Why I left Afro Sunday
Between 2013 and 2020, I was one of the co-organizers and resident DJs of Afro Sunday, which is a popular DJ driven club night (with occasional live performances) focused on the latest pop music from Africa. After the summer of 2020, at the height of the club’s success, I resigned from my duties at Afro Sunday. At the time, I did not give a proper explanation to my colleagues, collaborators or our regular guests for what appeared perhaps to be a sudden decision. In this article, I discuss the circumstances that lead to my resignation and how it relates more broadly to white DJs’ involvement in music associated primarily with Black people and in a lack of accountability in addressing racism in club culture.
Afro Sunday was launched in 2013 as a monthly club at the mbar terrace bar in central Helsinki. After mbar closed in 2015, the club moved around until finding a more permanent format in 2017 as a weekly club at Apollo Terrace Bar during the summer and at Club Maxine during the winter season. From the get-go, the club established itself as an important — if not the most important — place in Finland to enjoy contemporary African pop and dance music, which until fairly recently, has hardly been seen or heard in white mainstream music venues or media. Afro Sunday quickly appeared to become a significant space to gather for Black youth and other people of African descent in Finland, who would travel to Helsinki for the events from all parts of the country. From my perspective, Afro Sunday managed to carve out a space for Africanness in the centre of a society that aggressively imposes whiteness on its citizens. The club offered an opportunity to celebrate blackness through music without the pressure of an explicitly expressed political aim. Afro Sunday was also for a long time, and possibly still is, the only club in central Helsinki that explicitly advertised itself as a place where Eid al-Fitr could be celebrated at the end of Ramadan, which attracted Muslims of all backgrounds to the events.
At the same time, as the reputation of the club grew and particularly Nigerian pop music started filtering into the global mainstream of music, more and more white people found their way to Afro Sunday. This impacted the Afro Sunday events in many ways. We had from the beginning strived for a diverse repertoire of music from different parts of Africa, which I suspect was a reason why the events were popular among many different African nationalities in Finland. However, many white people visiting the events were only familiar with, or at least mostly wanted to hear Nigerian pop music, the most exported form of African music. As a DJ performing at the events, I gradually noticed a clear change in the type of song requests I would receive. When the club first started, most requests came from Africans of different nationalities who wanted to hear music from their respective countries. These requests often kept me updated about the latest artists and trends from different parts of the continent. During the last years of my tenure, however, most song requests came from white women, who tended to ask for songs by only the most popular Nigerian acts.
As the repertoire of the events changed towards a more mainstream African and Nigerian pop and the number of white clubbers claiming the space increased, many Africans, who were there to enjoy music that represented their ethnic or national heritage, stopped visiting the events. To me, this also changed the mood of the events and what the music signified to the audience. White audience members could not claim the music in the same way as a symbol of identity as many clubbers of African heritage. Club events inevitably evolve, and due to the success of Afro Sunday it may have been impossible to avoid these types of changes. I had, however, hoped my white DJ colleagues would have been more concerned with what the club represented, rather than just celebrate the growing number of guests visiting the events.
Acknowledging that white people have often benefitted from the work of Black artists, at times even stripping away their cultural autonomy and right to tell their own stories, I felt we had responsibilities to consider the club as something more than an avenue in the advancement of our own careers. I am proud of having participated in the creation of an institution like Afro Sunday. I believe we did and that they are still doing a lot of good things. But I grew increasingly disappointed throughout the years with seeing its true potential as an institutional power that could be used for the benefit of the African communities in Finland slowly disappearing. I am not just saying this to criticise or condemn my white colleagues. I know I could have, and should have, done more to advance this aim myself. I also realise this sounds very abstract and idealistic, but all of these issues became very concrete in the summer of 2020.
