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ed sheeran ft stormzy shape of you stormzy remix

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I DON'T OWN THE RIGHTS TO THIS MATERIAL*

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The most dramatic single of last year - the song voted Guardian critics' favourite of 2015 - featured Skepta launching a four-line manifesto. "Me and my Gs ain't scared of police / We don't listen to no politician," he spat. "Everybody on the same mission / We don't care about your isms and schisms." On the face of it, these lyrics might seem apolitical. Skepta doesn't care about isms, he doesn't listen to politicians. But it runs rather deeper than that.

Shutdown isn't a song that offers solutions. It doesn't even diagnose any problems. But its tone - bombastic, fearless - is unmistakable. As was its promotion. Shutdown's video was filmed at the Barbican in London, the place where Skepta's brother, JME, had been among those artists prevented from appearing when the venue, following advice from City of London police, pulled a show in February 2014. To launch Shutdown, Skepta played an illegal gig in a car park in Shoreditch - the east London area where so many grime nights had been shut down by the authorities for dubious reasons - encouraging 2,000 grime fans to shout "fuck the police" in unison. For Skepta and his fans alike, Shutdown was a triumphant return of the repressed: "They're going to try and find every way to stop me doing what I'm doing," he said to me the following day, "but because I come correct every time, they've got nothing."

Like beauty, a musician's politics is often in the eye of the beholder. Last month, a headline on the Complex website asked whether 2016 was " the year grime would become an anarchist genre". It seemed like a pretty far-fetched suggestion: history does not suggest that Peter Kropotkin's vision of a revolutionary egalitarian society was predicated on Skepta getting a tattoo of a circled A on his leg. Likewise, recent headlines such as " Skepta and Stormzy speak out against Syrian airstrikes" are unlikely to cause David Cameron great concern - particularly as they refer only to a handful tweets, although, Skepta's " SMH @David_Cameron " (it stands for Shake My Head) has to be one of the most succinct condemnations of the prime minister to date.

After some fans told Stormzy to shut up and stick to music, he responded in his next track, Hear Dis: "They said I can't tweet about the government, why can't I be free any more? / I'll expose these racist clubs and feds who can't move me any more." The hotly tipped young MC Novelist, meanwhile, has started 2016 with an overtly political approach. The instrumental David Cameron Riddim was followed by the nihilistic, edgy Street Politician. Novelist's bleak lyrical depiction of violence and "black boys stuck in the system" was juxtaposed with swirling sirens and a repeated sample of the prime minister assuring a post-riots Britain that "keeping people safe is the first duty of government". Novelist's message is clear: some are kept safer than others. At the start of this month, he followed it with another new track, Break in Your House, on which he said: "Not enough man like me are voting / But man are on the blocks, chatting shit, moaning."

Grime might be more visibly political than it has been for some time, but that's more a reflection of the attention brought to the genre over the past few months by Skepta, JME, Stormzy, Novelist and others. Grime has always been political, but its politics just haven't been those of the ballot box. They are the politics of the community - a community that party politics rarely engages with in any depth greater than lip service.

Grime stalwarts including Durrty Goodz, Bashy, Neckle Camp and Ghetts (who once sampled Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech and Dire Straits on the same song) have long made homages to figures such as Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Nelson Mandela in their work. And while their music often plays with violent imagery, plenty of grime MCs have, at some point, appealed to fans to reject conflict and instead work positively for their communities.

Perhaps the greatest of these was Bashy's 2007 single for Black History Month, Black Boys, a self-empowerment project of epic proportions, which also displayed the scene's ability to transcend the me-first world of the MC and behave as a cohesive musical community. Bashy recorded six different versions of the song, featuring more than 20 MCs. "Look, no we ain't hooligans, just young and talented nubians," he rapped on the original, bigging up Apprentice winner Tim Campbell and barrister and TV personality Shaun Wallace as role models alongside the likes of Wiley, Kano and Dizzee Rascal.

Occasionally, grime MCs have been persuaded by the authorities into more serious musical preaching. Roll Deep's 2006 song and video Badman, a cautionary tale about gun crime, was produced in aid of Stop the Guns, a campaign organised by the Metropolitan police's Trident division, which is charged with tackling gun crime in the black community. Riko Dan's Phone Call covered similar ground in 2010. An even more unlikely collaboration was forged that year between MC Ghetts and the Office for National Statistics, in a campaign to reach young BME Britons who had not registered for the 2011 census. "I don't want to get political, but it's the principle: there aren't enough of us filling in the forms," he raps on Invisible, trying not to look embarrassed. As awkward and obscure as the collaboration was, the track inadvertently reveals what might be grime's greatest political power: the genre's ability give a voice to the voiceless.

Grime exploded from the council estates of inner London in 2003. Grime producers and MCs seemed to depict a world unknown to anyone who lived outside it. The context is easily forgotten: to be a young, working-class black Londoner in the 2000s put you at a higher than average risk of being a victim of crime - many young grime musicians have been stabbed or even died, while others wrote lyrics about the dangers of straying outside your estate and being caught "slipping" (a notion later sensationalised by the press as "postcode wars").

Even down to its claustrophobic production values and uncompromising, rapid-fire beats, grime thrived in part because it described the flaws in New Labour's otherwise confident, wealthy, "modern" Britain. While the grime kids' neighbours in Canary Wharf inflated the bubble that would help destroy the global economy, life for the other half was marked by knife crime "epidemics" and moral panics over "hoodies" and "Asbo kids". Tony Blair decried a "culture of disrespect" and backed shopping centres that were banning anyone wearing hooded tops - it was no wonder that one of Dizzee Rascal's most memorable observations/boasts on his Mercury-winning debut album was "I'm a problem for Anthony Blair". As leader of the opposition, David Cameron tried to have his cake and eat it, famously proposing to "hug a hoodie", but also blaming violent rap lyrics for real-world violence - and leading to an inspired Lethal Bizzle piece for the Guardian headlined " David Cameron is a donut ".

It is music that above all describes poverty and alienation, as a teenage Dizzee says on Boy in da Corner: "Queen Elizabeth don't know me so, how can she control me when, I live street and she lives neat?" Devlin's melancholic Community Outcast took in the full gamut of social exclusion in 2000s Britain - homeless people, drug users, single mums, those "cold, tired and feeble". Grime's knack for social commentary is addressed pithily in Rival's 2011 single Talk That: "They want to know why there's all this anger, all this pain / They want to know why I talk that violence, talk that slang," he spits, addressing his comfortably positioned critics, before providing them with an answer both fatalistic and profound: "I just say, 'It's all I know.'"

