Taking place on August 5th in South London’s Southwark Park, RALLY is a new festival that brings together some of the capital’s most revered music communities to celebrate the spaces and artists that make up the city’s vital, grassroots musical landscape. A collaborative project between the organisers of South London festival GALA and renowned promoters and live music tastemakers, Bird On The Wire, RALLY promises a fresh take on London one-day events.

Featuring a carefully-curated lineup of musicians including Princess Nokia (European festival exclusive), Obongjayar, Kelly Lee Owens and Leon Vynehall B2B Yu Su, RALLY’s international performances are intertwined with locally-focused installations and exhibitions developed by talents from London’s art community, representing Goldsmiths, ICA, Daytimers, Church of Sound and Sister Midnight.

Long considered a hotbed of emerging creative talent, students of leading art school Goldsmiths have devised installations including both stage builds and  interventions that compliment the philosophy of RALLY, each representing a different opportunity to dance, listen, rest or reflect. As part of the on-site art installations CAKE architecture will also present an open air dance music pavilion designed for an immersive electronic sounds experience.

A large chandelier will hang above the jazz, soul and afrobeat stage, on which a collage of images will be projected reflecting that engage with and deconstruct the theme of ‘possession’, a cavalcade of ritualistic light reflecting and inspiring the modern-day dance below. Elsewhere around the site and as part of stages themselves, diverse installations provoke conversation and curiosity, from ‘singing’ sculptures, to shimmering steel structures and psychedelic quiltwork.

Festival partner ICA have chosen to invite anticolonial cinema club Two Way Dreaming to programme a series of films and talks that celebrate their counter poetic celebration of black, radically minded films that test new arrangements of the self. Complimenting the screenings, Two Way Dreaming’s founder Danny Bush will also be in conversation with the cultural programmer Tabitha Thorlu-Bangura.

Having already connected and nurtured a fertile and hugely successful network of South Asian creatives across underground music and art, Daytimers present their spoken word and poetry offshoot Mehfil, making its day festival debut at RALLY. Spotlighting and celebrating South Asian writers accompanied by live classical musicians, Mehfil promises to be an inspiring and engaging highlight of RALLY, centered around often unheard but significant youth talent.

Having developed a cult following in the capital since 2016, Church of Sound present a new interpretation of their iconic Lower Clapton stage, surrounding performers such as Dave Okumu with the festival’s audience, further developing their contemporary take on the intimate ‘songbook’ live show concept.

Elsewhere, RALLY teams up with Peckham’s audiophile bar/restaurant, Jumbi, as an on-site food partner, bringing African-Caribbean cuisine to the festival, while the team behind Lambeth’s experimental space IKLETIC are set to host a mixed library and record store for experimental discoveries.

Come sundown, RALLY is partnering with the community-focused nightclub Venue MOT and South London’s Bermondsey Social Club for  afterparties following the festival, featuring collectives Bone Soda and Sister Midnight presenting room takeovers and fundraising for upcoming projects within the ticket price.

Further musical highlights on the day include Bristol post-punkers Squid, Kelly Lee Owens, John Talabot, Wu-Lu, Louis Culture, PVA, OK Williams, James Messiah B2B Kemar, Erika de Casier and Loraine James.
Driven by a passion for creating an environmentally responsible and inclusive space with sustainability at its heart, RALLY will partner with TOGETHERZERO – a sustainability initiative for arts, music & events.