Marginal Eras

It's the place where the worlds of dance, music, home, street life and basketball collide.

At the beginning of 2020, I went to a Southbound night at The Lightbox in Vauxhall with two of my oldest friends, Chris and Liam, continuing a lifelong tradition of seeking out nights that have enriched and strengthened the bonds between us since we were teenagers. A few months later in late February, I had booked a trip to Berlin to visit a friend and we’d planned a night out in Berghain. Two days before I was due to fly out, it had been announced that all bars and clubs had been temporarily closed due to a strain of an infectious disease that had been spreading across the world. There were increasing reports of COVID-19’s fatal impact yet in Europe, we hadn’t yet reckoned with the devastating impact it would have on life for years to come. 

In the end, I still flew to Berlin to meet my friend as there were no travel restrictions in place. So what now that our plans to dance through the weekend had been bouldered and quashed like an avalanche? We spent the weekend, going where we could, eating in the few places that were still open but the streets were slowly beginning to look like a scene from 28 Days Later, deserted and apocalyptic. This wasn’t the Berlin I knew. On that Saturday night, we stayed in her apartment with some drinks and found an alternative that still allowed us to complete the mission; watching live streams of sets from HÖR Berlin, which at the time was less than a year old but had come to represent the DIY, reupholstered nature of the city. 

In 2020, during a conversation with esteemed writer and journalist Emma Warren, I shared the idea of the dance beginning at home. She had already begun working on her book Dance Your Way Home, which tells a rich and intimate history of the dancefloor from her unique perspective. I think, at least for both of us, the idea of dance and home wouldn’t have been so profound had the privilege to move had not been grasped away from society due to the pandemic. I’m glad that there was someone else who was thinking along similar lines as it only strengthened belief in community. 

‘The Dance Begins At Home’ is a concept about honouring the belief that our most sacred spaces are where we first move our bodies. Home is a fluid idea, it is where we feel the safest and warmest.

Marginal Eras is the world in which all of these ideas sit. Some may call it a studio, production house or label but I haven’t been able to land on what that is. For now, it’s the space where imagination and exploration of ways in which all the various worlds I’ve experienced or seen collide.

Marginal Eras will culminate with my forthcoming book Escaping Babylon which explores the past thirty years of Black British music through personal and collective memory. Throughout it, you can trace how dance and music have been a life support for so many. It’s the practice of thanksgiving and celebration for what was, is and will be.

Marginal Eras is memory work in action. 

For now, enjoy the first offering from Marginal Eras - Summer Nights In Tottenham.

Summer Nights in Tottenham is the warmth and promise of better days spent. It’s an ode to summer’s past and a longing for those yet to come. It’s for the clubrats, those who act as support beams for the walls in the dance, the bouncers trying to catch a sneaky vibe and the girl from the smoking area who’ll forget to message in the morning.

This tune is all of the beauty, joy and pain that comes from growing up young during summer.