Believe UK & Music Minds Matter Presents: Everyday Racism Believe UK, Music Minds Matter

Featuring DJ RebelClash, Grove (Vocalist, DJ, Producer) & Love Music Hate Racism (Alex LoSardo), hosted by Chris Ogori.

Episode Topic: Influence of Music - the role of music in highlighting and bringing around social change. Do some stigmas around the music harm the progression of social change (i.e. violence stigma in hip-hop/drill etc).

RebelClash (Patrick Williams aka Rage) from the groundbreaking act Chase & Status who dropped their 5th studio album “Return to Jungle”. Rage is also the Creative Director for Chase & Status' brand RTRN. The RebelClash moniker was born out of his Jamaican heritage & deep appreciation for the Jamaican sound-system culture.

With their politically charged lyrics and beats inspired by dancehall, jungle and drum ‘n’ bass, there’s no one doing it like Grove.  Grove’s debut release - ‘Queer + Black’ - came out earlier this year. Inflected with hints of hyper-pop, dancehall and jungle, it’s as carefree and sweaty as it is intensely personal, charting Grove’s journey of self-discovery as they began to step into themselves as a queer Black person.

Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) was set up in 2002 in response to rising levels of racism and electoral successes for the British National Party (BNP). They use the energy of our music scene to celebrate diversity and involve people in anti-racist activity, in the tradition of the Rock Against Racism (RAR) movement of the late 1970s. There have been now been many hundreds of LMHR events, from large outdoor festivals to local gigs and club nights.

Featuring Joel Culpepper (singer/songwriter), Charisse Beaumont (CEO of Black Lives in Music), hosted by Chris Ogori. 

Episode topic: Institutional vs Individual Racism.
Discussion about how racist assumptions in the system impact people, even when the individuals around them are neither racist nor prejudiced.

Joel Culpepper is a singer/songwriter from South London. Coming from the underground jazz scene, he is an artist’s artist with a once-seen-never-forgotten stage presence. His stand-out COLORS performance has received more than 13 million plays, whilst previous EP ‘Tortoise’ showcases his stand-out vocal ability. However, it’s on debut album ‘Sgt Culpepper’ where Joel makes his mark, pouring his heart and soul into a conceptual record that was two years in the making.

Black Lives in Music is a charity that addresses the current inequality of opportunity for black people aspiring to be artists or professionals in the Jazz and Classical music industry. They have just published a report highlighting systemic racism in the UK music industry, titled ‘Being Black In The UK Music Industry Part 1’.

Featuring TAAHLIAH and Black Minds Matter (Karen Carberry), hosted by Chris Ogori.

Class Barriers - To entering and advancing in the music industry and how they intersect with Black, Asian, ethnic minority experiences, and how these impact upon mental health. 
TAAHLIAH is a performance artist, producer, and DJ from Glasgow. A powerhouse performer whose foundations lie in the underground queer dance scene, her iconoclastic productions mix grinding electronic music with elements of hyper-pop. Her performances and sets reveal a liberating potential within electronic music, in which the glossy packaging serves to politicise the subject matter - https://linktr.ee/taahliah
Black Minds Matter UK is a charity that connects Black individuals and families with free mental health services — by professional Black therapists. They aim to make mental health topics more relevant and accessible for all Black people in the U.K., removing the stigma and remodelling the services to be relevant for the Black community. Karen Carberry MSc is a Psychotherapist for Black Minds Matter and a Board Director & Consultant Clinical Supervisor for Hope Bereavement Support, an organisation specialising in therapeutic work with Black and Minority clients experiencing bereavement, child loss and trauma.

Featuring  Poppy Ajudha (Singer-songwriter), hosted by Chris Ogori.

Covering topics such as: How has the music industry’s relationship with issues of race changed over time? What new or continued obstacles are being faced? How can they be overcome? What needs to change?

Poppy Ajudha epitomises the uniquely diverse musical culture that exists in London, her birthplace and hometown. Born to a St Lucian father and British mother, her background, a degree in Anthropology, the scene she has grown up in, and the musicians and creatives she regularly works with have all been pivotal in the forward-thinking, socio-politically aware unique blend of Soul, R&B, Jazz and Pop that she is creating.