Fight for your right to party

by James Benenson

Music and controversy have always gone hand-in-hand, from Bob Dylan’s politically charged chants of the 1960s to Public Enemy’s culture conscious hip-hop of the 1980s, giving disgruntled generations a mouthpiece in times of unease.

British dance culture is no exception; acid house in the 1990s provided Britain’s restless youth with a soundtrack to social change in a post-Thatcherite United Kingdom.

Jump forward to 2010 and acid’s ancestors continue to fill dance floors nationwide, only here in London some of dance’s disciples are increasingly the subjects of scrutiny.

Form 696

Singled out for an alleged appraisal of crime and violence, the Metropolitan Police have deemed it necessary to enforce fresh protocol in the shape of Form 696, dedicated to monitoring artists, DJs and promoters within certain genres on the capital’s booming nightlife circuit.

A risk assessment, 696 requires event promoters and licensees in 21 London boroughs to supply the police with the full names, dates of birth and home addresses for every artist billed on an event.

Until December 2008 it demanded telephone numbers and even went as far as to ask what music genres were promoted, their target audience and to specify the ethnic groups a night was likely to attract, raising serious concerns as to whether the form was in fact a breach of basic human rights.

DJs and MCs

Whilst dropping the form's more questionable attributes, it continues to target "DJs and MCs performing to a recorded backing track" a move arguably aimed at specific genres on some of London's flourishing dance-orientated events.

With the original 696 asking for the "Music style to be played/performed (i.e: bashment, R&B, garage)" many were led to believe the police were targeting styles popular with London's black community, including UK Music CEO Feargal Sharkey who has continued to head industry-led protests against the form since its conception in 2008.

Underground sounds embraced by many of the city's ethnic minorities such as garage, grime, bashment and R&B, often pigeon-holed as 'black music' regularly come under fire for glorifying violence through negative lyricism.

Despite cutting any direct link to the music, the fact remains that Form 696 allows the Met to vet artists prior to a performance, potentially leading to license refusals for promoters pushing DJs and MCs associated with a particular genre or community and calling into question the future of a thriving live music scene in the capital.