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Novelist is one of a number of MC who have brought renewed attention to grime. Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Observer

While a lot of grime is playful or ferociously energetic, there is also a great tendency for painful introspection, the kind of weed-blurred reflections and self-help anthems written by people who haven't ever been helped much themselves. It is music made by those who have grown up with a permanently hostile relationship with the authorities - grime's incubator, the pirate radio stations of early 2000s London, existed permanently on the run from the authorities, the transmitters and studios hastily and secretively established on tower-block rooftops. Arrested while attempting to set up a radio rig on a rooftop in Shadwell in east London, DJ Slimzee, possibly grime's greatest ever DJ, was given an Asbo in 2005 preventing him from going above the fifth floor in any building. "I know it was breaking the law, but we were trying to help our listeners," he said in a moving interview last year; the Asbo ruined his career, for the best part of a decade, and brought on a nervous breakdown.

Raves, meanwhile, were also a target for the police, who waged a war on grime as the decade wore on, regularly shutting down club nights because of "intelligence reports" about possible violence. The police openly targeted black music and monitored audiences' ethnic composition through the notorious Form 696. Pressure from the authorities caused jitters in venue owners, leading to the demise of seminal grime nights that had only ever been peaceful.

Since the outcry over Form 696 in 2009, the police have learned only to divulge even less information about their monitoring and spiking of nights involving black music: the cancellation of that Barbican show in 2014 was never fully explained by the venue or the police . The casual, everyday discrimination against young black men comes through in JME's extensive, always polite, always exasperated filming of police stop-and-search incidents against him while driving. "Frequently I get stopped by the gammon," he lamented on 2012 single 96 Fuckries, "coz my whip looks like it should be owned by Jeremy Clarkson or Richard Hammond. Feds pull me like I'm a drug baron, chatting bare shit, can't understand 'em."

When the UK's biggest student protests since the 1960s erupted in 2010, and the undergraduates were accompanied by thousands of sixth-form students angry with the scrapping of their weekly education maintenance allowance, the soundtrack swung away from punk anthems and singer-songwriters, to four-minute grime assaults like Lethal Bizzle's Pow! and Tempz's Next Hype - the latter a tune so incendiary that even its instrumental version had once been banned in some clubs.

When English cities were convulsed with riots in 2011, the community at the heart of it was the same one that had produced grime: Mark Duggan, whose death at the hands of the police kickstarted the riots, had been a childhood friend of several grime MCs from Tottenham, even appearing in a Skepta video. As rioters besieged Tottenham police station, another high-profile local MC, Scorcher, revealed that Cynthia Jarrett, the woman killed by police in 1984 that instigated the Broadwater Farm riots, was his grandmother. Several MCs made tracks about the riots, and when I interviewed Lethal Bizzle that week, he addressed his comments straight to his old nemesis David Cameron: "Don't dismiss us. You're a millionaire guy in a suit, your life is good - you can't relate. These kids can relate to people like myself, Wiley, Dizzee, Tinie Tempah, Tinchy: we're from the council estates, we lived in these places where they live, we know what it's like. We're the real prime ministers of this country."

The last few years have seen the repetition of a familiar lament in the music press: "Where has all the protest music gone?"; Why won't somebody "pick up a guitar and howl their outrage"? These questions speak to a different era in music, and it is no coincidence that many of the complainants remember the likes of Billy Bragg and Paul Weller creating the Red Wedge tours, uniting music and politics from offices within the Labour party's headquarters. The very fact that the 80s bands who took part in Red Wedge were able to organise alongside an institution like the Labour party reflects the politics of that era, and the proximity of those musicians to organised party politics. It is very hard to imagine an equivalent today. Grime reflects the politics of its environment and its age.

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Party politics: why grime defines the sound of protest in 2016

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From Skepta's anarchist tattoo to Stormzy's takedown of David Cameron, it's tempting to see 2016 as the year that grime finally got political - but the truth is that it always has been

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It sounds like an innocuous piece of paperwork, but in the last two months "Stop form 696!" has become the rallying cry of the live music industry. Risk assessment form 696 is used by the Metropolitan police when trouble is expected at a gig or club. It requests information about performers and audience members from the licensee. Failure to submit it could result in six months in jail or a £20,000 fine.

Form 696 has been approved by all 21 London councils, and its use could soon spread to the rest of the UK. It has attracted criticism not least because it is bureaucratic: while it has now been cut from eight pages to four, it still demands every performer's name, address, date of birth and phone number. It's hard enough to get a musician to answer the phone, let alone fill in a mini-census every time they perform.

Form 696's ulterior motives have also raised concerns. One question on the eight-page version suggested it was being used to racially profile audiences: "Is there a particular ethnic group attending? If 'yes', please state group."

"I've got a nagging suspicion that 'Irish' was not the answer they were looking for," says Feargal Sharkey. The former Undertones frontman is CEO of UK Music, the musicians' rights body, and has been leading the campaign against form 696. Sharkey's suspicion that black music is being targeted by the Met is supported by other leading questions on the form: "Music style to be played/performed (eg bashment, R&B, garage)", reads one section, while another gives examples of types of musical artists as "DJs, MCs, etc".

Last month, with the campaign taking shape, the form disappeared from the Met's website, to be replaced a week later with a version half the length. The "which ethnic group" question was suddenly absent, replaced by one asking: "Who is the target audience? (Include here if Birthday Party)." This bizarre change seems to suggest you now need a risk assessment form to celebrate a birthday.

Was this alteration a tacit admission of racial profiling of music fans? Detective Superintendent Richard Martin, of the Met's clubs and vice unit, says not: "It was removed just because I don't think it added any value to the form." So what are the Met looking for with this form - what is its value? Martin stresses that crowd safety is the only concern: "We take account of where the event is playing, what other events might be playing nearby, the type of music that's being played, and whether there have been problems before. We've had quite a few of what I consider 'higher risk events', where there may be some problems - so we recommend additional searching processes and additional security to help manage the event safely."

The problem is that the Met are lone arbiters of what kind of music is high risk. Indeed, they are capable of providing a list of "risky" genres, according to David Moynihan, promoter of the club Dirty Canvas: "[I was at] a meeting with council officials and the Met, when I was involved in putting on a community festival on the Hackney/Tower Hamlets border. The police told us categorically that we weren't allowed to put on music that was 'grime, garage, rap, reggae or R&B'."

Two other incidents suggest form 696 is just the tip of the iceberg. First, east London venue the Rhythm Factory requested Moynihan's passport to lock in their safe overnight, on the instructions of the Met. "I think it's so that the promoter can't skip the country if something happens at the event," says Alex Lyng, the venue's head of promotions. Second, a number of MCs were stopped and searched by plainclothes police as they were leaving a Dirty Canvas event.

"Our first reaction was, well, you kind of expect this kind of thing to go on," Moynihan says, "but then you realise how wrong it is. Especially since we've done this night for three years, and done about 30 shows, and we've got a completely clean bill of health. I don't think many nights in any genre could say that. We should win some kind of fair-play award, but instead we're being singled out."

Kiss FM grime DJ Logan Sama has seen a number of grime and garage nights he was booked for closed down by the Met without any explanation other than references to "intelligence about an incident". This isn't good enough, as far as he's concerned: "Closure is not a realistic option - you can't just stop things happening because there's an implied threat there. It's very draconian. I was supposed to be playing in the grime room at the Music For You festival, and the police actually said, 'You can't have a grime room.'"

