The festival was held for a third time over 29 to 30 June 2019, at which Big Joanie performed. The second edition of the festival, again mostly held at DIY Space, occurred from 22 to 24 June 2018. Decolonise Fest is the UK's first music festival created by and for people of colour. Over the weekend of 2–4 June 2017, DIY Diaspora Punx (a collective started by Phillips and also containing other London musicians such as Rachel Aggs) put on the first Decolonise Fest at DIY Space For London. In early 2018 they recorded their debut album with producer Margo Broom at Hermitage Works Studios. Later that year the band supported American bands Sad13 and Downtown Boys on UK tours. Line-up change and Decolonise Fest Įstella Adeyeri (also of Witching Waves and Charmpit) joined in 2017 to replace Coward-Deyell after she moved to Scotland. Another song on the release is a punk cover of No Scrubs by TLC.

The title track is inspired by a lecture by the writer Melissa Harris-Perry, who compared life as a black woman in a white patriarchy to trying to find a true vertical in a room where everything is crooked. In 2014 the band released their first EP Sistah Punk on Tuff Enuff Records, and in 2016 they self released a 7' three song single entitled Crooked Room on their own Sistah Punk Records. I just thought that would be a great phrase for a strong, confident woman.’ ‘When we say a child is “acting big”, they’re acting bigger than themselves. The name of the band is partly a tribute to Phillips’ mother, Joan, and partly based on a Caribbean figure of speech. They played their first set at the inaugural First Timers, an event where all the bands had to be new, most of the members had to be playing a new instrument and they had to include someone from a marginalised group. Chardine Taylor-Stone, and the band's original bassist Kiera Coward-Deyell responded. History Formation and early releases īig Joanie was formed by Stephanie Phillips in 2013, who posted online asking for bandmates with whom to start a black feminist punk band after becoming frustrated with the lack of intersectionality in the scene.

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