Chew Disco was a queer feminist art and cultural activism project founded in Liverpool, England in 2009 by Emma Obong and Khalil West. [1] Initially a series of club nights and house parties, it was known for its DIY ethos and aesthetics, the diversity of its performers and programmes, and political advocacy. Owing to the sexual flexibility and playfulness of its atmosphere, "large-scale art installations and live performance art", and emphasis on dancing, its live events and parties garnered comparisons to The Factory and DUMBA. [2] [3] [4] Bringing together both "queer icons" and a range of underground artists to raise money for grassroots initiatives for women, girls, and sexual minorities worldwide, the flagship party expanded into multiple forms and sites of live performance, curatorial work, exhibition, clubbing, and community activism, cementing its legacy "as one of Britain’s most important queer projects". [5] [1] [6] [7]
External videos | |
---|---|
Interview with Khalil West for Tate Liverpool’s ‘’You Are Here - A Pop-Up Museum of LGBT+ History’’, YouTube video | |
Vaginal Davis says hello to Liverpool, YouTube video |
West and Obong met shortly after's West's relocation from New Jersey to Liverpool in 2006. In early 2009, the duo conceived Chew Disco as an alternative to both the city's gay quarter and its DIY and punk music scenes, directing their explicit focus to political partying, sexual and racial inclusivity, and musical diversity. [8] [1]
The club night was launched on 7 August 2009. [9] [10] From 2009 to 2016, the live event hosted performances by more than 40 bands, musicians, DJs, and multidisciplinary artists, including Vaginal Davis, Trash Kit, Mykki Blanco, Cakes da Killa, Shopping, Joey Fourr, MR TC, Queer’d Science, and Optimo Music acts Golden Teacher and Shift Work. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Funds raised through many of the events were donated to various LGBTQ+ and women's and girl's rights organisations, including Iraqi LGBT, the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organization (IKWRO), Icebreakers Uganda (part of Sexual Minorities Uganda), International Railroad for Queer Refugees, Panzi Hospital, and Coming Out (Russia). [16] [8] [1] By 2011, the project had begun to collaborate as stage and film curators with more formal arts institutions, collectives and festivals, including Islington Mill, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT), Cheryl, Homotopia, Abandon Normal Devices, and Sounds From The Other City. [11] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]
The party has been described as the “best alternative night in town” and was heavily influenced by Obong's Black feminist politics, West's formative years in the queer and punk club spaces of New Jersey and New York City's East Village, as well as their shared interests in hip hop, queercore, house, and post-punk music, scenes and movements. [23] [8] [1] The project's general design aesthetic drew equally heavily on American b-movies, underground or “cult” cinema, and vintage pulp paperbacks, and elements of its flagship events included free mix tapes, go-go dance performances (often incorporating fake blood and found objects), and “secret” afterparties. [8] [1] [24] [6] [25]
Parties, Live Events and Screenings |
2016
2015
20142013
2012
2011
2010
2009
|
Main, Support and Guest DJ Sets |
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2012
2011
2010
|
External videos | |
---|---|
I Am For You Can Enjoy: Excerpts from selected interviews, YouTube video | |
I Am For You Can Enjoy - Opening at FACT, Homotopia 2016, YouTube video |
Following the relocation of Obong to Berlin in 2015, the project entered hiatus. Between 2015 and 2019, the two continued to sporadically collaborate and DJ both as a duo and independently in the UK and Berlin. [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]
In 2015, West began an Arts Council funded multimedia collaboration with British artist Ajamu X. The project, I Am For You Can Enjoy, combines West's video oral history interviews with Ajamu's portraits to explore the lived experiences of queer, Black, male and masculine-identified sex workers. [32] [33]
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.
In mammals, the vagina is the elastic, muscular part of the female genital tract. In humans, it extends from the vestibule to the cervix. The outer vaginal opening is normally partly covered by a thin layer of mucosal tissue called the hymen. At the deep end, the cervix bulges into the vagina. The vagina allows for sexual intercourse and birth. It also channels menstrual flow, which occurs in humans and closely related primates as part of the menstrual cycle.
Vaginal Davis is an American performing artist, painter, independent curator, composer, filmmaker and writer. Born intersex and raised in South Central, Los Angeles, Davis gained notoriety in New York during the 1980s, where she inspired the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn's prevalent drag scene as a genderqueer artist. She currently resides in Berlin, Germany.
The Coral are an English rock band, formed in 1996 in Hoylake on the Wirral Peninsula, Merseyside. The band emerged during the early 2000s. Their 2002 debut album The Coral, from which came the single "Dreaming of You", was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and listed as the fourth best album of the year by NME. Their second album, Magic and Medicine (2003), produced four UK Top 20 singles, including "Pass It On". In 2008, after guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones left the band, they continued as a five-piece.
The International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) is observed on May 17 and aims to coordinate international events that raise awareness of LGBT rights violations and stimulate interest in LGBT rights work worldwide. By 2016 the commemorations had taken place in over 130 countries.
