Beyond Twitter: How DJ Activism Can Make a Difference | Mixmag
Published by Mixmag, January 2020
One of the refreshing things about electronic music right now is how unafraid artists and DJs are about engaging with politics and wider social issues. If some mainstream pop stars and actors still remain unwilling to risk upsetting elements of their fanbase by being too outspoken, most DJs and artists are unafraid of sharing their opinions about everything from Brexit and Trump to climate change and feminism.
But while there’s no doubt that social media provides an unparalleled platform for organising protest and mobilising the masses, the sheer volume of online noise is hard to penetrate — and going to battle with the troll armies is famously equivalent to playing chess with a pigeon. “Social media is a useless echo chamber for enacting political or social change,” says Gideon Berger, founder of the music protest group R3 Soundsystem. “But dance music reinforces and encourages positive communication and relationships that are the foundation of politically engaged activism.” And historically, when dance music has inspired change it’s when it takes the values of a united music scene beyond social media and ‘IRL’.
Rewind to Berlin in 1989, and Dr Motte was hatching plans for Loveparade, a protest with a rallying cry of ‘Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen’, or ‘Peace, Joy, Pancakes’ set to a soundtrack of techno. In this time before the fall of the Berlin Wall, it created a movement without barriers, assembled with the sole aim of dancing for a better world. “Here, we all can move as we want,” roared Dr Motte during one of his many famous speeches. “We want to keep this place for ourselves, our children and all the others who will be on this planet after us.” It was a message that reached over 500,000 people at the party’s peak, helped bring the youth of a previously divided city together as a community and laid the foundations for the city’s thriving techno scene today.
When Section 63 of the Criminal Justice Act was introduced in the UK in 1994, it gave police the power to shut down events ‘characterised by repetitive beats’. DiY, a collective at the heart of the illegal but rousing rave scene responded by forming an alliance with other sound systems called All Systems Go, which aimed to raise funds and help young ravers get to London to participate in a series of three marches. As many as 50,000 people attended, all keen to contest the outdated policies set by an establishment not designed to serve them. The money raised contributed to fighting court cases, the movement itself helped change attitudes about rave culture that went on to legitimise it as a respected cultural movement.
More recently, in Tbilisi in Georgia, the so-called #RAVEolution saw thousands of young clubbers stand up for what they felt to be heavy handed policing and unfair drug enforcement. Taking to the streets after a raid on the city’s techno cathedral, Bassiani, they were emboldened by the club’s founders and resident DJs, as well as White Noise, proving to be the catalyst for a wave of wider protests that eventually resulted in the country’s Prime Minister resigning.
And individual DJs do have it within their power to make a difference. Blond:ish’s ByeByePlastic initiative has clearly added to the pressure on clubs and festivals to increase their sustainability. The Black Madonna, a fearless advocate for social issues online, is on the road right now with her ‘We Still Believe: Choose Love’ tour, raising both money and awareness for the plight of LGBTQI+ refugees around the world. Eris Drew and Octo Octa’s T4T LUV NRG, which toured a handful of global venues last year combined a message of positive inclusivity with a requirement for positive change in the venues they toured. For the party’s gig at Wire Club in Leeds, the venue hired a consultant to train the bar staff and security in issues impacting LGBTQI+ employees, performers and attendees. As well as this legacy with the venues on the tour, additional venues have also adopted the party’s non-exclusionary policy regarding the use of body imagery in advertising and decor. “Collective action is important to harness the apparatus of club culture for broader social impact,” they explain. “And our intention is to create lasting change.”
And sometimes just the act of creation can be activism in itself. Jeff Mills’ attitude, personal success and quiet rage against the machine alongside the likes of Underground Resistance challenged stereotypes about colour, culture and even geography. “Our goal was to bring attention to all the freedom techno music provides to anyone that’s trying to extend their ideas and voices to the rest of the world,” he says.
Mills believes that this present moment has the potential to be monumental in terms of world history, not just for individuals seeking atonement but for the planet and people as a whole. “We could do much more to address the issues facing society,” he muses. “But we’ve spent the past 30 years trying to prove the legitimacy of our actions and it’s really only in the past three years that people have a begun to understand why we chose to keep at it. Now perhaps by feeling more assured, we might then turn outwards to the rest of the world. This is my hope.”
As Jeff says, it’s essential to channel the boundless energy and verve for life embodied by club culture into an external force for good. Eris and Maya agree. “A life spent raving can make a person kinder towards others, connected with their heart, and connected with nature, but only if they let it.” The results can be a long time coming, but the fight is never less than worthwhile.
