Yellow Squares 🟨🎵
"Music has always been my refuge, a place where I can truly express myself."
That line is something I think all musicians and crowd members can relate to. It reminded me of when I came up with the name for Drowned in Sound, and I was trying to find something less cringe than "lost in music" that captured the rapturous feeling of being trampled by crowd surfers and covered in three different people's beer.
After inhaling a mouthful of Dorset seawater when out bodyboarding and thinking of a kid who had an accident in a grain silo, the name appeared. Filled with a melancholy and feeling of (joyous) overwhelm.
That opening quote to this post is from this week's podcast guest Elijah. He was a pioneer in the UK grime scene with his pirate radio show, Butterz label and club nights hosting the likes of Skepta and Stormzy. He's been a blogger and avid adapter to different platforms to celebrate the music and club culture that he loves, and he is one of my absolute favourite people to follow online.
His Yellow Squares project brilliantly mixes art (Shrigley, Holzer, etc), journalism, and community building. The 🟨 often feel as much like a prod as a prompt, which makes a lot more sense when he referred to his approach to sharing his knowledge as being "open source", which was a technology movement that a lot of the internet now runs on.
At one point in our chat he ponders “what’s the musical equivalent of a community note?” which left me thinking about all of the record reviews I wish I could attach a line about the writer hating this album, also thinks Limp Bizkit are the greatest band of all time. Or something.
As well as being a profound thinker, who has this great ability to zoom out to the fundamentals, he can be wonderfully provocative on Twitter too:
Works both ways.
— Elijah (@eli1ah) February 22, 2024
The business of music journalism is in trouble, music writing is fine.
Music journalism (the documentation of music across platforms and mediums by individuals) is fine and getting paid to write about music only is pretty much done. https://t.co/3H9bYQaJUI
Was great to finally chat to him after years of replying to his posts on social platforms. We discussed some of the ideas around the future of media, how journalism shouldn't be limited to words on a Tumblr, and we explore some of the challenges facing musicians right now.
Listen now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
p.s. if you're enjoying the pod, please consider forwarding it to that one friend who might also appreciate it. Your word of mouth support is helping the podcast find a new audience and I'm super grateful.
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