So just how dangerous is it out there? I ask Sama to cast his mind back over what must be a long and bloody history of violence. There is the odd fistfight, he says, but nothing you wouldn't see in a pub. "I haven't ever seen a serious violent incident at a grime rave," he adds. "I've seen them at house raves, I've seen them at hip-hop raves, but I haven't ever at a grime rave".

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Are police using 'risk-assessment' form 696 to close garage clubs?

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Are the police using their 'risk-assessment' form 696 to close down grime and garage clubs? Dan Hancox reports

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2015: said to be the year of the apparent revival of the UK grime and garage scene. Some will argue it never went away. Those of us who have followed the scene throughout the years will understand there is truth in this claim, but not in a straightforward sense of a newfound popularity or worth. 2015 is the year grime artists became university campus legends, their gigs and appearances selling out in days in student-dominated cities such as Leeds, Bristol, and Manchester.

The year began with that Brit Awards performance, when Kanye West was joined by Skepta and other grime artists on stage and, from then on, the scene moved into circles that would have previously expected 'MC' to be a probable acronym for a type of medicine or exotic holiday destination.

Grime was pushed to the forefront of British culture, away from the school playgrounds, street corners, and working-class estates that it had previously called home and, finally, music industry heavyweights and journalists began to see grime as a credible addition to British music culture, something to be proud of, a scene to be revered.

However, new fans who emerged from this sudden influx of publicity are where the root of the problem lies. Admittedly, I'm not trying to suggest grime was never supposed to branch out and appeal to a wider sector of society, because music is universal, and all that. But it is central to a way of life, a working-class struggle to get by, created by forerunners like Wiley, Kano, and Dizzee Rascal to give a voice to kids who were otherwise marginalised and silenced by a society that didn't attempt to get to know them.

The middle-class university students who attend live grime shows now, in 2015, probably don't even recognise the form of cultural appropriation they're actively taking part in: wearing a North Face snapback to a rave and singing along to Stormzy probably doesn't sound out any alarm bells - but it should.

The appropriation of working-class culture - whether that be through grime, slang, or clothing - is a legitimate problem and, therefore, must be treated as such. The issue is personified by these new grime fans: the students who attend these gigs, but actually grew up in suburbia, in comfortable middle-class homes with parents who wouldn't have dared let their offspring wear tracksuits growing up, who would have shouted in response to 'thug' music being played from their rooms.

No, these new fans don't belong to the demographic grime originally represented: those disillusioned kids on estates who were labelled 'chavs' for wearing street clothing, dismissed as 'uneducated' for using slang, pushed out of popular music and forced to use pirate radio stations because their sound wasn't accessible enough, 'American' enough.

Now, if these new middle-class fans listen to the music and enjoy it, but don't recognise its social importance, then they're missing the point. Grime's supposed to be rebellious and not easy to listen to. That's why so many of its most prominent pioneers have been working tirelessly for over a decade to promote their music, often without record labels or contracts. Obviously they deserve recognition for this. I do, however, acknowledge the fact that popularity of their music equals increased sales - which results in revenue - therefore, providing artists with more money to continue on with their work. It's the popularity of grime in the wider image of working-class appropriation that makes me uncomfortable.

In fashion, we have high-street stores such as Topshop, Asos, and Topman selling Adidas, Ellesse, and Fila, labels that, just a few years ago, would have connoted a certain social class, or being poor, or feral. Through art, we have the 'Army of Instagram' that sees no issue in taking #VSCO shots of council estate tower blocks, even though they're not derelict symbols of an old Britain, but the homes of thousands.

This current trend may be just that, a trend, but for a large sector of society,it remains a way of life. In inner-city areas where grime materialised, this music remains the voice of disillusioned teenagers and young people. That's why, when middle-class students next attend a Tropical show, wearing a Boy Better Know T-shirt and copious amounts of glitter, they need to keep in mind the importance of the scene they're taking part in. Why? Because grime isn't just music. It's a representation of a lifestyle centred on struggle.

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'Grime's new middle-class fans need to realise the genre isn't just about music'

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2015: said to be the year of the apparent revival of the UK grime and garage scene. Some will argue it never went away. Those of us who have followed the scene throughout the years will understand there is truth in this claim, but not in a straightforward sense of a newfound popularity or worth.

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Despite a new generation growing up with grime, fans may not even be aware of how things have developed for the music genre over the past two years. This year alone, a handful of artists have collectively contributed to what is now, undoubtedly, the sound of the British youth. Last year played host to significant moments which helped to spread the music and, more importantly, the culture. But, right now, this is only the beginning.

The exciting prospect grime presents is growth. With a generation of teenagers growing up without it, to them, the sound is new, exhilarating, and energetic. Above all, it's different. There's a new school of MCs striving to help the scene grow, to help fans gain an insight into what it means to the individuals helping to move the culture even further. Elf Kid - of South London grime collective, The Square - shared his thoughts on how things are progressing.

So, what has made grime culture so accessible to new listeners? What has truly boosted its growth? The 18-year-old MC explained how broad the culture is for him, adding that it's all got to do with far more than the music. In fact, the music seems to be a small part of it. He said: "Grime culture is everything [to me]. It's from clothes, to attitude, to the hood, the estates - Britain itself. Grime is like punk - a bunch of kids that are just into this whole thing. Grime makes the connection between everyone in the UK for me."

Grime never died. But, it's pivotal to acknowledge the genre and the culture has been injected with an array of new energies. A key figure in this resurgence is Skepta, of course. The North London MC went back to his roots as he states in his hit song, 'That's Not Me', which told a wider story than the immediate concept.

Whilst discussing Skepta with Elf Kid, he highlighted how Skepta "made it comfortable" for MCs to wear tracksuits again. He added: "It put everyone in the position of thinking: 'He's wearing a tracksuit, so we can as well'. Everyone feels like they're a part of it. It's the culture."

The editor of GRM Daily, Caroline SM, also spoke out on the matter and stressed how important another young MC has been performing within the rise of the grime-in-youth culture. She said: "Stormzy is the perfect character to be the underdog coming through. I feel like anyone young can relate to him. Even if you don't come from that background and you're not in that world, you can relate to him."

While reflecting on Stormzy's success, SM spoke of his headlining show at KoKo in October and explained the change in scene: "The demographic was mental. At Stormzy's show, it was all university kids and teenagers, which is such a different vibe to what you'd expect." It's unquestionable the demographic has changed. Reflecting on the past year, Elf Kid, himself, was quick to describe the new wave of fans as "a breath of fresh air."

Without a doubt, grime has taken the younger generation by storm. With the amount of talent that is coming through radio sets, or even a one-off freestyle video, next year looks set to deliver even more.What will come next, though, we don't know. Elf Kid, too, vaguely prophesied on what could happen and said: "Within the next year, it could only get bigger and better."