The Pride Quarter, also known as the Stanley Street Quarter, Liverpool Gay Quarter or Village, is an area within Liverpool City Centre, England. It serves as the main focal point for Liverpool's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The quarter is made up of mixed use developments including residential blocks, hotels, bars, nightclubs and various other businesses, many of which cater for the LGBT community. Aspects of the annual Liverpool Pride are also held in and around Stanley Street.
LGBT representations in hip hop music have existed since the birth of the genre even while enduring blatant discrimination. Due to its adjacency to Disco, the earliest days of hip hop had a close relation to LGBT subcultures, and multiple LGBT DJs have played a role in popularizing hip hop. Despite this early involvement, hip hop has long been portrayed as one of the least LGBT-friendly genres of music, with a significant body of the genre containing homophobic views and anti-gay lyrics, with mainstream artists such as Eminem and Tyler, the Creator having used homophobia in their lyrics. Attitudes towards homosexuality in hip hop culture have historically been negative, with slang that uses homosexuality as a punchline such as "sus", "no homo", and "pause" being heard in hip hop lyrics from some of the industry's biggest artists. Since the early 2000s there has been a flourishing community of LGBTQ+ hip hop artists, activists, and performers breaking barriers in the mainstream music industry.
Cody Critcheloe, known by the stage name SSION, is a multifaceted audiovisual artist embodying music, video directing, painting, and live performance. SSION has released several records and has collaborated with Róisín Murphy, Sky Ferreira, Ariel Pink, and Hood By Air. He has directed music videos for Robyn, Perfume Genius, Yves Tumor, Santigold, and King Princess, and has exhibited artwork internationally. SSION is used as a moniker for Critcheloe's multimedia practice. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+(LGBTQ+)music is music that focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities as a product of the broad gay liberation movement.
Topher Campbell is a filmmaker, artist and writer who has created a range of works in broadcasting, film, theatre, television and performance. His works focus on issues of sexuality, masculinity, and the city, particularly in relation to race, human rights and climate change. Campbell is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a past recipient of the Jerwood Directors Award (2005). He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Sussex for his work in the arts and Black LGBTQ advocacy. He is currently Programme Director of the Collaborative Theatre Making programme at Rose Bruford College in London.
Pride in Liverpool, is an annual festival of LGBT culture which takes place across various locations in Liverpool City Centre including the gay quarter. Audience numbers reach up to 75,000 people, making it one of the largest free Gay Pride festivals in Europe.
The LGBT community in Liverpool, England is one of the largest in the United Kingdom and has a recorded history since the 18th century. Many historic LGBT firsts and pioneering moments in the LGBT rights movement either took place in Liverpool or were achieved by citizens of the city.
Homotopia is an international LGBTQ+ arts festival held annually in Liverpool, England. The festival takes place in late-October and throughout November every year and features a mixture of theatre, dance, film, photography, art, cabaret and debate at numerous venues across Liverpool.
Rod Thomas is a Welsh independent singer-songwriter, based in New York. Bright Light Bright Light incorporates many elements of nu-disco into his music, also branching into synthpop, dance and house music. Two of his albums have reached the top 20 on the UK Independent Albums Chart.
Mykki Blanco is an American rapper, performance artist, poet and activist. She has collaborated musically with artists including Kanye West, Teyana Taylor, and Blood Orange.
Simona Castricum is an Australian musician, DJ, broadcaster and architecture academic.
Ajamu X is a British artist, curator, archivist and activist. He is best known for his fine art photography which explores same-sex desire, and the Black male body, and his work as an archivist and activist to document the lives and experiences of black LGBTQ people in the United Kingdom (UK).
Ajamu Sibeko Baraka is an American political activist. In 2016, he was the Green Party nominee for Vice President of the United States on the ballot in 45 states and received 1,457,216 votes.
285 KENT was an "underground," all ages concert venue located at 269-289 Kent Avenue, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The venue was founded and operated by Todd Patrick aka "Todd P", beginning in 2010, ultimately closing in 2014 to much fanfare and media coverage. The venue was initially booked and exclusively managed by Patrick, later in partnership with Ric Leichtung, who created the event promotion entity AdHoc.fm, an offshoot of a music journalism website of the same name, to book the venue.
The United Kingdom has a number of gay villages. Bigger cities and metropolitan areas are most popular as they are deemed to be more tolerant and tend to have "a history of progressive local government policy towards supporting and financing LGBTQ-friendly initiatives." There is also a noted circular pattern of migration, whereby once areas have established a reputation as somewhere LGBT people live, more LGBT people are drawn there. LGBT-inclusive areas of UK towns and cities tend to be defined by "a distinct geographic focal point, a unique culture, a cluster of commercial spaces" and sometimes a concentration of residences. It is thought that LGBT-inclusive areas help towns and cities in the UK to prosper economically, but some believe the building of such areas creates an isolating effect on some LGBT people who want to blend in.