DJs Minna No Kimochi, photographed by Edward Sogunro

In response to rising xenophobia and far-right politics, a new cultural movement is emerging that celebrates East and South East Asian identity through rave culture.

While many dream of travelling to Shanghai, Seoul or Kuala Lumpur to experience underground nightlife, cost and lack of familiarity often make the journey out of reach. Fortunately, London’s rave culture, like Asia’s, is evolving fast, offering its own vibrant scenes shaped by global sounds and shifting identities.

As hate rises and racial violence ceases to become a story of the past, Londoners continue to find unity on the dancefloor. The rise of events celebrating East and Southeast Asian culture marks a quiet form of resistance, spaces where music, identity and politics collide. Among them, offering nostalgic exchange in the form of Pokémon baile funk remixes and Chinese hardcore, Margins United Festival stands out as a totally new experience.

Margins United took over Archives warehouse in Tottenham at the end of September. Its organisers record label Eastern Margins are known for their explosive curation as well as performances from the likes of international live gig and club favourites such as LVRA, Balming Tiger, Tohji and Dirty K.

At this years’ event, as with many Eastern Margins events, the crowd is as much a spectacle as the music. Those who attend know to expect dark dungeon-like spaces, chest tattoos glimmering under searching lights, ripped jeans and coloured contacts located in motion near the speaker systems.

The festival’s daytime sets featured colourful performances from Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and Jax Jones, setting the scene for an afterparty that blurred genres and generations. Opening the night was Wongrel a bass-heavy set from none other than Mancunian actor Benedict Wong, known for his role in The Three-Body Problem. Wong, a long-time community supporter, reportedly donated his entire fee to On Your Side, a charity that supports East and Southeast Asian communities facing racism and hate crime.

Since Covid-19, there have been 13,810 reported hate crimes against East and South East Asian people in the UK, though campaigners believe that the real figure is likely higher due to underreporting. For Jay, a member of Eastern Margins, these statistics are not abstract. A year earlier, his mother and brother were attacked by four men and women on a train after an England Euros match. The assailants reportedly targeted them with racial slurs before the attack turned violent.

Despite evidence at the scene, police officers allegedly recorded the incident as “anti-social behaviour”, ignoring its racial motivation and even discarding key evidence. Jay’s family were left to seek medical help themselves after officers refused to call an ambulance. Stories like this form the backdrop against which events like Margins United exist - spaces where people find not just varied and impressionistic rave music, but a rare sense of safety and solidarity.

For many in London’s East and Southeast Asian diaspora, Margins United offers a chance to exist outside tokenism and dance to the sounds of their heritage without apology. In a world that often exoticises or sidelines their identities, these nights though alien, can feel like home. Of course, they can also be overpowering. As a South London rapper puts it, rooted on a sofa backstage, ‘what they’ve put on is mad, it’s mad’. Awestruck and full of warning, the rappers’ tone is due to a ’different’ and extraordinary energy presented in both rooms of the Tottenham warehouse venue, which to any observer is uniquely lawless and fantastical.

On the main stage, aggressive yet otherworldly an oppressive bass keeps a lairy crowd in spirited check whilst Clair, the DJ responsible, wears a set of angel-winged headphones. Her female entourage dance effortlessly behind her, emboldened and empowered by the scenes before them.

Not to let the aesthetic down with their back-to-back to follow, HainaFromChina sports a pink deerstalker hat with lace trim while DJ G2G lights the way ahead with pink LED headphones. Their rhythmically evolving set, enlivening though it is, is insistently commanding and anything but as cute as their get-up. Hardcore rave fanatic Dirty K’s percussive set begins as militaristically as it ends.

The emotional weight of a community festival platforming not just diaspora, but artists from around the world at the event is and can be deeply felt. HainaFromChina is an international DJ who has played Boiler Room sets in both Vancouver and Barcelona. ‘Seeing how Eastern Margins brought together so many talented, alternative Asian artists from across the globe, right here in London… [feels] incredibly significant and special.’

Five minutes to the festival close, Japanese trance duo Minna No Kimochi play a closing track not unlike a football anthem. With the name of the festival being what it is it’s hard not to think of football, arguably the UK’s greatest and most notable export. Like the UK football has two faces. Seen clearly from one side, its ability to connect across borders. And from the other, a strange ability to divide and factionalise. When two young music artists who’ve travelled all the way from Tokyo to reference this, intentionally or not, it does well indeed to unite the strong remains of the margins. A swell of audiences, East Asians, South East Asians and allies both local and international stomp and sway together under one roof, each committed to what’s become their own rampant chaos.

Noting all of this, the Margins United founders’ official statement reads:

In Tottenham, on a clear sky, we brought together the takeaway kids, suburban otakus, gyaru goths, weebs, catboys, 土嗨亚逼英雄, Lazada e-Girls, 亀の甲 traditionalists, Shibari practitioners, Mobile Legend grinders, Vinahouse Vixens, Shabby Stars, AZN PLUR candy ravers, 臺客 warriors, 槟郎JB KTV Heroes, Camusgirls & Camusboyz, Funkot Remixers, 小红书 moodboarders, 慢摇 YPs, Visual kei cultists, 阿明 Geylang drifters.
This is the Margins.

For its attendees and observers to bear, Margins United is more than an abrasive and vision-inducing cup of Kool-aid. It’s a collective exhale for a community still processing years of exclusion and misunderstanding. Its manifesto is also part and parcel of charm at its core, the idea we should be allowed to drown peacefully in a sea of maximalism, as only maximalism can remind us of how it feels to be back home.

Writer: Sophie Yau Billington

Editor: Zak Hardy

Photography: Edward Sogunro

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