We Out Here Festival Is A Win For Diversity
Impeccable curation across the board
Welcome back to Music Is The Answer, the rather intermittent newsletter helmed by myself Marcus Barnes. I do my best to keep this regular, but I have to admit it is tough - especially when there’s paid work to focus on.
Anyway, here’s another installment. This one takes the form of my older newsletters, with a variety of different parts to explore, rather than one single article. Please take time to digest everything here, it’s not meant to be devoured all at once. Modern life is so frantic, I want this to be absorbed at a leisurely pace.
Below you’ll find a little piece on the excellent We Out Here Festival, my (belated) monthly techno reviews + a mix, an interview with D Double E from my archives, a few mixes I’m digging right now and a cheeky little “One Last Tune”.
Let’s roll…
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RIP DJ Deeon and Alland Byallo
Before I begin, I wanted to say RIP to DJ Deeon and Alland Byallo. So sad to hear of their deaths in recent weeks.
I interviewed Alland a few years ago for Deep House London, and also wrote a press release for an EP he did for Real Tone, way back when. Read the interview here, we had a couple of back and forths via email so I didn’t get to actually speak to him but his personality really comes through I feel…
Deeon, of course, is a Chicago legend. His ghetto house workouts are classic.
Rest In Peace.
We Out Here Festival Is A Win For Diversity
Last Thursday I ventured down to Wimborne St. Giles in Dorset for the fourth edition of Gilles Peterson’s We Out Here Festival. I’d had it on my radar for a little while but never found the space in my life to pay a visit until this year. I’m including the festival in a piece I’m writing for Mixmag, but you’ll have to wait for that one…
Now Gilles himself has always been an advocate for diversity, particular when it comes to ethnicity and embracing music cultures all over the world. He’s always had a penchant for what we might call “black music”, across the board; jazz, afrobeat, hip hop, you name it. Gilles has a strong following, a rich history and he is a master selector and curator. All of this feeds into We Out Here and his other festival, Worldwide. Along with co-founder Noah Ball, Gilles and the rest of his team put together one of the best festivals I’ve been to in a long time. One of the most fundamental elements of a great festival is the crowd; the people it entices and the atmosphere cultivated by those same people.
I’ve been to a lot of festivals in my life, including the big ones like Glastonbury, and I can say unequivocally, We Out Here was the most ethnically diverse I have been to. Hands down. Age-wise, too, there was such a broad spectrum; from babies and little kids, to teenagers, all the way up to people in their sixties. I’ve seen this at Glasto as well, so it’s not necessarily unusual, but even so, this broad mix contributes to a balanced and harmonious energy. Which it did at We Out Here. It was a total joy seeing all of these different age groups interacting with the festival in their own way, and their energy crossing over at times - little kids weaving in and out of adult legs on the dance floor, for instance. I saw children dancing with their parents way past 10pm, which was really lovely and something I would love to do with my daughter one day. Very inspiring.
The big take away, though, was seeing so many black people at a camping festival. Some of you may be reading this thinking, “So what?”, but it really felt like a big deal. For those who are not familiar, there is a cultural barrier within black communities when it comes to camping. As much as that may sound like an ignorant generalisation, it does hold true for the majority. This means a lot of camping festivals are not as diverse as they could be. Going back to Glastonbury, it’s something that I have noticed every time I go. Huge attendance figures, but not as ethnically diverse as you might expect.
I actually spoke to Noah Ball about this back in 2020, when I interviewed him for a piece I wrote for Beatportal. “One of the barriers that we had at We Out Here was, culturally, that Black audiences don’t want to go camping,” he told me. “It does have a stigma attached to it in some cultures, so we had to try and navigate how to remove these barriers to people attending.”
This point was also mentioned in the piece by “Dee” from Decolonise Festival. “Multi-date festivals aren’t as appealing to Black people. I don’t know if there’s a way of making it less scary and pushing the facilities they have, but there’s got to be a way.”
Fears over hygiene and bad weather, combined with the financial outlay, mean that some (not all) black people aren’t always up for attending camping festivals. As Dee told me, “My cousin, for example, would say it isn’t worth £280 to go and sit in a field all day. Value for money isn’t really pushed. The horror stories about no toilets, no showers, standing out in the rain… you could have spent that money going to Spain.”
In that same piece, Noah spoke about the efforts he and the We Out Here team were making in order to redress the balance. “We worked with a lot of music groups such as Tomorrow’s Warriors and Urban Development and a handful of others in cities across the UK,” he revealed. “Through those groups we had a number of discounted glamping options, and for young people who potentially couldn’t afford the ticket price, we worked with these groups to provide reduced-price tickets or, in some cases, gifting tickets. Transport was [also] an issue for some people, so we organised buses. We’re still trying to work out how to do it better each time, but it’s certainly worked in some way.”
In that piece Noah also mentioned the distance from London, which was relative to their old site in Cambridge. Wimborne St. Giles, though, is pretty far from a lot of the UK’s bigger cities, which means you can’t really pop in there for a day. This makes the diversity at last week’s festival even more impressive. I really have to commend all the team behind the festival because it was so refreshing to see that many black and brown faces in the crowd. I generally feel comfortable anywhere, my skin colour doesn’t feel “unsafe” as it may for some. So my appreciation comes from the simple joy of witnessing different shades, and ages, of humanity enjoying the festival experience together. It really makes such a difference, and so many people I met there had similar feedback.
The music curation was impeccable too. So a big congratulations to all involved. I’m already planning to go back next year…
Techno Reviews: July
Yes, I know, we’re halfway through August. It’s been a very busy month, and so here are my reviews for July, plus a little mix to go with them. Enjoy!
Indie Blog Archives 009: D Double E
What can I say about this guy? One of the elders of the grime scene, unique, iconic, inimitable and pioneering. This interview is from November 2014.
Mixes I’m Digging Right Now
I am always always (always) listening to mixes. This year has been dominated by Lee Burridge, Anjunadeep and atmospheric/mellow 90s DnB.
Check these out…
Lee Burridge at Omnia Bali in Indonesia for Cercle
The Anjunadeep Edition 413 with Simon Doty
Tim Green Live at Music is 4 Lovers
Lee Burridge @ Robot Heart, Burning Man 2022
Anjunadeep 14 - Mixed By James Grant & Jody Wisternoff (Live from Qarraba Bay, Malta)
Artemis vs Shogun Mix (1995-2000)
Not a mix but a compilation of some of the greatest atmospheric, soulful DnB tracks from years gone by… Shout out to Mr. Fredericks for putting together a tracklist that contains pretty much every one of my favourites of that particular style!
‘Intelligent’ Drum & Bass - Selected Works Part 2 (1994-2000)
Check Part 1, as well.
This was MENTAL, and not all mellow… sometimes you’ve got bruck out!
Bou live From DnB Allstars 360°
One More Tune!
Ending this week’s newsletter with a total and utter classic from the hardcore days, which I posted recently on my Instagram. Follow, or search, the hashtag #mgbtuneoftheday on Instagram for all my Tune Of The Day recommendations.
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