Black Lives Matter
The summer of 2020 was exceptional in several ways. After a spring of tight restrictions and total lockdown, Covid-19 cases were down in Finland and society was set to reopen for the summer. Restaurants were scheduled to open in July, which meant Afro Sunday would also relaunch after a four and a half months hiatus. I was especially excited because I had plans to combine my academic work with my role as a DJ. As I had informed my DJ colleagues upon receiving news about the funding from Koneen Säätiö that would enable this, I was planning to do autoethnographic research about my work as a white DJ within the field of African pop music and Afro Sunday would naturally play a significant role in this.
However, before clubs would open and I could start my research, the tragic news about the murder of George Floyd spread throughout the world, bringing global attention to the topics I had been worried would be difficult to discuss with my DJ colleagues. With the new wave of Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in June 2020, issues of race and privilege were suddenly discussed seriously even in Finland, a country known for its misguided exceptionalism and unfounded belief that racism and colonialism are not part of our legacy or relevant topics of discussion here. Like many actors involved in the music and culture of Black people, Afro Sunday was specifically called out on social media to react, which I completely understood.
The organising team of Afro Sunday has since the beginning included Black members, but due to the clear white majority of the main organising team, I believe the club is generally perceived to be a white project. I have since the beginning insisted that the team must include people of African descent, but I have also come to see that the Black DJs and performers that have participated in organisation of the events, have often come to serve as tokens that legitimise the activities and agenda ultimately set by the club’s white DJs. Veto power over most decisions has stayed with the white majority, who have also voted out Black members of the team. I also acknowledge my own part in this and that I on a particular occasion chose solidarity with my white colleagues instead of listening to a Black member of the team, who after investing a lot of time and energy in the club was kicked out.
My colleagues did not generally have much to say about being called out in 2020, but one white team member suggested it was “childish”. Although they did not explain this comment in more detail, I was reminded of the “denial, delusion and defensiveness” that cultural studies and race scholar Paul Gilroy identifies as the Nordic societies’ inability to accept that they can be tainted by something as ugly as racism. This attitude, which demonstrates that the person voicing it does not know what racism looks like, is in itself a symptom of how racism works. Denying having any part in racist structures and believing that one's own success is solely the result of extraordinary skills, rather than privilege, keeps white supremacy in place. It also signals that the people who are doing the heavy lifting and putting themselves on the line by calling out racism are the problem. Like feminist and critical race scholar Sara Ahmed suggests, if you are ignorant of the problem, it appears as if the people naming the problem are the ones creating it.
I described in our group chat why I thought it was reasonable that Afro Sunday was called out. While people native to the cultures we celebrate at the events are discriminated against in Finland, we have due to our privileged position in society been able to take their music into a big club in central Helsinki and become representatives of music and cultures other than our own. As white people in positions where we dictate the presence of African music in Helsinki and the conditions under which people of African descent celebrate this heritage, we have to hold ourselves accountable and represent them correctly. We should not just assume that we have done a good deed by creating and managing a space for African popular music in Helsinki and then isolate this celebration of the music from the marginalisation and struggle for equity that people of African heritage face in Finland.
Moving forward, we agreed that we should publish a statement, which I volunteered to draft. I hoped that the statement would inspire us to reflect on these questions as a group and that it would also hold us accountable and consider issues of privilege and injustice more seriously in the future. The draft I presented to our team was generally well received, but a few formulations were debated. My suggestion that we should “work harder to become better allies” caused some confusion, prompting one white colleague to ask if this meant we should be doing something differently. I replied that it was the whole point of the statement; to accept and acknowledge our own role in affirming white supremacy and to explore all the things I know we could and should do better. We cannot and should not seek to address anything larger than our own practices, which we actually can do something about.
Another source of concern for the same colleague was my use of the word “racial” in the draft statement, which caused them to ask if using the word race signals that we approve of “racial thinking” and presumably also racism. This way of thinking is widely recognized in Finland and other parts of Europe by anti-racist scholars and activists. Because the category of race is still primarily associated with biological traits in Europe, its usage is avoided at all costs, even in the context of equality work. However, simply avoiding using the word race will not make racism disappear. As anti-racist researcher and educator Aminkeng A. Alemanji shows us, we need to talk about race in order to address racism. Racism continues to go unnoticed because discussions about equity and difference are framed around categories like culture and migration, which in themselves often contribute to the racialization of certain groups of people. My colleague’s comment exemplifies how distanced many white people are from racism and how it works. Because whiteness continues to be the societal and cultural norm, white people do not have to encounter or deal with being racialized themselves. As such, white people can easily state that race does not matter and that we should not use the word race.