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Grime is the now sound of British youth - and things are only beginning

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Despite a new generation growing up with grime, fans may not even be aware of how things have developed for the music genre over the past two years. This year alone, a handful of artists have collectively contributed to what is now, undoubtedly, the sound of the British youth.

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Beyoncé is a powerful voice for Black Lives Matter. Some people hate her for it.

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Beyoncé is a powerful voice for Black Lives Matter. Some people hate her for it.

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When Beyoncé speaks, people listen.

The singer and media mogul commands a huge online following: On Instagram alone her BeyHive includes more than 77 million followers. And Beyoncé has increasingly used that platform and her art to address racial inequality, especially in the wake of police-involved deaths of black men that have dominated headlines in recent years.

Beyoncé posted messages about the shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn. on her Instagram and website earlier in the week, urging fans to reach out to legislators to demand action on police brutality.

"We are sick and tired of the killings of young men and women in our communities. It is up to us to take a stand and demand that they 'stop killing us,'" she wrote in the all-caps message on her website, presented in stark white lettering on a black screen.

[Beyoncé urges action in response to the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling]

But her willingness to be brutally honest about one of the most charged problems facing America today has also drawn vitriol from some conservative outlets and online commenters who have accused the pop star of helping inspire violence against police - including in the aftermath of a Dallas shooting after an otherwise peaceful Black Lives Matter protest Thursday night that left five police officers dead and seven others wounded. Right-wing outlet Breitbart News, for instance, ran a story headlined " Anti-Cop Beyoncé Silent As Police Slaughtered in Her Native Texas " on Friday.

She did weigh in on the Dallas attack Saturday by posting a black and white video of the state's flag waving intercut with the names of officers killed in during the shooting.

"No violence will create peace," she wrote in the video's caption. "To effect change we must show love in the face of hate and peace in the face of violence."

Still, Beyoncé doesn't hold back when it comes to showing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, as perhaps the most iconic musical performer of her generation, Queen Bey is about to push boundaries artistically by addressing issues of racial inequality in a way that might put the career of a less established artist at risk.

Rest in peace to the officers whose lives were senselessly taken yesterday in Dallas. I am praying for a full recovery of the seven others injured. No violence will create peace. Every human life is valuable. We must be the solution. Every human being has the right to gather in peaceful protest without suffering more unnecessary violence. To effect change we must show love in the face of hate and peace in the face of violence.

A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on

Her words "stop killing us" wasn't the first time Beyoncé invoked the phrase. It appeared as graffiti in the video for her song "Formation," interspersed between shots of a young black child dancing in front of a line of police in riot gear who later raise their hands up - a reference to the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown - and the singer lounging on top of a New Orleans police car sinking into water that recalled the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

The video and Beyoncé's performance of the song at the Superbowl this year, which featured dancers in costumes similar to the fashion worn by Black Panther Party members in the 1960s and 1970s, was criticized by some politicians and law enforcement groups at the time.

"It's inciting bad behavior," National Sheriffs' Association Executive Director Jonathan Thompson told The Washington Post in February. "Art is one thing, but yelling fire in a crowded theater is an entirely different one." Some police unions even encouraged members to boycott the artist's latest tour.

But Beyoncé said those who believed she was sending an anti-police message were mistaken. "I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe," she said in an interview with Elle Magazine earlier this year. "But let's be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things."

The artist continued to find ways to address racial justice issues through direct activism and her art. In February, Beyoncé performed in a concert tied to husband Jay-Z's Tidal music streaming service, which she also has an ownership stake in, that raised $1.5 million for Black Lives Matter groups.

[The better we understand Beyoncé, the more there is to know]

"Freedom," perhaps the most politically aware song from her recent album "Lemonade," is an empowerment anthem for black women with lyrics that invoke both the historical subjugation of African Americans by slavery and current menaces of racial profiling and police brutality. But perhaps even more powerful than the lyrics themselves were the visuals that accompanied the song in video that launched with the album in April: The mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner holding portraits of their dead children.

Beyonce performed a cappella version of the song during a performance in Glasgow, Scotland earlier this week after a moment of silence where the names of hundreds of people killed by police violence, including Sterling and Castile, were flashed on a screen at the venue.

It was a moving tribute that underscored the singer's willingness to leverage her celebrity to highlight an issue that disproportionately affects her community. But in a way, Beyonce's role as one of the most prominent supporters of Black Lives Matters and the fight for racial justice is a natural evolution: Even in her Destiny's Child days, her music often featured themes of female self-empowerment that stood out from other pop music at the time.

Of course, Beyoncé's popularity doesn't make her immune from criticism, as the backlash to "Formation" from some quarters showed. And even after she spoke out against the Dallas shooting, some people flooded the comments of articles about the Instagram posts with criticism.

One reader commenting on an Entertainment Weekly article said they would never let Beyonce's music be played in their home again and suggested the singer was "racist." Meanwhile, a Spin.com article hosted on Yahoo Music has already attracted nearly a thousand comments from both fans and detractors debating the singer's role in the national conversation about police violence.

But Beyoncé's ability to draw that much attention with a single social media post shows how powerful her contributions to that conversation truly are.
Read more: The better we understand Beyoncé, the more there is to know The night Beyoncé won the Super Bowl

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Beyoncé is a powerful voice for Black Lives Matter. Some people hate her for it.

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When Beyoncé speaks, people listen. The singer and media mogul commands a huge online following: On Instagram alone her BeyHive includes more than 77 million followers. And Beyoncé has increasingly used that platform and her art to address racial inequality, especially in the wake of police-involved deaths of black men that have dominated headlines in recent years.

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Ten reasons why festivals are great (even when it rains)

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Ten reasons why festivals are great (even when it rains)

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This washout summer means more people are watching festivals on TV. A seasoned festival-goer makes the case for why it's just not the same
I love festivals. Since my first V Festival at the age of 15 I've made sure I've gone to at least one every year. Without them my summers would just feel empty.

But it seems fewer and fewer people are sharing my point of view. Ticket sales are at an all-time low. Even though there's no Glastonbury this year, the Big Chill, a massive festival, has been dropped. Vintage festival has been merged into the Wilderness festival. Hop Farm ended up giving away free tickets (no bad thing, in hindsight). It looks like people are foregoing a weekend dancing in a muddy field for the comfort of their sofas. And the fact that this summer has been a washout hasn't helped.

But here's ten reasons why you shouldn't abandon the festival just yet...

1. Festival coverage on TV is rubbish.

The problem with watching a festival on TV, apart from your dad shouting about how everybody can't sing, is that the highlights are usually really poor and centred around the headliners. You rarely get to see the smaller bands you might catch by wandering into a random tent, which could be the next big thing in a couple of years.

