Magazine

Dembow is a diasporic process that merges the foreign with the familiar, inventing shared dance grounds: an ever-changing rhythmic mantra that re-routes, re-roots, and fruits worldwide among the Dominican communities.

In the Umberto I neighbourhood, each small group, each corner, each bar, kiosk, and bench has its soundtrack: from the most traditional and rhythmic merengue, with its accordion and drum rhythms, to the melodic, guitar-driven bachata, to the fast-paced dembow, a frenzied beat popular among the younger crowd, featuring percussive beats and alternating rap vocals.

Exploring the Dominican sound system culture, known as “kitipó” or “chipeo,” and tracing its journey throughout the diaspora—from its roots in the island’s musicology to its rebirth across the diaspora, including Italy, ultimately transforming culture.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering Ashley Okoli—either in person or online through her numerous creative endeavours—you’ll be a testament to her contagious confidence and freedom of self-expression. If you’re yet familiar with the creative icon, you’re in luck. Ashley Okoli’s presence is one of those rare forces that alters your brain chemistry.

Emerging from Lagos’s peninsular neighbourhoods, the alté scene is shaping an anarchic and infectious lifestyle that defies the constraints of the Nigerian mainstream and reverberates across global contemporary culture.

Exploring the scene’s eclectic aesthetic evolution: from Lagos’s cult horror films and the social critique of Yung Nollywood to gaming visual culture and world-building through Cruel Santino’s Subaru Boys project—and beyond.

It was the classic grammar of celebration: the streets fill with people and empty of rules; the city becomes the set of a post-apocalyptic film, where authority vanishes and anthing, or almost anything, goes.

More than a structured artistic scene, Dimes Square is a real-time mythology; an ecosystem of signals hovering at the boundary between performance and reality. If not explicitly alt-right, it is at the very least slightly reactionary: a glitchy remake of culture where gossip replaces journalism.

In the volume-drenched darkness of 90s European rave culture, breakcore emerged as a vorticist rhythmachine—driven as much by the centripetal force of sub-bass and the infectiousness of syncopation as by the excitement of pure chaos and distortion.

There is a non-genre of music called Gorge that has animated many nights in Tokyo’s underground nightclubs, but it has much more to do with the outdoors—mountain climbing, hiking, and spelunking—than with city life.

The Cucina Economica of Testaccio, at 37 Via Mastro Giorgio, is one of three “affordable kitchens” operated by the Circolo San Pietro in Rome. Open since 1890, it serves over 40,000 lunches a year to those in need through a voucher system managed by local parishes.

The story of thrifting’s glamourisation in the Nigerian coastal city, from the dark logistics of the “bend down select” clothes trade to the emergence of independent alté brands and the global success of alté styling.

San Siro is widely known as the Italian Temple of Football. However, its iconic role in the Italian music industry is rarely acknowledged. Performing in that stadium means being elevated to undisputed celebrity status.

At the 24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano, “Inequalities / Cities”, Hyperlocal will unveil three abridged versions of its Billboard-Magazine and two Live Clubs, dedicated respectively to the Alté scene of Victoria Island in Lagos, the Dominican Kitipó culture of Umberto I in La Spezia, and the extreme, anti-authoritarian DIY community of Buahbatu in Bandung.

A distinct Korean sound emerged from the revival of traditional genres and the Colateks—1990s clubs for underage audiences that later became dance halls for the elderly.

San Siro isn’t just the Scala of Football—it’s a Cathedral of Sport, where only the greats play. In the golden age of Italian boxing, when names like Carnera, Loi, and Mazzinghi drew tens of thousands, this was the arena where legends were made while the legs trembled beneath the roar.

This is the story of Rome’s first self-managed trattoria, founded in the 1970s in the Testaccio neighborhood. A group of eighteen young men and women came together with the idea of creating an alternative kind of business—one free from bosses and the alienation of conventional jobs.

A “naive” 140 bpm experiment that gave rise to a true cultural movement which, in the years to come, would first change the sound of London and then the world, inventing a genre as dark as the outskirts it came from.

It’s hard to imagine a more Roman reaction than this. Just like it’s hard to imagine a neighbourhood more Roman than Testaccio. And finding one that’s more Romanista is absolutely impossible. Roma Club Testaccio embodies all this: being a Roman and a Romanista for generations is an essential identity trait.

Born in Lisbon’s suburbs in the early 2000s, Batida blends electronic music with the cultural and sociopolitical roots of the Lusophone diaspora. Reversing the usual flow of influence, it reclaims kuduro’s legacy, asserting identity through the diaspora’s cultural and sonic heritage.