Boiler Room x Ballantines’s Celebrate Inclusive Dancefloors With The Launch Of The True Music Studios, Bringing Together Diverse Communities Around The World.
Ballantine’s Scotch whisky, a Pernod Ricard brand, and long-term partner Boiler Room are pledging to do their part in creating a safer, fairer future for music culture through their new global event series True Music Studios. Building on their commitment from the past seven years to champion global diversity in music, True Music Studios will bring together a variation of artists, promotors, panelists, and underrepresented groups, to celebrate local sounds, scenes and diverse communities, offering music fans around the world inclusive experiences both in real life and streamed from home.
The global residencies will open their doors for up to ten days, offering a series of 30+ inclusive music events, in compliance with local COVID measures, to bring fans back together after the industry’s 20 month hiatus of live events. Taking place across eight countries, the series kicked off with Russia in November. True Music Studios features a mix of live performances, educational events and community experiences curated by cutting edge collaborators who are pushing forward local music scenes including Kedr Livanskiy (Moscow, Russia), Ms. Nina (Madrid, Spain) and DBN Gogo (Johannesburg, South Africa).
Music fans can expect live and globally streamed performances from the pioneering headline acts, shared with millions around the world, along with special guest appearances by those defining each scene. There will also be educational ‘in conversation’ talks with leading artists, promoters and producers from the local communities who are pushing boundaries and shaping scenes, and masterclasses with local collectives.
Tom Elton, Head of Culture and Partnerships at Ballantine’s says “Our Boiler Room x Ballantine’s True Music events have always been special as we dig deep into local cultures around the world and celebrate the raw sounds and inspirations that make the individual scenes so unique.” Elton adds, “The effects of the past 18 months have resulted in a positive shift in attitude and an opportunity to reset and club together to increase equality in music culture. The dancefloor has always been seen as a sacred and safe place and we want to bring it back to where everyone is equal and feels part of the experience.”
This initiative follows the release of Ballantine’s ‘Resetting the Dancefloor’ report which revealed 1 in 3 people have been victims of discrimination at live music events. Alongside key figureheads within the industry, Ballantine’s aims to shine a light on and tackle issues of inclusion and diversity in music, calling on the industry – and fans alike – to club together to initiate change.
Following nightlife reopening and a post pandemic ‘reset’, True Music Studios marks Ballantine’s own action and commitment to help drive real change in the industry, through its new diversity and inclusion policy that looks at leading issues within music culture: Diverse programming: ensuring all True Music line-ups and content represent diverse communities, Fair payment: ensuring that no fee gap exists by taking an active role in making sure talent are paid and treated fairly, Inclusive dancefloors: making safe dancefloors a priority and committing to bringing one billion music fans inclusive True Music experiences through its safe dancefloor policy.
In South Africa True Music Studios will provide community emerging talents a platform to make use of the space for listening sessions and creative collaborations with Lawk Fest and premier LBGTQI event platform, Same Sex Saturdays. The community events will also include Ebumnandini & Prime, DJ Lag, Blxckie, Lelowhatsgood and Kat Upendi.
To find out more about the South African Ballantine’s True Music series activities visit www.ballantines.com/en/true-music/
