Pre-fair program // Repeat Beat Poet L.E.A.D Loose Egusi Afro Disco

Polyrhythms From The Diasporadical Dancefloor – a 2 hour blend moving from vintage Afro-funk to progressive Afro-house, all powered by the polyrhythms of African drums and the vim of Black resistance, hosted by The Repeat Beat Poet.

Loose Egusi is a Pan-African radio show and blog chronicling and celebrating African music of the past, present, and future, hosted by The Repeat Beat Poet (Peter deGraft-Johnson). Loose Egusi arises within the traditions of anti-imperialist resistance to the dehumanisation of African peoples and the denigration of their cultures. By practising techniques of global musicking, and undertaking archival research across borders, Loose Egusi blends traditional African and Afro-indigenous music with Afro-fusions, African popular music, and the vast array of music generated from the Black diaspora to encourage embodied and enjoyment-fuelled resistance wherever white supremacy threatens Black lives.

Peter deGraft-Johnson is the Repeat Beat Poet, a British-born Ghanaian poet, broadcaster, and Hip Hop artist. His debut pamphlet, 'A Testament To Life And Death' was published and exhibited 2022, with a second edition in 2023, and his poems have been published by Penguin, Amnesty International, and The U.N during COP26. In 2021 he was a writer-in-residence at The Library Of Africa & the African Diaspora in Accra, Ghana, and he is an alumnus of the Obsidian Foundation for African Poets, and has been nominated for a Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship. His publishers include Verve Poetry Press, Bad Betty Press, Magma Poetry, and Poetry On The Picket Line.

Since 2019 Peter has appeared monthly on NYC/London-based Soho Radio with improvised music collective and new music aficionados Imaginary Millions, and is also the host of the award-nominated longform discussion platform, the Lunar Poetry Podcasts, which is archived in the British Library, and has been featured on BBC 4Xtra