Punani presents United We Rise Podcast Nr. 031

Punani (https://soundcloud.com/punanipunani) presents United We Rise Podcast Nr. 031 🗯🗯 How Did Corona change your artist life? 🗯🗯 Obviously, similar to all my fellow artist friends or event industries colleagues, this summer went quite different than we all originally planned. That long break was quite difficult for me personally, as I was used to a fast and busy life before the lockdown came. But also, it forced me to reflect, to connect in new ways with the people and culture around me and establish new networks through the internet. Musically, it brought to me many new gems, as I had time to dig even deeper than before and I finally found the time to start my own radio show, a dream I had for ages now. (Shoutout to Bandcamp: bandcamp friday was and is such a great invention in these times without a proper week structure and to support artists financially !) With more time on my hands, I was reading a lot about music culture and racist power structures and found some time to reflect on my own attitude towards the music that I am playing, as it is heavily inspired by music that is rooted in Black and queer communities, like Hip Hop and House. I feel that this pandemic made everything more visible, the good things and the bad things. The situation we as DJs, promoters, venues, artists and technicians are facing right now seems very scary and I think we all nearly lost hope in some moments. This is why projects like United We Stream and United We Talk are not only precious because of the important content and message they broadcast to a big international audience but also because the music and club culture community was able to stand in solidarity with each other as well as with people that were even more affected by the crisis during this pandemic. 🗯🗯 Where did you record the mix and how did you feel? 🗯🗯 I recorded it in my second home: the main floor at Mensch Meier in Berlin. It was such a good experience, feeling the bass in my body and the music played on a proper sound system again after months of listening to the tunes in my apartment (with neighbours and flatmates). I wanted to record a mix that is representing my style of bass music I play in clubs and festivals usually, which means that this music is made to dance to, best case scenario: with a group of friends who are singing along some to basslines that they might recognize as it was sampled from a hip hop classic, while shaking their booties off. Playing this mix without this energy on an empty dancefloor was surely one of the strangest DJ experiences I had so far (closely followed by that one special dude on a festival last year who had this strong urge to explain to me how to use the crossfaders in the middle of my set, thanks for that again ;) ). 🗯🗯 What are your wishes for the time after Corona? 🗯🗯 More solidarity. Caring for each other within our communities and caring for people who are made invisible in our society because they are living in camps on the European borders like Moria. More reflections on the power dynamics that also shape our beloved dancefloors. More actions to change these toxic systems like racism and sexism. And of course, good music to accompany this upcoming world peace. Thanks! ✘ Punani (Mensch Meier - non+ultras / Berlin) SC - https://soundcloud.com/punanipunani FB - https://www.facebook.com/grrrpunani/ Insta - https://www.instagram.com/pewpew_punani/ ✘ United We Stream (Berlin / Global) FB - https://www.facebook.com/unitedwestream/ WB - https://unitedwestream.berlin/ INSTA - https://www.instagram.com/unitedwestream/ ✘ ARTE United We Stream https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/RC-019297/united-we-stream/