Siete figuras pioneras comparten reflexiones y experiencias a raíz de Black Lives Matter. Por Marcus Barnes.
British electronic music is often presented through one-dimensional narratives that skew the complex history and development of scenes, communities and genres. There are personalities, clubs, cities and stories that dominate, obscuring the contributions of many others, whose names are, for numerous reasons, lesser-known. They say history is written by the winners. In this case, history has been written by those who have, consciously or unconsciously, obtained power and influence by virtue of the colour of their skin. The myths we all know don’t tell the full story and, sadly, many of them exclude the significant contributions made by members of the Black community.
When George Floyd was murdered in May 2020, his death sparked the tinderbox that had been ready to blow for a long, long time. The pain and anguish endured through decades and decades of racial oppression, abuse and inequality exploded into mass protest and a universal demand for change. Real change. The kind of change that takes constant, conscious effort. Work. The kind of change that makes those in positions of power feel uncomfortable and desperate to cling on to it at whatever cost. The kind of change that makes the privileged feel threatened. That change is happening now.
Slowly but surely people have been waking up and finally taking notice of what Black people have been trying to tell them for years. We matter. “All lives matter,” they say in response. Yes they do. But right now there are millions that haven’t felt like they’ve mattered. Ever. Since the day they were born.
The UK’s diverse and vibrant electronic music scene is globally recognised for its influence and innovation. When dance music as we now know it began to develop, many of those at its inception were Black. The pioneers of house, techno, jungle and bleep were captivated by the new electronic sounds of the ‘80s. Their histories interlinked through a shared passion for music and interconnected styles—jazz funk and rare groove, soul, electro, hip-hop, reggae. The roots had already taken hold and they were Black. Soundsystem culture, DJing and the notion of “dance music,” before it became electronic, were core tenets of Black club culture.
Over in America, communities on the fringes of society—Black, Latino, gay—formed their own safe spaces and musical movements. When tracks like “Planet Rock” and Cybotron’s “Clear” made it to UK shores, along with early house cuts by artists like Larry Heard and Chip E, they captivated a small, disparate group of music lovers who immediately envisioned the future through these new styles of electronic music. It was fringe music, shunned by the rare groove and funk heads.
Going against the grain to embrace this future music, artists like Colin Dale, Kid Batchelor, Fabio & Grooverider and other pioneers laid the foundations for what would become a world-famous, hugely influential music industry. Hailing from across the UK—London, Bristol, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Nottingham—Black DJs were, along with their white counterparts, the catalysts behind the genesis of the nation’s electronic music revolution.
In this piece, we’ll hear from some of British electronic music culture’s Black originators. Each person presents a perspective on their personal and social history, the impact of the malevolent, yet often invisible, effect of systemic racism on UK dance music, plus their thoughts on the present moment, in the wake of BLM. It’s hopefully an opportunity for the artists to broaden the narrative, and for readers to learn more about the multicultural, multi-faceted origins of the music we all know and love.
Fabio & Grooverider
Grooverider: [Pre-rave] you rock up with two other Black guys you’re not getting into the club, no matter what club you’re going to in London. If you don’t know a bouncer you’re not getting in. I’ve had people deny me because they didn’t like my aftershave, that’s how pitiful it was back then.
Fabio: Our introduction to acid house involved that kind of shit. We went to Spectrum, which was at Heaven. It was the seminal acid house night at the time. We were stood outside for an hour and a half before we got in. We talk about this night a lot, but we were only in there for 45 minutes because we spent so long waiting outside to get in. This is how bad it was; we’re two guys from Brixton, we don’t mess about, but we were willing to do that because it was so ingrained in your subconscious that this is what you do as a Black man. You’ve got to wait around and if the bouncer feels sorry for you you might get in.
Grooverider: We grew up in an era when Love Thy Neighbour [a famously racist TV show] was on primetime TV. The Black guy got called “sambo” on TV and it was normal, the black and white minstrels. This is what we grew up with.
Fabio: We’d been going to clubs for a long time before acid house. I remember it got to a stage where, for the first time, as a Black man, you didn’t see colour anymore. Half my friends in acid house were white, maybe even more than that, but you never felt like it was a thing. At the soul clubs, the Black guys would dance and the white guys would stand at the bar, there wasn’t any mixing. But acid house was different.
Grooverider: You didn’t think about colour. The music was that strong you didn’t even notice. Music has always been there, and people have always loved it, but it never hit as hard as it did during that period.
Fabio: Jungle was a new take on everything, that’s what was exciting about it. Those records you grew up listening to, people fucked them up, whether it was a funk sample, jazz… We could relate to it because we’d heard those samples before, in rare groove clubs. We’ve got to give a shout out to Rapattack, Funkadelic Soul Sound and Soul II Soul because those guys started that whole warehouse thing just before acid house came along. Parties like Shake ‘n’ Fingerpop, all those kinds of things, they were popping off.
Grooverider: Don’t forget about Barry B.
Fabio: Yeah Barry B! There’s some legends that don’t get the love. Guys we looked up to, names that aren’t spoken about everyday, but growing up in South London you had local legends. People like Barry B. No one talks about him but he was a G. Me and Groove used to worship him.
Grooverider: He was the first guy I heard mixing two records together. Not in the hip-hop style—proper mixing. He was the template for me, I’d never heard that before. I was like, ‘Hold on a minute, this guy’s making a third tune out of those two tunes. How the fuck does he do that?!’ Blew my mind. Never forget Steve Jackson as well.
Then there were the soundsystems. There’s a whole other side to DJing and that’s selecting. When we were growing up, we weren’t listening to people mixing. Our heroes would be able to construct a set and, at the end of the night, we’d leave thinking, ‘They killed it,’ just because of the selection. Some DJs we grew up with could tell a story purely by selecting the tunes, no mixing at all. Alistair from Rapattack, oh my God, that guy was a selector! He’d play a tune from start to finish, then play the next tune, and it was like you were listening to a mix.
Grooverider: You can’t help but respect everyone that’s come through with you because we know the struggle and how hard it was, especially as Black people. We gained a lot of trust, people loved us but also respected us as human beings.
Fabio: When we got into the scene it was very, very white. Sometimes we’d be the only Black guys on the lineups. We were the first Black guys to play on the main stage at Heaven. We broke down a lot of barriers, we went out there in a world that was not overly populated by Black people and smashed it. We brought a little edge to Rage. It was a bit stush when we first started playing there. It was purist and we kinda changed it up. Then it got a little bit too ghetto but… [laughs].