2. The exhilaration of live music can't be beaten.

Sure, if you're watching it on a telly screen you aren't getting covered in beer and you don't have some girl on somebody's shoulders getting in the way. But the feeling of being part of 50,000 people in a field, singing along to every word of a generation-defining band's hits, is a simply incredible experience.

3. Even though they're getting expensive they're still value for money.

I'm not alone in thinking that festivals are becoming more and more outrageously expensive. But all live music is expensive, it's called inflation. If you wanted to see Rihanna live now it's around £70 - you may as well pay £100 more to see her plus loads of other massive artists - and you get a holiday too.

4. The mud teaches you to appreciate what you have.

I've had a couple of grim experiences. Watching my tent slowly fill up with water at Latitude and being powerless to stop it. Being trapped in a tent at Glastonbury because of heavy rain and mudslides. But dealing with muddy conditions truly made me appreciate my bed in my tiny London box flat. And you'll laugh about it later.

5. There's health benefits.

Before you laugh at me, festivals are good for you. It's scientifically proven. Live music can release 'happy hormones' which relieve stress and walking back and forward between the tent and arena burns a lot of calories, giving your legs a proper workout. Just don't overdo it on the booze!

6. You can look completely daft and it's fine.

Festivals are one of the few places where it's acceptable to wear glitter, face paint, lashes and ridiculous hairbands, all at once. Everybody needs to embrace their inner Lady Gaga at some point in life, even if you're rocking a poncho at the same time.

7. Z-list Celebrity spotting.

It's rare that you'll get a chance to befriend somebody out of Hollyoaks, but my sister actually managed this at Leeds Festival 2007. You can play a pretty fun game spotting minor celebs, and it's usually a good point of conversation while waiting for bands to start.

8. The parties are great.

One of the best things is that the fun continues long after the headliner has come off-stage. Most festivals have dance tents where you can check out top DJs. There's usually something for everyone, from cabaret nights to silent discos. Plus, since they're in a big marquee you'll be keeping dry as a bonus.

9. Waking up in nature.

It's good to get away from the 9-5 city grind and see some greenery. Even if it's muddy, it's rare that city-dwellers see nature. Also, what I've discovered is waking up in the fresh air completely kills off a hangover. Which is a winner when you start drinking cider at 10am.

10. It's all about the memories.

Some of the best friendship building experiences I've ever had have been at festivals. Chilling with your best friends, the bands you love and a bag of wine bonding over how wet, cold and muddy it is creates the best memories. You won't get that watching by yourself at home.
MORE DEBATES

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Ten reasons why festivals are great (even when it rains)

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This washout summer means more people are watching festivals on TV. A seasoned festival-goer makes the case for why it's just not the same I love festivals. Since my first V Festival at the age of 15 I've made sure I've gone to at least one every year.

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What exactly is the point of music festivals?

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What exactly is the point of music festivals?

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I hate everything about them. The crowds of people meaning you can barely move at anything beyond shuffling pace; the overpriced junk food; not being able to get the drink you want (and when you do it's expensive, warm and in a plastic cup); the bands you can't even see without binoculars, or without staking your claim on a vantage point within minutes of the festival gates opening.

But it seems the rest of the country disagrees. The latest Festival Awards reportsays in 2013 a huge £1.3 billion was spent on festival tickets, transport and accommodation, with another £914m going on food, drink and other purchases. I can only assume the latter figure bought some poor soul nothing more than a couple of hot dog, soggy fries, and a flat beer in a very wobbly cup.

When I politely explain to people my dislike of music festivals to my friends, they react as though I've revealed a level of social agoraphobia that makes Julian Assange look like a member of the cast of TOWIE. Friends simply cannot believe my negativity, which is ironic as it's most of their stories which have put me off.

Like the time someone defecated in front of my friend's tent at Glastonbury. Actually did a full-on number two, just outside the entrance to his sleeping quarters. I'm told that when (not if) the chemical toilets become unusable, festival sites apparently become something of a defecation free-for-all, with people feeling liberated enough to squat and go wherever the mood takes them.

I would have to be medicated by one of Michael Jackson's private physicians before I felt sufficiently "liberated" to put up with stepping over other people's faecal matter in pursuit of watching my favourite artists perform. Yes, even Kylie.

And yet a 2013 festivals survey found that a mere 26% of festival-goers miss clean flushable toilets. Which suggests that a horrifying 74% don't really mind those repugnant, disease-ridden facilities with the distinctive aroma of last week's manure. My friends may want to spend time with these animals, but I don't.

Toilet issues seem to be a significant problem, whatever the festival. The last one-day festival I went to was Lovebox. What could possibly go wrong, spending one day in a park with a few thousand others, I thought to myself. Surely it takes a couple of days for the masses to go truly native, embrace anarchy and start defecating all over each other? Surely, I could tolerate a low level of discomfort in return for watching the living legend Grace Jones perform?

Unfortunately, I found myself pressed up against a woman in the crowd who decided to crouch down and urinate in the middle of Grace's set. At first I wondered what she was up to, but it soon became apparent as she squatted and relieved herself next to me, leaving a warm puddle in the worn out grass of Victoria Park. I'll never forgive her for permanently ruining my enjoyment of Pull up to the Bumper.

Body fluids aside, I simply don't get what drives people to want to go to festivals, especially as most of the artists present are so mainstream, and are hardly elusive figures on the live music circuit. On the whole, you'd find more niche talent on the latest NOW! compilation. This years' Glastonbury is a case in point.

Do you really need to be knee-deep in muddy crowds to see Arcade Fire or Dolly Parton, when both acts are performing in the relatively comfortable surroundings of Earls' Court and the O2 within the next few months?

Granted, you won't be able to point yourself out on television, caked in face paint and waving a massive flag if you were attending in a civilised venue, but you also won't look like a total tool either, so there are benefits.

Die-hard festival-goers will obviously tell me that I'm missing the point, and that it's not just about the music. It's about the whole experience, man. But it seems that some people are starting to agree (with me) that the "experience" isn't what it's cracked up to be. The latest International Music Festival Trends survey shows that this year, 80% of festival goers plan on booking a luxury hotel for their stay; like me, they're wise to the fact the tent is the only sleeping accommodation ever invented which is freezing cold in winter and baking hot in summer, offers no protection against noise pollution and is less comfortable than the average prison cell.

Which leads to the inevitable question, if most people attending festivals would prefer to stay in hotels and have access to their creature comforts, and if the acts are becoming ever more mainstream, what is the point of going to a music festival at all? Who are we kidding? Why not go to a venue which is cheaper, more comfortable, has nicer drinks, and allows you to return home afterwards? Think about that while you're struggling to find your tent in a strange field this weekend. I'll be watching on television from the comfort of my sofa.

Cristo Foufas is a journalist, broadcaster and actor. He currently can be heard weekends from 1am on LBC

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What exactly is the point of music festivals?

