Magazine

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

How Fiorucci, the infamous brand and store in the Centre of Milan, established a visual bridge between its legacy—inseparably tied to the American disco scene—and the rising wave of English acid house.

The sonic legacy of the Caribbean diasporic community through sound system culture: seventy years of city history shaped by low frequencies, improvised clubs, blues dances, and constant genre blending.

The largest Dominican community in Europe is in the Umberto I neighborhood of La Spezia. Amidst picca pollo and béisbol, car sound system gatherings take place, where the one with the highest dB wins.

Grime’s history goes beyond music: it’s rooted in economic disparity, racialization, and urban oppression. Faced with state antagonism, marginalized communities turned to music as an act of resilience, carving out space and voice amid the suffocating pressures of city life.