I refused to have the word race removed from our statement, but agreed to compromise on the phrase a “less racializing society”. I was not entirely happy about this, but I realised we are in the beginning of this process and still have a long way to go.
Racism at the door
When clubs finally opened in July 2020, racism at Afro Sunday became very real. We started receiving messages on our social media profiles about the racist behaviour of the security staff at the events. The first message that reached me was about another club night that a few members of the Afro Sunday team were organising at the same venue with the same security staff, but because it hit so close to home, we discussed it also among the Afro Sunday team. Apparently, one of the bouncers had tried to refuse a Black person entry to the venue, because the bouncer confused them with somebody who had been involved in a fight and who had been banned from the venue. Upon realising their mistake, according to the message, the bouncer had said “you all look alike”.
My reaction was that we should nip this in the bud before we get similar reports from the Afro Sunday club nights. I proposed the idea of organising anti-racism training for everybody involved in the club; the security, bar staff, DJs, managers, everybody. The idea received a lot of support from the Afro Sunday team, but when the venue management minimised the accusations of racism on the basis that the message was sent from an anonymous profile and it could be hard to verify what exactly had taken place, we never moved forward with it. I should not have accepted this position and I blame myself for not pushing more actively for the training, which could have saved the club from a lot of trouble later.
Namely, shortly afterwards, before we even had time to react to the first accusation, a video from Afro Sunday started circulating on social media. The video showed a white bouncer quite roughly shoving a Black person lying on the floor. The person filming the clip from a distance is heard saying that the bouncer had also stepped on the face of the person on the ground. Upon first seeing the video, I immediately started drafting a message to the venue management about how we cannot allow a person behaving like that to work as a bouncer at our events. Regardless of what had happened prior to what was seen in the video, it was unacceptable behaviour. But, as reasons behind the incident started to unravel, my energy was redirected towards an internal debate within the team.
I had played an early evening DJ set that night and left the venue before this incident, so I was unaware that there had been a big brawl in the club, which ostensibly also involved the person maltreated in the video. It was also brought to my attention that because the fight had apparently involved men of Somali descent, one of the bouncers had at the end of the night hinted at the idea that they could deny entry from any Somalis that the bouncers did not recognize as regulars at the event. One of our team members believed this could be a good policy in reducing the number of fights there had been in the club, so we organised an emergency meeting to discuss the matter with the team.
It was hard for me to believe that I had to explain why Afro Sunday, an event with a predominantly Black and African audience, cannot enforce a discriminating door policy against a specific African ethnicity. Luckily, the person who seemed to support the policy soon realised its absurdity. But I was still left concerned with this issue, because in expressing their initial support for the ethnic profiling, the same team member had also declared they believed we are the least racist club in town and that the audience would most likely understand the policy as a temporary measure. A mere affiliation with Black music does not exempt white people from racist structures, policies and ideas. In fact, believing that a proximity to blackness is enough to display commitment to racial justice can interfere with taking responsibility and being accountable. To paraphrase author, attorney and activist Rachel Ricketts, the main obstacles in the way of authentic commitment to change is the feeling of already being good and being right.
I was at this point growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of accountability I experienced within the team. Especially considering the fact that we had merely two months ago published a statement where we promised to work harder for the Black communities and to develop our practices to become even more equitable. It felt like a uphill-battle I couldn’t win and being associated with the Afro Sunday brand that was now being tarnished felt increasingly less motivating. Then came the final straw.
