With Black Techno Matters, Bernard Farley Uses Music To Fuel Revolution

This is one of the most striking images captured during the June 2020 protests following the police killing of George Floyd: a black man in a black suit and white mask, with a Sasha sign on his crotch, throws yellow petals at a phalanx. With the iconic Flower Power photo taken over 50 years ago.

Bernard Farley, the subject of the photo, recalls the moment it was taken: "I'm not afraid of you, what are you going to do?" I wanted to say. "When I saw this picture, I changed because I saw something in myself that I hadn't necessarily noticed before."

In the days that followed, Farley marched in DC to techno music performed by black musicians. Consider one track in particular, Bonaventure's "Supremacy" — with its "Inception-esque" blast, tiny synths and Sister Souljah samples — echoing off buildings as protesters chant slogans like "Black Lives Matter" and "Whose streets? Our streets." .

"That's when I realized [techno] is more than parties, you know? We want to change the way society works, especially how black people are seen and celebrated," he says.

These turbulent times of summer 2020 crystallized a mission Farley, a multi-talented artist who writes music and performs under the monikers Outputmessage and B_X_R_N_X_R_D, was thinking about this before the protests, even before the pandemic. The organization he founded, Black Techno Matters, began after a Google search for black techno artists in the 1980s revealed little about the artists who created the sound.

Black Techno Matters aims to reclaim techno as a manifestation of black self-expression, both at the URL and in real space. For much of the beginning of the pandemic, the organization had to forgo in-person parties, using its Instagram page and Spotify playlists to connect with black techno artists from around the world. When the live performances return, the team held a techno-in-a-park at Meridian Hill Park and planned a big party for June 16, 2022.

In addition to DC, Black Techno Matters, which now has eight members, has held events in San Francisco and Los Angeles, with more cities planned for 2023. new ways: marching into a future shaped by decolonized communities and dance floors.

"I use this idea of Black Fire and that's how I see it," Farley says of the rise of the Black Techno Matters movement. "I just want it to look out of control."

Screening at a secret location on January 15 at 10:00 p.m., to be noted when purchasing tickets. www.eventbrite.com . 30 dollars.

correction

An earlier version of this story featured two Martin Luther King Jr. One of the events of the day was given the wrong location. The date has been corrected.