Do you want to perform your music or DJ at AfrikaBurn?
That’s amazing; the gift of music is one of the greatest joys in Tankwa Town (just not in the quiet zone). Whether you DJ or sing, play guitar or penny whistle, your performance on Quaggafontein should be given freely and without any expectation of compensation (other than a big round of applause). This creates an opportunity for you to connect with the Tankwa Town residents on a much deeper level than if you’d booked the Sydney Opera House and performed for all your mates who like exactly the same tunes as you.
When a performance or DJ set is gifted, it is given out of a sense of love and passion for the art form rather than for any other type of gain. This creates more meaningful and authentic experiences and is what delivers the magic that you only get at a Burn event (compared to Coachella or Glastonbury).
It’s very important to our community that, as a decommodified space, you do not see the AfrikaBurn event as an opportunity to promote your DJ career or brand. While it’s essential to credit any creative performance appropriately, we encourage you to free yourself from any perception of the default world and perform entirely anonymously.
AfrikaBurn is your opportunity to turn your phone off, take a break from promoting how great your life is, and “be here now.” If we’re not careful, AfrikaBurn could end up like the rest of the world, where advertising is so pervasive it doesn’t always register when we’re being sold to.
How cool would it be to go and see a random band called ‘The Churnups’ and then discover it’s the Foo Fighters? When you’re in Tankwa Town, we encourage you to be more like Larry Lurex instead of Freddie Mercury.
If you're a superstar singer or DJ, use AfrikaBurn to take a night off and play the music you want to instead of the music your default world audience expects you to.
After the event, we encourage you to share any performance or DJ set in the default world in the same manner. If you really want to share your set/performance from AfrikaBurn, please don’t do it in a way that makes it look like you’re a resident act at AfrikaBurn to get opportunities in the default world. Use your gift to teach others why AfrikaBurn is so great as a decommodified and unbranded space.
Have you heard of Bangers and Mash? Hopefully, only if you’ve been to AfrikaBurn … At AfrikaBurn, they throw legendary intergalactic dance parties in the dust, but outside of the Burn in the default world, nobody has ever paid to get into a Bangers and Mash venue or listen to Bangers and Mash perform. Bangers and Mash aren’t charging you extra for a VVIP ticket to their dancefloor at AfrikaBurn; they let anyone be a part of their soundscape (they also gift banging potato treats on their dancefloor).
Are you a promotor or artist booking agent?
Despite the numerous emails we get from booking agents, AfrikaBurn does not book or curate any performers or DJs at AfrikaBurn. If you want to perform, Radical Self Reliance is key to finding a place to perform your music. Your best way to perform at AfrikaBurn is to start a sound-based Theme Camp or creative project … If your dream is to play a piano in the middle of the desert at midnight, then we’re not going to stop you, but it’s up to you to bring a piano to Tankwa Town and take it all home again.
You also don’t need to bring a massive rig or a double-decker bus to be able to play your music. You can start small and build your way up over time.
Our top tips if you want to DJ at AfrikaBurn
- Join all the AfrikaBurn community social media pages
- Try to find a camp to join or create a new camp that has the type of performance you want to give in Tankwa Town
- Don’t make ego-driven posts about how amazing your minimal hardstyle psytrance set is.
- Do be authentic about who you are and what performance you want to gift.
- Don’t tell anyone if/when you will be performing at AfrikaBurn. Shit happens in Tankwa Town, and chances are that you’ll not be performing at a specific time
- Don’t use AfrikaBurn imagery to promote yourself or your brand
- Don’t use the fact you ‘played at AfrikaBurn’ to promote your club gigs for the rest of the year
- Do play and have fun.
- Enjoy giving the gift of performance without expectation of anything in return.
The absence of commercialism at AfrikaBurn allows us the rare opportunity to gift rather than sell, to receive rather than buy. It allows us to try social currency instead of transactions.
Some words on this page have been sampled and remixed from Travis Lyle and Charlie Dolman
