
I might add, but I won't say.
5:45See, sound was the common denominator
between my two loves.
5:52if there’s over 55 percent of us humans
living in cities and rising,
5:58we don't get to experience this.
6:01If I wanted people to reconnect to nature,
I needed to bring these sounds back.
6:06So I built these omnidirectional mics.
6:11I bring with me wherever I go.
6:14When I'm not being mistaken
for an alien with a probe,
6:19The first time I did this,
6:21something crazy happened.
6:24I put my headphones on.
6:31Not literally, of course.
6:35But I wasn't an individual anymore.
6:37I was plugged into an overwhelming,
highly synchronous chorus of aliveness.
6:46See, listening to these sounds ...
6:50... didn't just tell me information.
6:58something like a soup of life,
7:02a language that my DNA knew
that I fundamentally understood,
7:05not as Louis, but as a human.
7:08Surely this could be
a new tool for people,
7:11particularly people from the diaspora,
7:13to reconnect to the places that we're from
7:16that are still abundant in nature there.
7:22for a long history
of colonialism, extractivism
7:25the transatlantic slavery diaspora
7:27have been pulled not just
from the lands we're from,
7:30but from the nature there.
7:31Sounds as common as the rising sun
to our ancestors
7:36are now our extinct in our experience.
7:38But that's happening to all of us,
wherever we're from.
7:42Reconnecting to nature is fundamental
if we're to have a future on this planet,
7:47because planetary health
and our health go hand in hand.
7:51See, nature sounds are so important
to us as a species.
7:54We evolved not just
to hear the information,
7:57but to have an emotional response to it.
8:00That's probably why music
is so powerful for us.
8:03It transcends barriers.
8:06Where words fail, it adds meaning.
8:10Many scientists believe
8:13music predated language in humans,
8:15inspired by mimicking the songs of Earth.
8:20But we are relatively new
on the scene as musicians.
8:24Try telling a nightingale
or humpback whale
8:27that we invented music.
8:29Mother Nature is the original artist.
8:32Going back to that hooded butcherbird,
8:35I can imagine that mimicking moment.
8:41(Soft electronic piano sounds)
8:47What's crazy is I did nothing to this,
8:52and I recognized this,
I was like, this is G Phrygian,
8:55which is C minor for those
that ain't geeky in music like me.
9:00But let's check with the harmonies.
9:07I can imagine people hearing this
9:10and being inspired back in the day
to get musical with it.
9:15But we've got to check the chords.
9:30And obviously,
what is a song without bass?
10:29You can meditate till you levitate
10:32High off life till you’re featherweight
10:34Try and fly till your feathers hurt
10:36But listening to the world that made you
10:39Will be how we elevate
10:41Reconnect and things will change
10:43I know things are shades of grey
10:45But the future green if we make it
10:50Get your melanin till your level raised
10:54Let’s take a breath, let’s ventilate
10:59Who you are inside is so OK
11:01Just close your eyes, do this simple thing
11:03Nature loves when you’re listening
11:08Happiness is the realest rage
11:12Give time to Mother Nature mate
11:17All she needs is a simple thing
11:19Nature loves when you’re listening
11:21Nature loves when you’re listening
11:25Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
11:27Listen to this world
11:31Says the hooded butcherbird
11:36Listen to this world
11:40Says the hooded butcherbird
11:58Says the hooded butcherbird, tell you so
12:02So listen to this bird
12:07Says the hooded butcherbird
12:16Says the hooded butcherbird
12:27This hooded butcherbird
12:41And that's my theory of ornithology.
12:45Scientist geeks like that one.
12:48So it's not very common
for someone where I come from
12:51to get to go to a rainforest,
12:52let alone three in the space of a year.
12:56But I was lucky enough
to be invited to West Papua,
12:59to Dominica, or Waitukubuli,
as it’s more correctly known,
13:01where one half of my family
are from in the Caribbean.
13:05And the Sarayaku nation,
13:06deep in the heart
of the Ecuadorian Amazon,
13:08with the Moth Collective.
13:10Each of these is
an indigenously stewarded place,
13:17and a biodiversity hotspot because of it.
13:20When we were in the Amazon,
13:21the Kichwa people taught us
about Kawsak Sacha.
13:25It means "living forest."
13:28Now it doesn't just mean
the toucans, the jaguars,
13:36The many frogs you can hear right now.
13:38No, it means the trees,
13:44the rocks, the soil,
the fungi, the air, everything.
13:48Just like the planet,
13:50the forest itself is a living organism,
13:54and we are like the organs
singing our functions to each other.
13:58How good does nature sound
without colonialism?
14:02See, listening to these beautiful sounds
14:05of thousands of lives
and universes they inhabit ...
14:09of course it’s Kawsak Sacha.
14:12But of course it's why it's so hard
for us to connect in places
14:16devoid of these orchestras of life.
14:19We're in a climate crisis,
14:21a biodiversity crisis.
14:23There's wars, there's genocides,
there's depression, anxiety on the rise.
14:29But at the heart of it all,
we're in a crisis of inattention.
14:34We're like apples that have forgotten
the tree we come from is alive.
14:39That not only is it alive,
14:41but it bears many other fruits.
14:458.7 million, to be exact.
14:488.7 million other species
that we share this planet with.
14:53This is a nightjar,
that sounds like a laser.
14:58How many songs and cultures
15:01and stories are we missing?
15:05We're not so neatly separable from nature,
15:09and listening to it
doesn't just tell you that.
15:11It makes you feel it.
15:18Being more attentive
to nature's sonic language ...
15:25might help us better exist with it,
15:27because listening
requires embodied respect.
15:30But we've stopped listening so much
15:32we've almost not noticed
15:34we're making it silent.
15:37We run the risk of future generations
thinking that silence is normal.
15:44That's a bit embarrassing.
15:47We've only just met,
15:49and I already owe you lot an apology.
15:52Now I've hopefully helped you listen,
15:54I'm afraid you can't unhear.
15:58You'll go outside and you'll notice
the beautiful birdsong.
16:01But you'll also notice the drilling,
the beeping, the scraping,
16:06the burning and the silence.
16:09You can't unhear the symphony of nature,
16:12but you also can't unhear
what we're doing to it.
16:18because noticing is the point.
16:24stand to be aware of what we
16:28but what we stand to gain
in a nature-filled future.
16:32Awareness that nature
ain't a luxury, it's a necessity.
16:36Our membership in life's conversation
is not one just to be observed,
16:40but one we're part of.
17:03So go out there and change
not how you see the world
17:08but how you hear it.
17:10And changing how you hear it,
17:12hopefully you'll never see it
the same again.
17:17(Cheers and applause)
