A Look Into move/003: SHERELLE And Kobi Prempeh Interviewed
Community is at the forefront of SHERELLE’s workings, a conscious force within dance music who is pushing for a stronger sense of connection, accessibility and resource within the creative industries. Joining a legacy of iconic Boiler Room sets in 2019, the north London DJ, producer and presenter has established herself amongst the 160bpm+ spheres, utilising her platform to spotlight talent from Black and queer spaces. Her own label, BEAUTIFUL, has gone on to pursue a number of projects and initiatives, which include partnering with AIAIAI to form a new studio space, academy and workshop programme to inform and facilitate the creative process for up-and-coming artists.
Now, SHERELLE has merged forces with art curator fynn studio, alongside co-curators Spotify, Dazed and AIAIAI, to host a 10-day immersive exhibition titled move/003, lending a spotlight to marginalised communities on the dancefloor. Taking over Dazed Space, the pair have developed a free-to-attend showcase in which they explore the breadth of lived experiences across the globe. Holding a section that introduces the team behind east London’s beloved Black-owned live venue Colour Factory, they amplify the voices of those who ensure safety on a night out, whilst taking a peep into the club’s lost property box. Featuring personal anecdotes from the likes of Loraine James, Roska, Otik and Nia Archives, the room is adorned with photography from Teddy Dally, Tristan O’Neil and DeLovie Kwagala. Elsewhere, the exhibition focuses on the work behind ‘Keep the Drums, Lose The Knife’, a grassroots organisation that looks to support survivors and end the practice of female genital mutilation across Sierra Leone and the UK.
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CLASH sat down with SHERELLE and fynn studio founder Kobi Prempeh to discuss the influence and aspiration behind their latest collaborative project, move/003.
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An extension of move/002, what did you learn from your previous project and what specific ideas are you looking to explore this time round, for move/003?
SHERELLE: The main ethos from all of our collectives is that we want to make sure that people have enough resources to be able to come to a space like this and find out information, use these resources in a way which is going to allow them to apply it to music, art, photography, you name it. A lot of the exhibition ties to real-life experiences, we add lovely bits of humour in there as well. So I think it’s super important for people to come to the exhibition and have a good time, but ultimately, hopefully, it allows people to want to create similar things like this so that naturally, as a community, we can grow.
And what do you think is a recurring sentiment or experience that links together music, art and community?
Kobi: The thing that links music and art, really and truly, is community and creativity. The thing which suppresses community is a lack of creativity. So there’s no coincidence that post-pandemic, post-Brexit, post all of the other credit crunches and all the other nonsense that our establishment has created, that creativity is under threat. And it’s no coincidence that as a result, our communities are under threat. Community and creativity, the arts and music all go hand in hand, at its heart is love and understanding. What we’ve imbued throughout this show is fun, heart and understanding, and we just want to share that with people.
What is one moment on the dancefloor that resonates with you, that captures why you do what you do?
SHERELLE: It’s not on-brand, but it is on-brand…I would say it was when I went to fabric for the first time. It was after dubstep got super big, it had gone to America, but I was able to see Caspa, who I’d been wanting to see for a long time but wasn’t old enough at the time. I felt that in that moment, I definitely wanted to DJ, I wanted to be within the club space because it felt so lovely to be with people who enjoyed that music. I went to secondary school in Essex, I was at Faces, that is not a place where you’re gonna find this moment of ‘yes, we’re all together in the music’ because it’s just not that vibe. But when I was there at fabric, I genuinely was like wow, like this is what it feels like to be at a proper rave.
Kobi: Now that you’ve said something that’s not on brand…Warehouse Project. Jamie xx is playing a very typical Jamie xx set. And then there was this tune which he was teasing, and everyone was getting into it. And I was like, he’s about to drop a banger, Jamie’s killing it. He took it away, and then he brought it back a little bit later. And it was like, here we go, he’s gonna drop it. And he did it again, took it away, and then dropped it later on. And when he dropped it, he got all 5000 people that were dancing at Warehouse Project, because we all knew the song, but we didn’t know what the hell it was, we were singing ‘Fight For This Love’ by Cheryl Cole. I was like, you’ve literally just taken the piss out of every single one of us because we were so in that moment.
