Shout out to Exposure for this guest article – the first in our #CREWCOVIDSTORIES series!
2020. The year we weren’t allowed to dance.
The entire world seems to have gone off the rails a little bit. The threat of an unknown killer virus has ruined everyone’s plans for this year and continues to bring worry and uncertainty. I’m not going to go into the politics of managing a global pandemic but want to share my experience from the lack of clubs and festivals for the best part of a year.
The feeling of connection I get from DJing is something hard to explain. It’s more than just a satisfaction of being able to play good music. It’s more than a brief high that fades after the weekend. It’s life.
It’s seeing people screw up their faces when you drop a banger. It’s seeing someone close their eyes in euphoria when you play something deep and melodic. It’s seeing people make friends with complete strangers for the first time and old friends reuniting for the first time in years.
Music brings people together. It’s the universal religion we can all share and Drum and Bass is my sect. It taps into the animalistic tribal part of human consciousness. There’s no judgement, no rules as to how to dance. Where you’re from, what you do for a living or how much you earn has no place or relevance, it’s a free space to express yourself however you feel.
Not being able to DJ has felt like having a limb chopped off. I’ve done a few livestreams which have been cool, but it’s missing a big part of that human connection we all crave. To quote the surfing film Riding Giants when the waves were flat; ‘I feel like a dragon slayer and there are no dragons to slay’.
However, despite the doom and gloom this year has brought on many of us – I am an eternal optimist and I’m excited about the future. People are going to be hungry for it. There’s going to be a rave revolution. It’ll be the 90s’ all over again.
Hang in there and we’ll come out the other side bigger and better.