Thanks for that perspective. I am speaking from a cis gendered white hetero male perspective… my privilege means I don’t need to feel protected by the safe haven the dance world can provide, so I didn’t fully respect what it can mean to others.
photos only I think
I didn’t really understand either until I was older - it’s really easy to take for granted when you don’t have to think about it, I just went out dancing and got the occasional disco snog when I was 18 and it wasn’t until I was older I realised how different my experience of clubbing was to other people.
Have you read ‘This is Serbia Calling’ by Matthew Collin?
Blurb on the back - This is the story of B92, the Belgrade radio station - a courageous group of young people who grew up in the Serbian capital under Slobodan Milosevic’s repressive rule. They waged a 10-year campaign for freedom, armed only with a radio transmitter, some rock ‘n’ roll records, and a dream of truth, justice and another kind of life.
It’s by the same author who wrote ‘Altered State’.
The music they played is a real mix that reflects various 90s music scenes, but ‘dance’ music was well represented - from Screamadelica, Massive Attack, Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, St Germain, Underworld, Roni Size, Daft Punk etc. All pretty mainstream sounds obviously, but the whole book has a political/revolutionary tone.
I think a lot of the labels at the time (I know I did) used to send that station records… I’ve forgotten the main dance djs name but he was super proactive.
Vlada Janjic?
First time I heard of B92 was the KLFs one world orchestra track. Didn’t realise there was a book on it, have just ordered a copy.
I can’t remember his name. He was very good at getting in touch with labels though.
i did my masters thesis a while ago on commercialisation in dance music. bit of a mistake as it was really just me wanting to slate off other types of music. but got some good reading out of it. you might want to explore sarah thornton’s club cultures. it’s a really good read but gives less of a political affiliation to anything directly.
I have read A Change is Gonna Come and it is excellent. Broad and deep.