R&She Turns 4

On the eve of their fourth birthday party, R&She founder Neil Prince reflects on their past and very bright future!

 


“Back on 21st April 2012, myself, David Oh and QBoy held our first R & She party at Vogue Fabrics. It was an idea I had off the back of my pop sets at Dalston Superstore. Whenever I dropped any old school R&B, people would go crazy. I thought: ‘We need an old school R&B night in East London’, because there wasn’t one. Not for a gay audience anyway. And knowing how the gays love to channel their inner diva on the dancefloor, I thought I’d make it all about the females in R&B and Hip-Hop. R & She was born.

We wanted to create a fun, party atmosphere, inclusive for everyone, celebrating not just the female artists we love but the message they bring through their music. So on the one side we have a proper party vibe with mass sing-a-longs and dance offs. But on the other it connects with our beliefs in finding the strength to be comfortable with yourself, your sexuality and your body and fighting the dominant patriarchal bullshit.

R&B and Hip-Hop now is very much a male dominated industry. But if you go back to the 90’s, there were so many more big female artists in the game. It’s something we hope is going to change, with new artists such as Tinashe and Lady Leshurr striking a chord and building audiences.

We have an amazingly loyal crowd whom we love that come back party after party. They make the party, really. And what we’ve ended up with is one of the most mixed crowds at a gay night we’ve seen. Which is how it should be. It’s allowed us to grow, moving from Vogue Fabrics to Tipsy in 2014 and now next month for our May party, we’ll be holding it in an even bigger venue, Trapeze on Great Eastern Street.

2016 has already been a big year, securing a Berlin residency at St Georg and opening for En Vogue at the Mighty Hoopla festival. And with forthcoming slots at Bristol Pride and another outdoor summer party at the Magic Roundabout we’re all set to continue celebrating the queens in Hip-Hop and R&B!”

 

•R&She’s 4th Birthday party is on Saturday 30th April at TIPSY (20 Stoke Newington Road, N16 7XN), 9pm – 4:30am. Free before 10pm, £6 after.

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