AJ Holmes

AJ Holmes

19 January, 2011
by: Robertswaine86

One of the pioneers of the tropical takeover that has infiltrated London music from hip hop to dubstep takes time out from presiding over his Hackney Empire to chat to Rob Swaine.

AJ Holmes is one of London’s musical treasures. His band, AJ Holmes and The Hackney Empire, bring fun and tropical happiness to whatever venue they rock up at. He’s played a key role in establishing London’s best alternative club night, Secousse, alongside Radioclit, who host regular events every first Friday of the month at Notting Hill Arts Club.

Firstly, how did you come to form the Hackney Empire?

In 2009, I was asked by the Royal Festival Hall to perform at one of the David Byrne concerts. They'd heard I could bring a band, but I didn't actually have a band so I had to quickly put one together because I was really keen to do the show, having always been a big fan of David Byrne, especially the Talking Heads stuff. 

I wasn't sure if we would do another show together after that incarnation but it really seemed to work and so for me it waWhat role do you see Secousse playing in the current London dance music scene?s the logical progression for my music. Before that I 'd just been playing solo shows doing a live looping show.

Where did the name 'the Hackney Empire' come from?

From the building of course hehehe! The Hackney Empire is a famous theatre in Hackney, which is the London borough that I live in. I really like it when bands / crews name themselves after landmarks, for example, The Newham Generals (after the Newham General Hospital), Kilburn and The High Roads, which was Ian Durry's band before The Blockheads. (Kilburn High Road is a road in London).

I also find the Imperialist connotation of the name interesting. We are a British band playing African-influenced music and of course if you put the word Empire in your name it can be a contentious issue. It's actually kind of like the Empire came 'home' or 'The Empire Strikes Back' if you will… I also like the duality of the words Hackney and Empire being in the same title. It is a celebration of the multiculturalism of my immediate surroundings.

Multiculturalism is of obvious importance to you then...

I’ve grown up with this fantastic multiculturalism. The borough of London that I was born and grew up in, Barking and Dagenham, has had the most amount of immigrant 'settlers' out of all the London boroughs in the last fifteen years. This has of course had some negative effects, like the BMP getting voted into local government a couple of years back; thankfully only for a short while.

One of the many positive points of this high number of immigrant residents is of course the cultural cross-pollination, which I totally embraced. It seemed like the most natural artistic statement for me to put together a mixed race, cross-cultural band like AJ Holmes and The Hackney Empire.

What's the main idea behind Secousse and how did it come about?

It was started by Radioclit in 2007. The idea was to create a platform to play out some of the amazing music that we'd 'discovered' that is coming out of the 'devoloping world'. Etienne Tron (Radioclit / The Very Best) calls it 'Third World Power'.

We have a huge love for African music. At the time when Radioclit started the night there didn't seem to be any clubs outside the African community that were playing and mixing up all the genres of modern African music: Kwaito and Shangaan from South Africa, Kuduro from Angola, Coupe Decale from Ivory Coast, Funana from Cabo Verde.

But we don't draw the line there. We mix it with Afro-grime and UK funky, indie and hip hop from the US, European tropical dance as well as old school stuff that we love: palm-wine, jive, Afro-pop, rumba, soukous... So the music policy is very broad, fitting under the concept of 'tropical' which I guess is what people used to call 'world music', but with an emphasis on club music and culture.

What role do you see Secousse playing in the current London dance music scene?

Well I think it's fair to say we were the first 'tropical' club night and I would say still the best! The music that we promote tends to be 'ghetto music' so it's easy to see how it's sat comfortably with hip hop and the UK funky scene for example. I'd like to think we bring all these sensibilities together and show the parallels.

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