Music
7 female-led collectives shaking up the UK club scene
By banding together and challenging the ingrained power structures of dance music, these DIY collectives are making the dancefloor a more diverse and inclusive place to be.
In the Normal Not Novelty radio show this month, host Kamilla Rose explores the rise of the collective – crews of female, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ artists that are addressing imbalances in the music industry by carving out their own creative spaces. She’s joined by 6 Figure Gang, one of the UK’s most exciting new collectives bringing an energy boost to bass-heavy scenes, plus DJ/producer Jubilee sits down to discuss why she’s pulling together a crew of her own.
Collectives are an empowering force. DIY to the core, they provide ways of sharing resources and creating opportunities in spaces that are free from discrimination and harassment. No two are the same: some champion arts across a range of disciplines, some focus on skills sharing and workshops, and others put on club nights. But they share similar visions of diversity, equality and inclusivity for both their members and the wider community.
As host Kamilla says, “it’s all about strength in numbers.” New York-based platform and booking agency Discwoman, for example, have been tearing down sexism and white supremacy within dance music 2014, flexing their core motto – “amplify each other” – to champion the artists on their roster and diversify electronic communities on a global scale. Queer, femme and non-binary forward collective ROOM 4 RESISTANCE, comprised of residents like rRoxymore and Doc Sleep, have made a similar impact in Berlin, building safer spaces on the dancefloor and tying together communities in the club.
In the UK, the past five years have seen an inspiring wave of new collectives that are championing and positively impacting marginalised groups in music and club scenes. Here are seven crews that should be on your radar.
1. 6 Figure Gang
6 Figure Gang
© Press
6 Figure Gang is a new alliance of six fast-rising UK selectors and producers: Sherelle, LCY (FKA L U C Y), Dobby, Yazzus, Jossy Mitsu and Fauzia. Joined together by friendship and a mutual affinity for all things bass, the collective was the result of a heady conversation in the smoking area of a club and it’s been on the accelerator ever since. 6 Figure Gang is all about bringing the energy, blending turbo-charged tunes with mad b2b2b2b2b2bs. Over barely a year, they’ve locked in Rinse FM residencies and sold out shows across the UK, while their own careers have also boomed to the forefront of the UK scene. Proof that joining together and pooling your talent helps amplify each other indeed and, as they tell Kamilla, proof of that old adage that “if you do stuff with your friends, you can get shit done and have fun doing it.”
2. Pxssy Palace
Pxssy Palace
© Courtesy of Pxssy Palace
The Pxssy Palace collective are leading the way in bringing a vision of utopia to London’s queer club scene. Their monthly parties are a paradisal blend of high-energy, anything-goes club music (provided by DJs like Arun and co-founder Nadine Artois), impeccable looks across the board and, crucially, robust safe space policies that prioritise queer womxn, non-binary and trans folk of colour. Buddy systems and taxis home are offered to those that need it, and the dancefloor is emphatically a space to let loose without judgement or harassment. The Pxssy Palace ecosystem is dedicated entirely to their community, and over their five years running have expanded out of the club to host talks and workshops geared towards skill-sharing, mental-health and more.
3. femme culture
femme culture release a new compilation, HeForShe Vol. 2
© Alex Lambert
femme culture was born from the idea of if it doesn’t exist for you, build it yourself. In 2016, London-based producer Elkka was frustrated with the boys club she was working within, so set up the femme culture label to release her own productions, provide a platform for underrepresented talent and, along with DJ Ludo who came onboard soon after, host high energy club nights across the city. The label is a treasure trove of forward thinking, percussion-heavy club sounds from artists like BADSISTA and Ariel Zetina, and they’ve curated fundraising compilations for the UN Women’s HeForShe campaign over the past few years, putting their community-focussed ethos of unifying and championing through music onto a global level. “It's about coming up together, using your position to empower one another,” Elkka said in an interview last year. “The only thing holding you back is you.”
4. VAJ.Power
Sofya Staune of VAJ.Power
© Khadija Moustafa
VAJ.Power began as a visual art project by two Glasgow School of Arts students, Holly McGowan and Sofya Staune, who wanted to collaborate on VJing projects and bring these into a club space. But not only did they recognise that the visual arts world is already a male- and white-dominated space, but that grime and bass nights in the city felt inaccessible too. So in December 2016 they started FUSE, a raucous coming-together of visual art and all things 140BPM that has shaken up the city’s club scene. Safer space policies are at the forefront of their vision, and they’ve had DJs like Sherelle and Sicaria Sound roll up from to join local artists like K4CIE and Nova Scotia The Truth for their parties since. They later launched an agency with the same MO: championing femme-presenting, gender non-conforming people and women in the diverse bass scene. Artists on their roster like Glasgow-based KLEFT and Chicago-born 2centavos are true powerhouses of this ethos.
5. BBZ
BBZ at Red Bull Music Academy Paths Unknown, 2017
© James North/Red Bull Content Pool
Think of UK collectives and BBZ might be one of the first that springs to mind. The South London crew are a force to be reckoned with, and over the past few years have carved out a thriving creative space for queer womxn, trans folk and non-binary people of colour in the city’s clubbing landscape. With a crew that includes DJ/producer Shy One, photographer and filmmaker Rhea, spoken word artist Kai among others, the power of BBZ spreads far across the arts world. Their yearly Alternative Graduate Show, for example, provides queer black artists the platform to exhibit work and network with press and the art world. But they also throw some of the capital’s best queer raves – and even linked up with Honey Dijon for a club night celebrating International Women’s Day earlier this year.
6. Concrete Jungyals
The Concrete Jungyals crew are on a mission to make clubbing safer, hassle-free, and more empowering to the women in the Bristol bass music scene and beyond. The crew of DJs, producers, vocalists and artists began hosting rough-and-ready parties across the city, providing a platform for DJs like LCY (fka L U C Y), Kiia and Asterix to work their talent on the decks for open, harassment-free dancefloors. Their energy quickly proliferated sending ripples across the city, bagging them a residency on local independent station 1020 Radio and the crew slots at festivals like Boomtown, Love Saves The Day and even hosting a stage at Hospitality on the Beach in Croatia last year.
7. Equaliser
Equaliser was founded on the premise that womxn, non-binary and trans people should have the opportunity to learn how to DJ in a collaborative, comfortable spaces. The collective offer free DJing workshops on a monthly basis, providing budding DJs the skills and confidence to go and kill it in the club. It’s a collaborative project to its very core, and they’ve had guest workshops hosted by DJs like Moxie, Octo Octa and Eris Drew. Crucially, their workshops are free and funded by club nights they host all over Leeds that are soundtracked by a strong crew of residents (like Lucy Locket and founder Slowcoook) and sets from international artists Yaeji, even skipping across the globe to China for parties with Yu Su and CCL. “It’s given us a sense of visibility,” said crew member Zoya in an interview last year, “and through that we’ve met so many more non cis-male DJs in and around our city.”
Now listen to L U C Y, DJ Storm, Mantra and more in a drum'n'bass-focused episode of The fabric Show