Afro Punk London 2016

Afro Punk London is finally here, for the last four years I have secretly been watching the amazing footage from Afro Punk in America wishing and wondering when Afro Punk would grace the land of the United Kingdom then on a summers day in June 2016 I heard the news, Afro Punk was coming to London Yay! On 24^th September 2016 to be exact I was beyond happy, I was ecstatic.

Afro Punk London is important I grew up as a teen in the 1990’s going to local events in London called “All dayers” they were all day events held during the summer in the outdoors at parks such as Brockwell Park in South London and Hackney Downs Park in East London there were many more but I can’t remember them all there were at least five major all dayers that I would attend each year.

The all dayers were filled with rhythmic music pumping through the Caribbean style sound systems spinning many genres Soul, Hip hop, Reggae, Soca, Raga, and Jungle.

Musically the UK is a very special place because I don’t know anywhere in the world where so many different genres of music have been invented in such a short space of time, within my lifetime I have heard the musical inventions of:

Lover’s rock

Rare Groove

Dub

Acid Jazz

Jungle

Drum & bass

Garage

Grime

I have been fortunate to have grown up in such creative time in music it helped me to expand my own mind creatively to creating unique fashionable designs.

The all dayers was a time and space for me and other revellers to dance to my favourite music while wearing super fly fashions that represented me as an individual and my crew a platform to show off and express who I am, who I really was because most of the time outside of these all dayers and places like them I was constantly being told to conform, to fit in, basically not to express who I was or my culture and this still happens to this day.

Then one day the all dayers dwindled away not sure when or why this happened but they just disappeared for years and for a place like the Uk that seems to be this melting pot of creativity it was a huge loss.

Today there are many musical festivals but none representing people of African descent that’s why Afro Punk London is so important to the UK we finally get our all dayers back but on a much bigger scale there are obvious differences such as you have to pay to get in, AfroPunk is held inside a building Alexandra Palace or Ally Pally to us Londoner’s but the point is we now have a platform for us to express who we are with no apology, a platform just for us.

To me Afro Punk London 2016 is a very historic event for black British music and fashion and I’m proud to say I was there.

www.afropunk.com

Stay beautiful,

Shantel MamMaw.

Fashion & music saved my life… FOR REAL!