Once again, we received a message flagging the racist behaviour of our security staff: a bouncer at Afro Sunday had called a Black guest a monkey. The initial reaction of one white colleague was to suggest that perhaps the comment was not racially motivated. According to them, if the guest had behaved like a monkey, it would be appropriate for the bouncer to call the Black person a monkey. I and the African members of our team sought to explain that the bouncer’s potentially racist motive is irrelevant — the mere fact that the word is one of the oldest and most hurtful slurs that has been used against Black people everywhere makes it immediately about race. Our colleague still maintained that if the Black person at the receiving end of the slur interpreted it as racism, they have an issue with internalised racism. So, from my perspective, I now saw a white DJ responsible for the biggest recurring club night with a predominantly Black audience justifying the use of a racist slur, choosing instead to highlight the responsibility of the person that experienced this as racist. At this point, I made the decision to leave. I could perhaps have done more, but I avoided responsibility and retreated.
Jumping Ship
The incidents I have discussed here are presented somewhat out of context and only represent my perspective of what happened. There were many other things going on and also many other issues I could have brought up. I also realise that there are people who probably disagree with the opinions I have presented here and perhaps find it unethical that I am publicly discussing private team matters. At the same time, there are also people who will think I should have and could have done much more to address the overt racism at Afro Sunday, and done it sooner. It has taken me some time to find the energy to process everything that happened, but I am now choosing to discuss this publicly because I feel a responsibility towards the people visiting the events and because I believe that they have a right to know what happens behind the scenes.
I have sought to frame what I experienced as part of larger conversations about racism and white supremacy. I am not writing this as an accusation of my former colleagues, nor suggesting that I myself am innocent and exempt from the dynamics of race and white privilege. These larger patterns are relevant for any white people involved in the music and culture of racialized minorities. Racism is not an insult and it should not make white people defensive. It is a state of affairs, which constantly finds new ways to operate. This also means that people are not categorically racist or absolutely good. Policies, ideas and actions are racist and the only way to change them is to actively favour policies that are anti-racist. I myself am also constantly working to do better and I encourage everybody else, and particularly white people who celebrate and take pleasure in the music and cultures associated primarily with people of African heritage, to do the same. A good place to start is to accept that we are all part of a racist society and that we maintain this status quo in many ways.
Kim Ramstedt is a researcher, activist and musician
Post Scriptum
A draft of this article was sent prior to publication to the Afro Sunday team. Although they do not agree on all my interpretations of what happened, they have assured me that they did take my concerns seriously even when I expressed them in 2020. Following conversations I have had in private with some of the team members after sending them the article draft, it appears that the club is set for some major reconfigurations. I wish them the best of luck in developing the club into reaching its full potential as a major brand for African pop in the Nordic region.
References and further reading
Ahmed, Sara (2017) Living a Feminist Life. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Alemanj, Aminkeng A. (ed.) (2018) Antiracism Education In and Out of Schools. Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan.
Brown, Tamara Lizette & Kopano, Baruti N. (eds) (2014) Soul Thieves: The Appropriation and Misrepresentation of African American Popular Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Eddo-Lodge, Reni (2017) Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race. London: Bloomsbury.
Gilroy, Paul (2014) “Forward”. In Afro-Nordic Landscapes: Equality and Race in Northern Europe. M. McEachrane (ed.). New York & London: Routledge, xi–xvii.
Ibrahim, Shamira (2022) “Is Billboard’s Afrobeats Chart Good for Afrobeats?”. Vulture 30 March, https://www.vulture.com/2022/03/billboard-us-afrobeats-chart-analysis.html.
Kendi, Ibram X. (2019) How to Be an Anti-Racist. London: Penguin Random House.
Layne, Priscilla (2018) White Rebels in Black. German Appropriation of Black Popular Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Loftsdóttir, Kristín & Jensen, Lars (eds) (2012) Whiteness and Postcolonialism in the Nordic Region: Exceptionalism, Migrant Others and National Identities. London & New York: Routledge.
Tella, Oluwaseun (2021) Africa’s Soft Power. Philosophies, Political Values, Foreign Policies and Cultural Exports. London & New York: Routledge.
Rickets, Rachel (2021) Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy. New York: Simon & Schuster.