REUNION 79:21 Revisiting Black Queer London Clubland.

In the 1980s, Black Queer and Trans people in the UK began to attend underground parties as sanctuaries from discrimination. 

These spaces became vital places of self-expression, healing, and freedom, where music turned exclusion into belonging. Revisiting Black Queer London Clubland celebrates the evolutionary era between 1979 and 2021, when music and dance created community amid an all too often hostile world.

While Chicago and Detroit Queer collectives organized underground raves that echoed the indigenous musical forms of Disco, Hip Hop, and House, London Club impresarios, notably Steve Swindells, via his choice of DJ’s, based the music policy at Central London’s first successful Black Queer Club night ‘The Lift’, on an eclectic combination of sounds, steered by the ever-evolving cultural mix that is London.  

Thus, alongside US music genres, music created or loved by the British, such as 'Northern Soul’, ‘Rare Grooves’, ‘Brit-Soul’, ‘Jazz-Funk’ & ‘Lovers Rock’, became fuel for a generatio…