Transmission in Conversation

Politics of the Dance Floor: Transmission in Conversation

What’s class got to do with it? This time we were joined by Kalaf Epalanga and Hunee in a conversation about class, access, responsibility and about maybe one of the hardest topics in our individualist consumerist society uptodate - money. It is a first start and we acknowledge the inevitable shortcomings and gaps talking about such broad topics; we are planning to extend the conversations. If you want to share resources or ideas you are very welcome doing so. Thank you to both of our guests for sharing their stories and ideas. Especially during the last year the necessity to talk about our different positionalities in society at large but especially within the ecosystem of the dance music industry became more relevant (or obvious) than probably ever before. In all debates, articles, call outs, posts and discussions one thing became very apparent to us: "the" music industry very slowly works towards recognizing issues of gender and race but is still very much staying silent on class and classism and especially on different economic positionings of people involved in the scene. That involves (not) talking about artists fees, who gets paid (what) and who doesn't, who lives of art they did not create (by streaming/playing the music at gigs/ distribute it in other ways (remixing, sampling...)) without acknowledging the origins of sounds and especially acknowledging and supporting the struggle of different communities in getting their artistic voices heard and being paid for their work. Stepping out of our comfort zone entails deconstructing the individualism that is appreciated in current celebrity culture. We want to discuss the bigger social context and culture that values individual success, leaves us focussing on our own forthcoming (especially within the DJ scene that is so subjectively ego-focussed) and does make it hard to connect, expand and think in a more communal way when it comes to access, accountability and money. We strongly believe we have to normalise talking about money and our complex and context related class identities in order to create more awareness, equity and opportunities for all. Hunee: https://soundcloud.com/hunee Kalaf: kalafepalanga.com twitter: @kalaf In this episode: Cesaria Evora - Angola (Carl Craig Mix) The Individual You from Age of Individualism by T.J. Hustler Metaphysical Synthesized Orchestra K-Hand - Untitled A1 Paul Johnson - Hear the Music Bilgisaray Mahalle Wer hat, der gibt - Bündnis für Umverteilung Is dance music too middle class? | DJMag.com