music is the answer

reflections

Untangling chains of complicity: music festivals during genocide by Darío Karim Pomar Azar

This week I read Darío Karim Pomar Azar’s insightful piece about the boycott campaign targeted at Superstruct Entertainment/KKR-owned festivals such as Brockwell Park’s Field Day.

As I’ve previously written about, the private equity firm KKR funds Israeli property management and data center firms, being directly complicit in the occupation of Palestinian land and the subjugation of the Palestinian people. This taints events like Field Day and the shocking 80+ other global festivals that KKR owns. It encapsulates the way our sources of enjoyment are intrinsically tied to repressive systems via capital.

This also raises further questions about the corporate nature of live music, and how this toxic relationship looms over the supposed inclusivity and power of such important cultural spaces.

abs (always be strategic)

Darío spoke to campaigners from the Sisu Crew DJ collective, who were booked to play Field Day but instead pulled out to organise a boycott, which resulted in over 20 other artists withdrawing from the festival in protest.

One thing that struck me in how they organised the boycott was their strategic deployment of tactics.

They didn’t publicly call for a boycott the moment that the nature of Field Day’s ownership became apparent. They opted first for a dialogue with the festival’s organisers in good faith. When that failed to get a response, they penned an open letter urging Field Day to distance itself from KKR, signed by big names in the industry such as Massive Attack and Brian Eno, to encourage a meeting – which also never happened.

Only once they had explored these other avenues, did they push for a boycott. This mirrors a staged escalation strategy, used in activism to increase the publicity and effectiveness of a coordinated campaign, with an achievable end-goal – in this case, the festival’s distancing or divestment from KKR.

Being strategic about where we place our people power is a crucial part of successful organising. It is a cornerstone of how the BDS movement operates, of course. The world has lots of shit to oppose, but we need to harness our collectivity in specific directions, lest we just throw paint at the wall.

It’s the reason why there’s not a call to boycott every single KKR-owned festival – the logistics and effectiveness of doing so, and how to communicate this to a large audience as a tactic, is simply not feasible. Targets need a pinpoint, not a splatter.

the campaign is never over

Darío’s piece speaks to the larger aims of boycott movements – building a space that goes beyond the current moment. It’s not just about one instance of one festival, it’s about the future of all live music, the type of socialising we want to do, and the type of society we want to build. Expect more of these questions about the funding and ownership of large events, more disruption and more volatility, until justice is reached for the Palestinian people. It is our generation’s rallying cry for global justice.

As someone obsessed with live music, it should be us and those involved in the industry, that make the music, who are at the forefront of targeted boycotts. That’s why I don’t want the movement to boycott complicit music events to be seen as some kind of anti-joy campaign, if anything it’s a call to make our experiences more meaningful, more momentous, and ultimately more real.

Let’s divest our scene from these investment ghouls. It will do everyone some good.

The revolution will have bread, and roses too. And dancing! But let’s celebrate with a clean conscience: unforgettable nights and collective liberation. Tasty.

~ Tommy

smirk of the week 😏

offbeat optics

Bears raid honey store after enclosure escape

Two European brown bears escaped their enclosure in a British wildlife park, sparking an evacuation of guests and the deployment of armed staff. Luckily, the only casualty was a vast quantity of honey. Yes, the bears broke free and went straight to the honey store to absolutely raid it. Bears gon’ bear.