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I hate everything about them. The crowds of people meaning you can barely move at anything beyond shuffling pace; the overpriced junk food; not being able to get the drink you want (and when you do it's expensive, warm and in a plastic cup); the bands you can't even see without binoculars, or without staking your claim on a vantage point within minutes of the festival gates opening.

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What it Really Costs to Attend Coachella 2017

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What it Really Costs to Attend Coachella 2017

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Although Beyoncé will not be gracing the stage at this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, prices for the event haven't dropped much. Expect to spend big if you attend-even if you're planning to be a total penny pincher.

The annual music festival, which takes place east of Los Angeles, near Palm Springs-spans two weekends, April 14-16 and 21-23. Almost 100,000 people descend on Coachella and the surrounding area for each day of the festival, with tickets to access the fun ranging from $400 for general admission to $900 for VIP passes.

But entry fees are only half the battle. You'll spend quite a bit on lodging, transportation, food and alcohol as well. In fact, hotel prices for Coachella weekends are 140% higher than normal, according to hotel booking website Trivago. Even compared to last year, hotel costs for properties within 10-miles of the festival are up by $120. A mid-range hotel in Indio will set you back about $416 a night, on average, Trivago reports.

Whether you're looking to splurge on a trip of a lifetime or simply hang out for the weekend on a shoestring budget, MONEY scouted the options and priced out what it really costs to attend Coachella 2017.

Festival goers get some sun and sleep at an onsite campground at the Coachella. [object Object]

For the Total Cheapskate...
$399: General admission tickets (If you haven't purchased yet, passes are selling on Stubhub for around $500)

$50 for gas roundtrip (Your motto: if you can't drive there, forget it)

$113: Coachella car camping pass

$50: Food and water (Embrace the bring-your-own policy with an empty, non-metal water bottle and stock up on snacks at the local Walmart)

$15: Alcohol (Stick with a 24-pack of Bud Light at your campsite)
Total: $627
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Festival goers attend day three of Coachella in 2016. David McNew-Getty Images

For the Out-of-Towner...
$280: Plane ticket to LAX (this is an average price - if you're coming from Maine, be prepared to drop some cash)

$474: General admission + Any Line, Anytime Shuttle pass

$70: Shuttle from LAX to Coachella (don't be fooled, you'll still be walking quite a bit)

$590: Mid-range hotel for two nights (try for some of the hotels in Palm Desert along the shuttle line)

$100: Food and water (Trust us, you'll want what these vendors are selling: Afters ice cream and BeerBelly's fries)

$75 for alcohol (plan for a mix of BOYB and a few beers from the Heineken House)
Total: $1,589
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Fans during 2016 Coachella. [object Object]

For the YOLO Attendee...
$7,500: Safari Tent Experience (includes your VIP Coachella passes - and sleeping in a pimped-out tent)

$330: Roundtrip average airfare to Palm Springs International Airport (slightly more expensive than LAX, but a far shorter ride to the fun)

$100: Uber Black from PSP airport to Coachella Campgrounds (because you don't take a cramped, packed shuttle)

$225: 4-course dinner at Hacienda Del Toro +VIP Rose Garden access (so you can rub elbows with celebs, or at least sneak an awkward selfie)

$150: Food and water (Plan for meals at pop-ups like Playa Provisions)

$150: Alcohol (It's $12-$15 for those craft beers and artisan cocktails)
Total: $8,455
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How MONEY Calculated the Costs

Coachella has a variety of resources, including several planning guides MONEY utilized to price out accommodations, including the car camping and Safari Tent experiences. Mid-range hotel prices were estimated using data provided by Airdna, a company that tracks Airbnb and comparable hotel pricing.

Airfare to Los Angeles International Airport was provided by flight booking app Hopper. The cost was based on an average price of flights to LAX booked from other U.S. cities. Most flight searches occur eight days before the start of Coachella, despite the fact that the optimal time to book is 40 days in advance, Hopper reports.

The cost of gas was calculated using the national averages for price and car fuel efficiency for the average road trip of 261 miles, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Uber's app was used to estimate the cost of using an Uber black car to get from LAX to Coachella.

MONEY based food and alcohol costs on restaurants' posted prices, both from the 2016 Coachella, as well as prices in their normal location. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's February 2017 food plan guide was used to calculate BOYB food costs.

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coachella valley music and arts festival

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What it Really Costs to Attend Coachella 2017

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Although Beyoncé will not be gracing the stage at this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, prices for the event haven't dropped much. Expect to spend big if you attend-even if you're planning to be a total penny pincher. The annual music festival, which takes place east of Los Angeles, near Palm Springs-spans two weekends, April 14-16 and 21-23.

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I spent my weekend testing drugs at a festival – and I provided a service everyone should have access to

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I spent my weekend testing drugs at a festival – and I provided a service everyone should have access to

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"This Is A Serious Party." That's the motto of hedonistic Cambridgeshire festival Secret Garden Party. It's also one that it can lay claim to like no other, after playing host to a remarkable first this weekend. For while plenty of festivals are comfortable providing the fun, they are coy about one of the most serious aspects of festival culture - drugs.

Secret Garden Party has grasped the nettle by hosting a "front of house" drug testing service for festival goers - legally and confidentially - together with information to help keep drug users from harm. While fronting four days of glittery mayhem, the level-headed pragmatism of the festival organisers choosing to provide this service meant more revellers were informed about responsible drug use, and a significant number of potentially dangerous samples were handed over and disposed of. The knock-on effect was a significant reduction the workload of the festival's medics, welfare team and duty police officers. A serious party indeed.

I was lucky enough to be part of The Loop team, a group of analytical chemists and experienced drug workers, that provided the pioneering service this weekend.

A trained chemist myself, I was based in our festival lab - a haven of academic geekery just metres away from the pounding drum and base of the nearest stage. It was here, using infrared spectroscopy, reagent testing and quantitative chemical analysis, that we safely identified the contents of the powders and pills being handed over for testing.

The range of substances coming to the lab was astonishing and would give anyone who takes recreational drugs pause for thought. We saw everything from super high strength ecstasy through to bags of "cocaine" that actually turned out to be a rather unpleasant antimalarial drug.

Importantly, samples given to us for testing were not returned to festival-goers - although they were allowed to keep any drugs not handed over to us, and given the option to dispose of them if they wished.

Every bit as important as the testing, however, was the information provided to those using the service by our team of drug workers. Together with the results of the drug tests, advice on the specific risks of the identified drugs were provided, as well as an opportunity for people ask any questions, or discuss any concerns, they may have with their drug use.

We were also buoyed by the overwhelming support of the festival-goers themselves, after assuring them we weren't just police officers running an elaborate sting operation. "Long overdue" and "revolutionary" were words we heard repeatedly from those coming into the tent. Seeing participants choose to give up hazardous or mis-sold drugs was particularly heartening.

Providing front of house drug testing at festivals and other events has been a long-held dream of many who work in drug policy and harm reduction. Other festivals should have confidence to adopt the service after having seen the runaway success of this first trial.

