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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The stadium is a temple of the sacrament: there is the game, with all its officiants and devotees, and God, always present, somewhere just out of sight. San Siro is sacred to Milan in the most literal sense: since 1983, it has been the gathering place for Milanese confirmation candidates.

San Siro is the symbol of the city of Milan: the way of living it, of dressing, of the derby’s “almost friendly” rivalry, of the city’s urbanistic outburst.

From the introduction of the Greek Afro-descendant community to the construction of an artistic and militant community project: The AfroGreeks attempts an archive of self-determination, affirmation, and resistance across Patission Avenue.

Immigrants take action against marginalization and misinformation. The Borsa spaces of the Ex Mattatoio in Testaccio has been occupied. The multiracial centre Villaggio Globale is born.

For almost a century, San Siro has been the custodian of the dreams of millions of people, whose hopes blend and mix, each time fueling its spirit: it is the temple where contemporary heroes perform—playing the most-watched games in recent history and singing the most iconic songs before tens of thousands of people.

The Testaccio neighborhood in Rome has a millennia-old history, beginning with the port and warehouses of the Roman era and evolving with the construction of the public slaughterhouse in the late 19th century. From its discarded cuts of meat, the ‘quinto quarto’ cuisine was born—today considered the quintessential expression of the city’s culinary tradition.

When we talk about live arts, that is, “arts performed live,” what are we referring to? A story that began in the 1970s in Bologna (Italy), and completely changed the practices and conceptualization of contemporary art.

From the aesthetic, rules and songs of the Milanese Ultra Movement to the aesthetic of the revolution in Cairo: how the highest form of fan support in the world took on a revolutionary zeal.