(Non-)Visibilities of Black music culture in Berlin’s club culture.
A little bit of history
Latest Events
Emergent Bass 16/09
Emergent Bass
(Non-)Visibilities of Black music culture in Berlin’s club culture.
Emergent Bass
Emergent Bass
Emergent Bass
TAG DER CLUBKULTUR: Mensch Meier
EMERGENT BASS #3
EMERGENT BASS #2
Emergent Bass #1
Emergent Bass 09/23
Media
Here you can find selected press reports about Emergent Bass.
Tag der Clubkultur 2021
Emergent Bass ist eine der zwanzig Gewinnerinnen des Preises für besondere Verdienste im Rahmen der Berliner Clubkultur im Jahr 2021. Der TAG DER CLUBKULTUR wurde 2020 ins Leben gerufen, um die Vielfalt & Bedeutung der Berliner Clubkultur hervorzuheben. Der Preis, der durch die Berliner Clubcomission und den Berliner Senat vergeben wird, …
Taz: “Racism in Berlin clubs”
For the first event of Emergent Bass, we talked to Taz about the history of electronic music and how important the visibility of afro-diasporic artists and influences is for Berlin.
Radio1: Sommergarten 2021, Interview
Karo and Malonda were guests on Radio1's Sommergarten - they talked about Berlin's club and culture scene and how important event series like Emergent Bass are. You can tune in here.
Taz: “Berlin is alive!”
Berlin is very alive and the first Emergent Bass is about to start, here you can find an announcement of our event series in the newspaper Taz
TIP Berlin: “Who owns the night?”
Why club culture needs to be structured to be safer, especially for queers, BIPoC and FLINTA* (women, lesbians, inter-, trans- and agender people) and what are the processes that have already been initiated in order to become that safer space for all.
Taz: Die Geburt der modernen Tanzmusik
Über das Weißwaschen der Geschichte elektronischer Musik findest du in der Taz einen interessanten Artikel was für am Besipiel Frankfurts
Resources
Hier findest du weiterführende Links, Artikel und Materialien rund um die Themen:
Rassismus in der Berliner Clublandschaft, die Geschichte von Techno & House, afro-diasporische Rhythmen und Perspektiven, Archivarbeit, Subkultur und viele mehr…
Viel Spaß beim Stöbern!
A glimpse into the archive of youth cultures
If you want to start looking for clues about the role of Black people, POC or queer people in German club culture and the techno scene, you can start researching in archives and libraries that preserve sources from and about pop and subculture. Magazines and fanzines, flyers and posters, photos and video recordings are some of the materials that …
About EOTO
Each One Teach One (EOTO) e.V. is a community-based education and empowerment project in Berlin. Founded in 2012, the association opened its doors in March 2014 as a neighbourhood library and has since been a place of learning and encounter. EOTO e.V. works together with other organisations to promote the interests of Black, African and …
A little bit of history
Berlin’s club culture is considered as one of the city’s most important cultural flagships. The clubs are a tourist magnet, and the stories about legendary clubs and historical club and subcultural developments have been told many times, in the form of books, documentaries or exhibitions, among other things. Particular attention is …
»White Brothers With No Soul«
UnTuning the Historiography of Berlin Techno
"What is usually left out are the very present Black music cultures in GI discos and other clubs that played Black music in West Berlin before the Wall came down."Interview by Annie Goh with Professor Alexander G. Weheliye for CTM Festival
Black dance music without Black people:
a data analysis
The multidisciplinary platform Techno Materialism has analyzed the representation of Black artists in event line-ups from 2020 to 2021 - including Germany. You can find their data analysis here.
Back Beat — Documentary
A short documentary by Tajana B Williams on Black movement artists: A dance documentary that shines a spotlight the plight, beautify, strength, creativity, resilience, and kinship of Black professional dancers.
Partners
Hier findest du einige Informationen über die Menschen und Organisationen hinter den Kulissen von Emergent Bass.
If you want to start looking for clues about the role of Black people, POC or queer people in German club culture and the techno scene, you can start researching in archives and libraries that preserve sources from and about pop and subculture.
Magazines and fanzines, flyers and posters, photos and video recordings are some of the materials that can be used. Many of the sources from the 1980s and 1990s are only available in analogue form and can rarely be found online. Music magazines such as magazines from the techno scene like Frontpage and Groove or “black music” and “dance” magazines document much of what happened in the techno scene and club culture. City magazines like Berlin’s Zitty can also be a good source.
But even here there are gaps and not everything that happened was reported. Many protagonists or even whole communities remain invisible. Some magazines also contain racist, sexist and homophobic content.
The Archive of Youth Cultures is an information and competence center for youth cultures. Since 1998, it has been collecting, researching and communicating knowledge about youth cultures and their lifeworlds. In doing so, it pursues the goal of enabling a critical and differentiated examination of youth cultures and scenes that is free of value judgments.
To this end, the Archiv der Jugendkulturen operates a reference library in Berlin, publishes on youth cultures, advises ministries and other organizations, holds workshops with members of the scene for children and young people on music, art, dance or fashion, and devotes itself intensively to the political and cultural education of disadvantaged young people.
Crewspace, platform, forge of excess - Mensch Meier! Mindful but loud, wild but thoughtful, relaxed and exciting. And sometimes very different. Mensch Meier is a club and culture space in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district. A space for art, party and politics. The operation is run by a grassroots-democratically organized collective. The trades negotiate their autonomy and cooperation in regular plenums. Self-determined working and emancipatory partying are to come together here. This includes an own awareness team, as well as non-commercial and solidarity-based management.
Emergent Bass is funded by Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa Berlin.