But, as is the case with so many aspects of UK drug policy, we are running behind the pack. While the service is pioneering over here, similar schemes have been in operation for years in Austria, Switzerland and The Netherlands. And the evidence of their success is overwhelming. Improvements to people's drug-using habits and the quality of drugs in circulation have been found in areas where such services are common.

What has been demonstrated in a small corner of a field this weekend is something more fundamental: treat people who want to use drugs with respect, and they will respond to the advice given to them sensibly.

If such enlightened thinking were applied more widely to UK drug policy, the returns in reduced drug deaths and hospitalisations would be vast. That really would be cause for a serious party.

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I spent my weekend testing drugs at a festival

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"This Is A Serious Party." That's the motto of hedonistic Cambridgeshire festival Secret Garden Party. It's also one that it can lay claim to like no other, after playing host to a remarkable first this weekend. For while plenty of festivals are comfortable providing the fun, they are coy about one of the most serious aspects of festival culture - drugs.

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The Music Industry's Battle Against Plastic Junk

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The Music Industry's Battle Against Plastic Junk

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard the stats: Plastic is flooding our world. Our oceans bear the burden of five continent-sized mass accumulations of plastic, and unless our ravenous consumption of it changes, scientists predict there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans by 2050.

How much garbage does a typical music festival generate? The 2015 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, with roughly 90,000 attendees in Tennessee, produced more than 679 tons of waste over four days. That's 15 pounds of waste per festival-goer - nearly twice the average amount a U.S. consumer uses daily. The biggest component of that waste was single-use disposable plastic: water bottles, beer cups, straws, utensils, wrappers and packaging.

The good news is that a movement is growing within the music industry to amend the harm being done by plastic pollution. Musicians and festivals are embracing change and committing to reduce their plastic and carbon footprints, on stage and behind the scenes.

Brandise Danesewich

This is not just a waste issue. The vast majority of disposable plastic is still manufactured from crude oil and natural gas - nonrenewable fossil fuels. With every plastic bottle we toss in the bin and every granola bar wrapper we tear open, we are contributing to the urgent problem of climate change.

How can we change?

Touring music and arts festivals are like miniature cities built in one location for a short performance, then dismantled, transported many miles and rebuilt in another city, where they'll be flooded with temporary residents for a long weekend and then abandoned again. They are enormous nomadic tableaus of creative energy, and they are also islands of trash, mostly plastic. But such a space for art, collaboration and demonstration - combined with a captive, energetic audience - provides an opportunity to develop and refine a model toward sustainability, and touring artists are using their unique influence to help festival organizers reach that goal.

Jack Johnson and his wife Kim have not only worked to eliminate disposable plastic on all of his tours, but the pair co-founded the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation in Hawaii to promote social change in communities. The Johnsons also partnered with RPM, Reverb and other groups to form the Sustainable Concerts Working Group, which produces guidance and best practices to help interested artists or venues do their part to reduce plastic.

Many other artists, including Maroon 5, Ben Harper, Keb' Mo', Bonnie Raitt, Dawes, Jackson Browne, Athena, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Moxie Raia and many others have reduced plastic pollution on tour through both practices on the road and policies in their riders for venues, and some talk directly to concertgoers about the issue.

Their fans are joining the movement. In 2014, Rolling Stone explored Refill Revolution, Bonnaroo's program in partnership with the Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) and Steelys Drinkware that encourages attendees to purchase or bring their own refillable stainless steel cups, bottles and containers. Organizers invested heavily in these efforts with dedicated staff, volunteers and information-tracking. Their 2015 Clean Vibes program recovered an incredible 67 percent of the gathering's total waste output, saving nearly 200 tons of waste from going to the landfill. The first year, 2014, resulted in a reduction of waste by 400,000 bottles or cups; in 2015, that impact nearly doubled. This year they continue to scale up the number of reusable cups and bottles for attendees, while PPC continues to discuss its Plastic-Free Touring initiative with artists and management teams.

Danny Clinch

While Bonnaroo is one of the largest U.S. festivals taking such steps, it is not the only one. The Outside Lands Music Festival uses only compostable or biodegradable utensils and food containers. The recycling and composting efforts at Outside Lands and Bonnaroo are monumental, but according to the EPA, only about 30 percent of the plastic that is put in recycling bins nationally is recycled; the rest ends up in a landfill, if not blown away by wind or plucked out by wildlife.

Some festivals are not offering plastic at all. The Pickathon Music Festival in Oregon has completely eliminated single-use cups in its beer gardens, replacing them with for-sale stainless steel cups that come with a beer discount incentive, and other events have chosen to invest in water refill stations. The UK-based Glastonbury Music Festival, with over 150,000 attendees, encourages refillable water bottles and prohibits food vendors from handing out any plastic food containers or utensils.

Venues like the Santa Barbara Bowl are encouraging visitors to bring their own cups through their My Pint and Me project. Guitar string maker D'Addario, in partnership with Terracycle, has created Playback, the first-ever string recycling program. Festivals and venues are also increasingly tracking information on the waste produced and recovered, posting waste reduction statistics on their websites as a badge of honor.

Like the movement to tackle climate change, artists, festival production teams and venue management are coming together to tackle plastic pollution head-on by stopping it at its source. Let's embrace the change; we can all do something to help. Grab your tickets, plan your trip, lose yourself in a great song and don't forget your reusable cup.

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The Music Industry's Battle Against Plastic Junk

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard the stats: Plastic is flooding our world. Our oceans bear the burden of five continent-sized mass accumulations of plastic, and unless our ravenous consumption of it changes, scientists predict there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans by 2050.

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T in the Park chief: music festivals have changed forever

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T in the Park chief: music festivals have changed forever

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For more than two decades it was a fixture of the summer calendar, with tens of thousands of Scots flocking to the nation's biggest live music event.

But now the organiser of T in the Park has admitted that the festival landscape has changed forever due to dramatic changes in the habits and demands from music fans.

Geoff Ellis has cited dwindling repeat business, the rise of "boutique" events, a lack of major bands, "experience-chasing" millennials and audience demands for better facilities for dramatic changes in the UK's festival scene.

The chief executive of promoters DF Concerts said audiences no longer had the "Woodstock mentality" and were not prepared to "rough it" when attending an event.

He said many fans now expected to have the choice of staying in a teepee or a yurt at a major festival and were only attending an event like T in the Park to "tick the box".

Mr Ellis, who called off this year's T in the Park for a long-term rethink over the event's future, said it will have to be completely reinvented before it returns. He was speaking at Wide Days, a major music industry seminar in Edinburgh, during a discussion on the future of festivals.

DF announced in November that the 2017 event had been called off so that the organising team could "take stock". It is instead staging a non-camping festival in Glasgow in July.

Speaking at Wide Days, Mr Ellis said: "It's a constantly evolving marketplace, more so in the last couple of years than ever before. We've seen the rise of boutique festivals throughout the UK, as well as a Europe. That's had a big effect.

