A night of DJing at Toronto's Double Double Land space was canceled last week when a controversy sparked over the all-white lineup that was on offer. The theme of the event was to present DJs for a night of African music, and so when DJ Kirsten Azan posed on the Facebook page whether any of the DJs were actually African, the thread began to spiral. The event was canceled and removed entirely from Double Double Land's page (though screencaps exist here), and the event's organizer, Daniel Vila, interjected with “At some point in the coming weeks, DDL will host a community talk regarding these issues, as we all feel that face-to-face dialogue is more productive than the circular trajectory of Facebook threads.”
Chart Attack's Jordan Darville has posted a long response to a night of African music being hosted only by white DJs, and it's worth a read. Brian Shimkovitz—the founder of Awesome Tapes From Africa—weighed in as well, stating that “There must be some tension here that's been building for a while, I don't live here so I am not well-informed on nuances of the music scene here.” More of this thoughts can be found on Chart Attack.
