Talks and DJ-sets at Becco during the festival
At Becco, you can experience DJ sets and talks by Edna Martinez and Atiyyah Khan, plus an opening party with Christophe Boulmer and Dana Jdid
October 28th - 21:00 - Opening party with Christophe Boulmer and Dana Jdid
After the opening concert with the Lion of Egypt at Oslo Konserthus, we’re heading over to Becco… and we’re bringing along two festival friends who will keep the dance floor alive until the late night hours: Christophe Boulmer & Dana Jdid!
October 29th - 17:00 - Edna Martinez - Sound System Culture in Bogota
In cities along the Colombian Caribbean coast, handmade sound systems known as picós have played a diverse range of music, including African rhythms such as Highlife, Benga, Mbaqanga, and Kabyle, alongside Antillean styles like zouk and kompa, as well as local genres such as Champeta. These mobile sound systems are community-rooted, passed down through generations, and recognized for their unique visual identities. They serve as hubs of social cohesion, cultural expression, and economic independence, particularly in peripheral urban areas historically shaped by exclusion. Picós have been central to shaping Afro-Colombian identity and belonging, while fostering musical innovation across genres and borders.
The DJ, curator, producer, and artist Edna Martínez presents this lecture-performance focusing on the history and contemporary practice of the picó. Combining archival research, music, and storytelling, the performance highlights creativity and resilience while addressing historical invisibilization. Audiences are invited to listen, reflect, and engage with a living cultural history, experiencing the interplay of global and local influences within these extraordinary sound systems.
October 31st -17:00 - Atiyyah Khan - Protest and Resistance Music in Apartheid South Africa
Atiyyah Khan is a journalist, researcher, selector, crate-digger, event organiser and archivist from Johannesburg, based in Cape Town. She currently freelances as an arts journalist, documenting visual arts, theatre, music, film and other forms of culture in South Africa. As part of the Sonic Lecture series in the new listening space at Becco, she will explain how music has been a battlefront for Apartheid South Africa and the Black liberation movement against the white supremacist settler colony. Later in the evening, after her talk, Khan will also DJ at Becco.
