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bbelow the pavement of Deptford Broadway, the walls of an old WWII bunker pulsate to the sound of a drum and bass song. Student hangout Goldsmiths – famous for its £5 double rooms and gross toilets – is full of weekday ravers in low-tops and colorful bucket hats, standing, clutching video cameras, dancing precariously on the edge of the stage or placing gems under the lights on a flashlight.
Fast remixes of pop songs generate a boisterous energy in the south London venue as members of Loud LDN’s ever-growing group chat take to the streets to continue those long, rambling conversations that come from meeting an online friend in real life for first time . They anxiously share stories of moving to London alone to pursue music and their experiences of being taken advantage of by men in the industry. For Loud LDN, tonight is a chance to celebrate, but this collective aims to enhance the experiences of young artists and producers, as well as organize midweek raves.
The Loud LDN collective, which includes a new wave of drum and bass revivalists such as Piri (of drum and bass duo Piri & Tommy), Venbee, Willow Kayne and A Little Sound, launched in May as a group chat called “Ladies Making Noise in London”. The initial spark came when co-founder Maisi came across one of DIY singer-songwriter coupdekat’s songs on TikTok and messaged her about a potential collaboration. They met for lunch and immediately started a group chat about London-based women and non-binary advertising.
“Maisi just befriended Piri and it looked like we’d have enough people to do a group chat,” says coupdekat, whose catchy pop songs laid over drum and bass beats defy easy genre classification. What started out as a place for about 10 friends looking to hang out, get advice and share experiences about getting started in music has grown into a thriving community of more than 50 drum and bass, pop and R&B artists at all career stages you are The only requirements to join are that you are a woman or a non-binary person who lives in London and makes music full-time.
Ttwo years ago an event like Loud LDN’s recent showcase would have been impossible. Clubs were still closed due to the pandemic and mainstream perceptions of drum and bass were still largely a thing of the past. But you don’t even need to have been to their recent event to know that the genre is experiencing a revival. Drum ‘n’ bass is finally getting mainstream recognition: this year the MOBO Awards launched their Best Electronic/Dance Artist category and two drum ‘n’ bass artists, Nia Archives and SHERELLE, were nominated. The award eventually went to the former, who also picked up Best Producer at the BandLab NME Awards 2022 earlier this year.
Meanwhile, DIY artists are also rising rapidly. Last year Loud LDN’s Willow Kayne scooped the Ivor Novello Rising Star award, while Venbee broke into the UK Top Five in November with ‘Messy In Heaven’, a song she had originally posted on TikTok as a demo. The app’s preference for quick, catchy hooks means the majority of Loud LDN’s members got their start on TikTok, and they’ve since pushed the genre into a new era that eschews the self-seriousness of drum and bass purism in favor of embracing influences from pop to R&B. Therefore, the next wave of this sound is more open than ever.
Artists like Charlotte Plank, who helped organize the first Loud LDN event, are escaping the confines of a once-strictly defined genre by mixing dance and pop. He is currently working on a mixtape where he lays dreamy vocals over a fast drum and bass beat. “The dance world is so male-dominated,” she says on Zoom a week after the event. “But we have Venbee, A Little Sound and Piri leading the scene at the moment. It’s really nice that we’re stepping up and taking over the scene a little bit because it’s been male-dominated for too long.”
London-based collectives, including Loud LDN, but also EQ50 and Sexy Lady Massive, are making sure the new wave of drum and bass is safer and more inclusive than ever. As Plank notes, “We don’t want to exclude men, but we also want to create a safe space where women can go and relax and not have to worry about being groped or groped.”
Another key point of connection between Loud LDN and the wider drum and bass scene is the newfound sense of community that many fans, like Plank, report experiencing at raves. “When I started going to drum ‘n’ bass raves, it was the most welcoming and passionate community,” she says. “There’s something really special there and I think drum and bass heads are happy that the sound is getting a bit more mainstream.”
ZEnre-based movements are one thing, but just because artists are grouped together for their sound doesn’t always mean there’s a real-life community. Being a musician in London can be lonely, regardless of personal success. However, the Loud LDN group chat has always featured established artists alongside those who have just released their first song. “Even bigger artists like Piri and Venbee, who we imagined would already have this kind of community, were completely dropped,” says Coupdekat.
“What’s so great about the band is that it’s for musicians at different stages of their careers,” adds Loud LDN member Lucy Toon, who is a drum and bass DJ but whose own sound as a solo artist ranges from folk songs to upbeat synth pop. “There is no sense of hierarchy. No matter how many followers or streams you have, everyone in the group is truly there to help each other. There are people who are killing it right now and are established in their artistry, and then there are others who are session musicians or engineers or just starting out and need some advice.”
For Maisi, the band’s most important function is to provide support to other emerging artists. She spoke passionately about the need for community and working together instead of competing against each other. “Everyone in the group chat has had the same experiences, whether they’ve been patronized by men in music or treated inappropriately by them,” she says. “It was good to be able to discuss it with each other.”
Online spaces were vital to bringing Loud LDN together, but from the beginning it wasn’t enough to talk and share music through screens. Nothing beats dancing, laughing and sweating together in a physical space. “The party brought the community to life,” says coupdekat. “This is the next stage in the relationship. We didn’t want to keep it as an online thing, especially after COVID, when these things can happen.” they dance.
Challenging the confines of genre purism while providing support for women and non-binary people in a male-dominated arena is quite an undertaking for a young collective. But as the band continues to grow organically after the event, these artists have proven that Loud LDN is a force to be reckoned with. DIY says coupdekat. “It’s about girls creating a community for themselves.”
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