The Lab LDN Windrush 75 special: Fabio & Grooverider and Mellowdramatics (B.O.S.S.)
A celebration of soundsystem culture with some of the best in the game
The Lab LDN is Mixmag and Coors’ weekly live event, powered by Pioneer PRO AUDIO, where we showcase the finest DJs direct from our world famous office party.
On Thursday, June 29, we’re excited to host a Windrush 75 special with Fabio & Grooverider and Mellowdramatics. Sign up for guestlist here.
June 2023 marks 75 years since the first members of the Windrush generation arrived in the UK. The impact of this migration has been incalculable, and to celebrate this legacy, Mixmag has launched an editorial series dedicated to exploring stories, issues and sounds that honour the Windrush generation and their cultural impact.
The development of UK dance music has been heavily influenced by the Windrush generation, with styles such as jungle, grime, UK funky, garage - and the concept of soundsystem-powered parties and rave culture - all traceable to soundsystem culture from the Caribbean and immigrant communities that arrived in the UK to help fill labour shortages and brought a wealth of new cultural inspirations to these shores.
Fabio & Grooverider are legendary representations of this. Both of their parents arrived from Jamaica to the UK in the 60s to work in the transport industry, with their children later forming a partnership that built on the rise to rave culture to help inspire the creation of jungle and drum ‘n’ bass. Fabio & Grooverider’s residency at Rage, which ran in Heaven in the late '80s and early '90s, is considered among the country’s most influential DJ sets, spurring on a new musical movement by speeding up styles like hardcore, breaks and hip hop in a flurry of genre-bending mixing.
Mellowdramatics is a founding member of the influential Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.), a radical collective of queer, trans and non-binary Black and people of colour formed in 2018 who bring together music, art, activism and weighty sound to fuel community efforts in those spaces. Her sets are powerful explorations of life experience and resistance in a club-focused framework.
We’re thrilled to have both artists joining us for this Windrush 75 Lab special. Don’t miss it, sign up for guestlist here.
Catch the stream on the evening of Thursday, June 29. Tune in over on our Facebook page and on MixmagTV.