"People used to go to maybe two or three festivals in the summer. Now they can't afford to - they can usually only afford one. People have much more choice now.

"We've taken a year out of T in the Park. When we come back with a new camping festival it will be different - it will have to be, the market has changed in the last two or three years. It's not a bad thing. It's exciting. If everything stayed the same it would be boring.

"The big thing we've noticed is the behaviour of millennials now. They maybe want to go to a festival like T in the Park or Creamfields, but once they've ticked that box they're off the next year to Magaluf or a festival in Serbia.

"It's not that they didn't have a good time, it's because they want to keep doing different things, whereas a festival-goer ten years ago would go back every year with their mates. That's all changed. People are chasing the next experience.

"I wouldn't say it's lack of loyalty. It's just that you have less chance of repeat business from a young audience than you had ten years ago. If your key demographic is 18-25, you now have to accept you're not going to get the same people coming back every year. You have to keep it fresh."

First staged in 1994, T in the Park was forced to relocate from long-time home Balado, in Kinross-shire, in 2015 due to long-standing concerns from the Health and Safety Executive over an oil pipeline running underneath the site.

However, the event was dogged by problems at its new home in the grounds of Strathallan Castle, in Perthshire, including traffic chaos, crowd congestion, antisocial behaviour and the cost of protecting wildlife, including nesting ospreys.

Mr Ellis added: "There's never going to be one size that's fits all. You've always go to look at what your audience wants and bring things forward.

"Putting decent toilets in 20 years ago was seen as innovative. Now everybody expects to be able to get a tee-pee or a yurt when they go to a festival. Audience demands have changed and people don't want to rough it like they perhaps used to 20 years ago.

"The old Woodstock mentality of standing there in a field and having a warm pint of lager are long gone."

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T in the Park chief: music festivals have changed forever

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For more than two decades it was a fixture of the summer calendar, with tens of thousands of Scots flocking to the nation's biggest live music event. But now the organiser of T in the Park has admitted that the festival landscape has changed forever due to dramatic changes in the habits and demands from music fans.

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Festivals go upmarket to avoid image of ‘beery lads singing with their shirts off’

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Festivals go upmarket to avoid image of ‘beery lads singing with their shirts off’

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Britain's music festivals are looking to move upmarket this year, away from the beery, mass-singalong culture that has come to define summer as much as Wimbledon or a Test match at Lord's.

With dance music more prominent on the airwaves now than at any time in the last decade, and the weak pound prompting young people to holiday in the UK rather than abroad, festival organisers have started to worry about their events being dominated by hordes of lads with their shirts off. A new age of elitism appears to have begun, with elaborate techniques being deployed to discourage certain kinds of punter.

Some festivals have decided to avoid well-known headliners altogether, in a bid to deter the shallower type of festivalgoer who turns up only to see the big names. Other organisers are keeping numbers to a minimum and tickets scarce. Freerotation, an "electronic music party" held near Hay-on-Wye, Wales, in July, is members-only: only those who know someone who has already been can get tickets.

"Exclusivity does help promote a kind of unity - everyone there is into the same thing and there is less opportunity for a clash of cultures," said Adam Saville, deputy editor of DJ Mag. Other festivals, such as September's Field Maneuvers, have strong underground lineups, and numbers are deliberately kept low in a bid to create a house-party atmosphere.

The Sub Club XXX, a new festival held in Glasgow in August, is ensuring an intimate and knowledgeable crowd by splitting the festival into two days, aimed at different types of audience. The Saturday event, featuring highbrow artists such as Dixon and Peggy Gou, will be followed by more mainstream acts such as Maceo Plex on the Sunday. "The audience will be divided along these music policy lines," said the organisers, who claim to be interested in appealing only to a certain crowd and have fastidiously avoided promotional videos featuring girls in bikinis and popular house music.

Fabric nightclub resident DJ Craig Richards curates Houghton Festival, in the grounds of a country house in Norfolk. He told the Observer: "I'm sick of expensive DJs and people who are only there to see half the lineup. It's nonsense. This is one of the big problems with festivals today. It's much more important to me that we present new artists and new experiences."

Saville agrees. "If you are really into music, you don't necessarily want the crowd to be people in vests and caps who are beefed up and there for the popular name on the scene, but don't know any of the others. It creates a weird music vibe if people don't get it. When you have a clash of cultures, it disconnects the harmony; you want everyone there to be on the same page."

A DJ who did not wish to be named agrees that it is dispiriting to play for people who are only there for the headline act. "It's completely different to any normal gig that you do. There's a small proportion of people in the crowd who know anything about your music, and it means you have to hold them there by being more direct and by taking any subtlety out of what you do. People can leave at any moment, especially when there are multiple arenas. If you bore them for a second, they move on."

Going upmarket may also be one way to ensure longevity. Although Glastonbury manages to appeal to everyone from rugger buggers to hippies, the festival industry generally is in a somewhat precarious state. The 15-year-old Secret Garden Party will call it a day after its July event in Cambridgeshire, and many others are not even getting off the ground. "Festivals are making a concerted effort to be more upmarket and appeal to a certain crowd, partly to make sure they survive," said Saville. "The festivals that evolve and keep the attendees interested are always the ones that people talk about. Choosing underground artists and developing your niche is part of that."

Bill Brewster, co-author of Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, a history of disc jockeys, thinks that the increase in elite festivals is not unsurprising but goes against the spirit of inclusiveness of dance music. "We live in a society that's divided and that is inevitably going to have parallels in other layers of culture and music," he said. "Festivals and weddings used to be one of the few places where different generations and different types of people came together.

"I don't think it's like that any more and it's a shame really. You go somewhere now and it's specifically aimed at you and your type of mates and there are other places aimed at other groups in society. You don't really have that cross-generational thing."

Saville agrees. "There's a lot of snobbery around clubland and commercialisation of house music but there should be a degree of open-mindedness in clubbing," he said. "Dance music was always hinged on everyone being allowed to feel comfortable in their own skin, whatever gender or class they were."

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Festivals go upmarket to avoid image of 'beery lads singing with their shirts off'

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Britain's music festivals are looking to move upmarket this year, away from the beery, mass-singalong culture that has come to define summer as much as Wimbledon or a Test match at Lord's.

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[FREE] BEST RAP FREESTYLE BATTLE INSTRUMENTAL BEAT

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NEW TOUR FALL 2010 tickets here: http://tinyurl.com/2a3labw new CD! http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/words-words-words-deluxe-edition/id396588798 lyrics by me. music by garageband. all the seats at the sunday masses, filled with the mass's massive asses, classes pass as fast as molasses. ceremonial reading glasses. read a little bit of leviticus. all the kids are a little too little for this.

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Eminem ft Dr.Dre - Bad Guys Always Die Lyrics 720p

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Eminem ft Dr.Dre - Bad Guys Always Die Lyrics 720p, good song!!

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Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time

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Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time

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Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time