#decolonise fest

[clatterbane]

Decolonise Fest: the only place you'll find Kenyan punk rock and US post-punk on the same bill

Decolonise Fest are about to embark on their fourth annual event – although this year it's all looking a little different. Organiser Stephan

Decolonise Fest, an annual, non-profit DIY punk festival organised by and for punx of colour, will be holding a week-long event from September 1-6 featuring workshops, shows, and panels. Now in their fourth year after launching in 2017, Decolonise secured funding from Arts Council England to ensure that they could bring their inclusive, community-led festival to POC who love punk across the world – and it’s all free.

While all are welcome to attend Decolonise Fest, its goal is to advocate for emerging artists of colour and to centre the experience of music fans of colour, creating a community for them to meet and enjoy punk together. As well as panels and workshops, the festival will include artists from all over the world who would have performed at the live festival, including Kenyan punk band Crystal Axis, New Orleans punks Special Interest, and PRNCSS, an electronic synth punk artist from London...

Decolonise Fest will be taking place online on 1-6 September. Head to their official site for more info

[decolonisefest]

New bands added: Birthgiver & Immigranti

Following our announcement about Anatomy and Crystal Axis not being able to play this year’s festival, we are pleased to announce that Birthgiver and Immigranti will instead be joining us. Get your tickets for the 2019 Decolonise Fest. Support our crowdfunder to bring Weedrat (Albuquerque) to the festival.

[blackrockandrollmusic-blog]

Women of color have always had a place in punk. Big Joanie is here to remind you of that.

You've never heard “No Scrubs” quite like you've heard Big Joanie sing “No Scrubs.” On a rainy October evening, the black feminist punk trio reimagined TLC’s R&B manifesto as a torrid battle cry, emphasizing the lyrics’ pro-woman dissection of space, power, and consent.

Does she want your number? “NO!” bellowed drummer Chardine Taylor-Stone, to a rapt audience at London’s sticky-floored rock venue The Dome, where the band was opening for Downtown Boys and Priests.

She dedicated the song to “all the women of color in the room, and to all survivors of sexual harassment and sexual violence,” and stood bolt upright while striking a tom drum and snare. Electricity whipped through the room — the kind that makes your skin prickle.

Big Joanie is the sort of band you get to a show early for. In the past three years, the London-based group has self-released three rough-hewn EPs on their own imprint, Sistah Punk, each one featuring songs that blend tangling post-punk guitar lines, spit-shined hooks, and a “sprinkling,” Chardine says, of black liberation politics.

Their most recent EP’s knotty title track, “Crooked Room,” took inspiration from a lecture by Seattle-born writer Melissa Harris-Perry, who compared life as a black woman in a white patriarchy to trying to find a true vertical in a room where all the angles are out of whack.

“That’s exactly what it is,” Steph Phillips, Big Joanie’s lead vocalist and guitarist, says when we meet in a cozy cafe near South London’s Caribbean Brixton Market. “[Society] distorts the world around us to try and make us see things not as they are, or to try and make us fail.” [Read More]

[poc-punx]

SBSM @ Decolonise Fest

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[bigjoanie]

Photos from the Decolonise Fest fundraiser at The Unicorn on Friday 4th November. Images courtesy of Elise Rose Photography.

[decolonisefest]

Decolonise Fest to host panel on East Asian female experience in punk

We are so excited to announce our first panel discussion at this year's Decolonise Fest!💜🖤 Little China Girl: Exploring the East Asian Female Experience in the White Punk Scene. Featuring: Miki Berenyi (Lush/Piroshka), Momoe Tasker (Guttfull/Immigranti), Camille Fry (Stanfield/The Whooperups) & Whiskey Chow (radical performance artist). Come along at 2pm on Sunday 30th June and hear our speakers talk about their experience of fetishisation, family expectations and challenging the submissive stereotype as a punk performer. Get your tickets here.

[decolonisefest]

Here is our full lineup for Decolonise Fest 2019! We cannot wait!

Get your tickets here NOW.

SATURDAY 25/06: Best Praxis Crystal Axis (Nairobi, Kenya) Electric Fire HANDLE Screaming Toenail th'sheridans

SUNDAY 26/06: ANATOMY - band Big Joanie CECILIA Power Balance (Madrid, Spain) Weedrat (Albuquerque, US) Whitelands

+ Workshops both days! + Food both days! + Afterparty on Saturday night!

If you can't make it, you can support us by donating/sharing our crowdfunder.

[decolonisefest]

Bands callout for Decolonise Fest 2018!

We’re looking for punx of colour/bands with punx of colour to play Decolonise Fest 2018. If you’re interested or if there’s anyone you’d like to see play, email us at decolonisefest at gmail dot com with a link to your music (and subject line “Band submission”) <3