In honour of the ultimate anti-footballer, socio-political activist and godfather of football cool, DISCO SÓCRATES is an exploration of music culture and its social and political impact around the globe.
Anchored around a one-day festival that will take place in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle on Saturday June 30th, it will see LIVE performances from artists drawn from the participating World Cup nations, reflecting the power of musical movements to affect change around the globe.
The international line-up includes Nigerian born, Berlin-based soulful jazz vocalist WAYNE SNOW; OKO EBOMBO who fuses beats, Parisian jazz and performance art; Cairo’s ROZZMA will bring his own blend of beats, psychedelia and traditional Arabic music; and Iranian MC GOMNAM, who may be better known to Merseyside audiences under his previous moniker, MC Farhood.
The festival will also feature DJ sets from some of today’s finest selectors taking us through the 32 nation’s sonic histories. Acclaimed DJ ANDY VOTEL will be piloting this journey as he unleashes the contents of his globe-spanning record bag. On the night he will be performing a Subtropical Psychout set, plucking the best morsels of tropicalia, psych and funk gold from Brazil. Africa Oyé and Anti Social Jazz Club are also joining the party on the decks, taking us all on the trip of a lifetime. Expect Nigerian highlife, Senegalese Mbalax, Japanese shoegaze, Icelandic soundscapes and, of course, Brazilian Tropicália.
The event will also include a screening of ‘They Will have To Kill Us First’, a feature-length documentary following musicians in Mali in the wake of a jihadist takeover and subsequent banning of music. Music, one of the most important forms of communication in Mali, disappeared overnight in 2012 when Islamic extremists groups rose up to capture an area the size of the UK and France combined. But rather than lay down their instruments, Mali’s musicians fought back.
The whole event, including live music, is now FREE. The full programme is available at www.ArtOfFootball.co.uk.
The Disco Sócrates event takes place as part of the summer-long ART OF FOOTBALL programme which runs for the duration of the FIFA World Cup (14th June – 15th July). Taking the creative culture and social fabric which underpins the beautiful game as its backdrop, Art Of Football is a festival of the culture surrounding the game, to coincide with the greatest football festival in the world.
Edited by Maryanna Rice