SHERELLE: He dropped Cheryl Cole in the club, at Warehouse Project!?
Kobi: We all were going for it! He got us…
You’ve brought together a number of trailblazing forces within dance music, from HAAi to Loraine James, Nia Archives, Roska and more. What do you find most inspiring within these individuals, what qualities do you think that they share?
SHERELLE: Kobi touched upon this in a conversation before, especially regarding Nia. Nia is taking jungle and drum n’ bass to a whole different stratosphere, adding elements of indie as well. When I first started out, we did Boiler Room stuff or whatever, but I didn’t anticipate that someone else would then go even further with, say for instance, the messaging. She’s so lovely and young, she’s got so much ideas, she’s showing herself as a director as well.
Then on the flip side, there’s Loraine James who, again, is very much within a scene. I define her as genreless, she’s just doing her thing but she’s representing a sound that people wouldn’t want to expect, but she can. They both can. It’s the fact that they can carry that forward. There’s going to be so many amazing women that come out of this, that are inspired and influenced by them. It’s a beautiful thing to have them as part of the exhibition because it’s just a pleasure to talk to them anyway, really understanding how their mind works. This is about, even on an archival basis, a legacy that this exhibition allows for. These conversations will be forever. For the both of us, it’s super important that we’re able to do that.
Kobi: Being in the studio with SHERELLE, having a conversation with musicians where’s it’s not always conversations about music, is one of the most special things about the show. Loraine can talk about how she likes to go to gigs by herself, she’s 100% authentically herself, Nia is 100% herself. And that’s one of the beautiful elements of the show, and I can’t thank you enough for creating this space in your studios, where we can have these authentic conversations with people where they don’t have to talk because they’re pitching their next track or their next tour. It’s to have a conversation and create this sense of relatability with not just their audience, but people who can get inspired about their own careers. Art exhibitions always give things through a particular perspective, whereas here we’ve given people the stage to sit and chat – what has been your experience? What are your stories that you haven’t been able to share before? Roska said it best in our first interview, he said this is like therapy, but the good kind.
SHERELLE: And it’s free.
Just from walking around you’ve shared such a broad range of experiences from different people...
SHERELLE: We’re expensive girls!
Kobi: Well, here’s the thing. SHERELLE has been amazingly instrumental and supportive of us interrupting the narrative of what a rave exhibition should be. It doesn’t have to be just poster pictures on walls, a black queer show doesn’t have to just be about trauma, it can be a positive statement as well.
You’ve just wrapped up ‘SHERELLELAND’ and will be playing a number of European, Australia and New Zealand dates in the upcoming month. What sounds or scenes are you looking to spotlight through your selections?
SHERELLE: I’m just always excited to do the jungle side of things, but then also a mixture of the 4×4 element of it. With ‘SHERELLELAND’, I’ve got a lot more ideas around actually trying to do more of them. I’m really upset with how everything has gone recently, just because of how expensive the scene is. It’s really concerning. My concerns at the moment are not even with music, or making music or even showcasing music. Those scenes can only exist if there’s an ecosystem for it to exist in. Without the clubs, without free things like this, those communities get hit first.
In turn, what is one change that you’d like to see within the music industry to help support the communities that have formed this exhibition?
SHERELLE: I think people need to realise, not every day make money. There’s certain people that deep down, they know they’ll be fine if there was one day that they just didn’t make some money. Right?
And all the places that got involved for ‘SHERELLELAND’, they essentially were ready to take a hit for the love of community and the rave. We here, are ready to take a hit and have managed to fortunately get people involved to help us put this on. To get it into this space is so lovely, move/002 was on the top of a random studio in Hackney and we had pictures but everything was condensed. Whereas this is spacious and everyone can sit down and everyone can chat. Hopefully there’ll be more free things for people in the future, I’m going to obviously want to keep finding different ways of doing this
People who know that they can they can take a hit, do it. If you don’t, we’re not gonna have a community. Don’t squeeze people dry, everybody’s got EDF bills to pay!
Listen to the extended conversations from the exhibition via Spotify’s GLOW Hub below..
Tickets are available to move/003 here, and will run until Saturday 9th March.
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Words: Ana Lamond
Photo Credit: Rio Redwood-Sawyerr
