With Black Techno Matters, Bernard Farley Uses Music To Fuel Revolution

With Black Techno Matters, Bernard Farley Uses Music To Fuel Revolution

This is one of the most dramatic images taken since the police killing of George Floyd during a protest in June 2020. Black man in black clothes and white mask, hanging, throwing yellow flowers. A police flank protected by Plexiglas echoes a flower power photo taken 50 years ago.

"I'm not afraid of you. What are you going to do?" - Bernard Farley, the subject of the photo, remembered this moment and said: "Seeing this photo changed me because I think I saw something in myself that I had never seen before."

In the days that followed, Farley marched through DC, playing black techno music. Bonaventure's song "Supremacy" is particularly memorable, with its Insanity-esque vocals, metallic synths and Sister Souljah samples echoing off buildings. and "Whose Streets?" our ways"

“That's when I realized [techno] is more than a party, you know? We want to change the ways of society, especially the views and expectations of black people, he said.

During these stressful times in the summer of 2020, a mission crystallized Farley, a multidisciplinary artist who makes music and DJs under the label B_X_R_N_X_R_D, thought about it before the protests, before the pandemic. He founded Black Techno Matters when a Google search for black techno artists turned up less information than the artists who created the sound in the 1980s.

Black Techno Matters aims to reclaim techno as a representation of black expression in the URL and IRL spaces. For much of the outbreak, the organization was forced to abandon one-on-one parties to showcase black techno artists around the world, using its Instagram account and Spotify playlists. When live events returned, the band held Techno in the Park events at Meridian Hill Park and planned a big celebration for June 19, 2022.

In addition to DC, the now eight-member Black Techno Affair has held events in San Francisco and Los Angeles, with more cities planned for 2023. The twin Martin Luther King Day events in DC and San Francisco aim to continue King's work. . New ways. A journey to the future revealed through decolonized societies and dance floors.

"I use this idea of ​​'black fire' and that's what I see," Farley says of the Black Techno Matters movement. "I just want it to get out of hand."

Show up at the announced secret location when you buy tickets on January 15th at 10am. eventbrite.com . 30 dollars

Correction

An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed one of two events to Martin Luther King Jr. Day attributed. The story has been edited.

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