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Festival Guide Free Elbow Seasick Steve De La Soul ⋅ Soul II Soul Groove Armada Roni Size And David Rodigan The Districts Keir Mike Skinner Mad Professor Bristol Hi-Fi

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Festival Guide Free

Elbow ⋅ Seasick SteveDe La Soul ⋅ Soul II Soul

Groove ArmadaRoni SizeAnd David Rodigan ⋅ The Districts ⋅ Keir ⋅ Mike Skinner

Mad Professor ⋅ Bristol Hi-Fi

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We weren’t really sure what we were going to do next when the Massive Attack show finished in September 2016. It was a strange mixture of feelings – months of pre-planning and stress had passed for us and all our crew to make the show happen. And then, all of a sudden, it was over. As we wandered back towards the site at mid-night, soaked to the bone from helping get people on their way home, we felt a strange combination of calm, release and achievement, the weight lifted after producing a homecoming show for Bristol’s favourite sons. It was tempered slightly with disappointment in the weather and the issues the bars had with handling the huge numbers people arriving at once. But mostly we wondered what on earth we were going to do follow it.

We regrouped, discussed what we wanted to achieve with a follow-up and what Bristol needed from the event. We knew we needed a combination of classic artists, covering both the guitar and the dancefloor. So we began the search and found Elbow, one of the country’s biggest bands, and part of a select few that can deliver a show to warrant the scale of The Downs Festival Bristol. De La Soul and Soul II Soul came next, two artists that ticked all the boxes for what we want this festival to represent. Their albums helped form the musical fabric of an entire generation and helped shape the outlook of what we do as an organisation.

Then there’s Seasick Steve, a big favourite of ours. With Groove Armada and Roni Size, we’re celebrating iconic album territory, heading up our second stage alongside David Rodigan, Mike Skinner of The Streets and local heroes Bristol Hifi. We’re thrilled to be offering Bristol a party befitting of its pioneering soundsystem roots.

We’ve also been working hard on developing the Information Stage. Last year this focused on the refugee crisis and included some mind blowing talks and performances. It’s an exciting prospect for us – offering a platform for forward-facing discussion and boundary-pushing performance. In Akala, we’ve found a headliner who perfectly aligns with that mission.

Above all, this feels like a line up that makes sense. It’s full of musical pioneers and inspirational speakers – capturing a spirit of celebration and creativity. We hope we’re offering a great day out for the people of the city. See you on The Downs!

WelcomeWelcomeThe Downs Festival Bristol The Downs Festival Bristol

Contents

ElbowChoose LovePage 6

Groove ArmadaBack To The RootsPage 10

Roni SizeTwenty YearsOf New FormsPage 12

Full Line–UpPage 16

Bristol FoodPage 18

Charity& SustainabilityPage 20

Kids AreaPage 22

The InformationWith AkalaPage 24

The Downs Festival BristolProgramme

Produced especially for The Downs Festival Bristol by Crack Magazine.Editor: Theo Kotz. Art Director: Manu Rodriguez. Executive Editor: Thomas Frost. Editorial Assistant: Liam Curran. Editorial & Creative Input: Team Love. Design & Production: Crack Magazine.Special Thanks: Ben Price, Tom Paine, David Harvey, Becci Abbott, Lewis Jamieson, Joe Philip, Matt Learmouth,Anna Tehabsim, Louise Brailey, Jake Applebee, Thomas Frost and everyone else involved.

Photograph by Phil Watson

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Feature

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The Downs Festival Bristol

ChooseLove

ElbowFrontman Guy Garvey perfectly encapsulates this duplicity. With his show on BBC 6 Music now ten years old, his voice has become as fa-

miliar as that of Jarvis Cocker or John Peel in the homes of many. His lyrics touch on a universal sentimentality and yet on stage, his large frame and northern patter imbue him with the kind of presence reserved for the frontmen of legend. Then again, his voice is so familiar that it’s slightly surreal talking to him on the phone, like chatting to an old friend whose life you know nothing about.

He’s in good spirits, hanging around on the set of the new series of Detectorists, the BBC comedy featuring his wife, Rachel Stirling. Their son is asleep in the next room and he’s clearly relishing this slice of (slightly showbiz) domesticity. In getting older, you might assume the life of constant recording and touring would become a drag, especially with a young family, but Garvey is careful to find time for the important things. Combined with the actual day-to-day reality of being in Elbow, 25 years doesn’t seem such a long time.

“I think it’s because we’ve always looked after each other.” Garvey says of their longevity. “Ultimately I love the guys I play with: it’s based on having a right laugh. You wake up in these towns and a couple of thousand people have come to see you on the other side of the world. You hang around all day, maybe change the set and do a couple of hours’

work, and then get back on your bunk. An amazing life. Writing is a joy as well: I can write at two in the morning, with a bottle of wine, in my pants; or I can make notes on a tube train.”

Still, those 25 years hav-en’t passed without incident. Elbow’s latest album Little Fictions is their first since Richard Jupp left the band, having been drummer since they formed in 1990 as Mr Soft. “Initially it was sad,” he concedes. “We’d never made a record without Jupp before. On songs like Head For Supplies and Kindling I think musically you can hear it. We used the original recordings from Scotland on both of those songs and there’s a sense of us blinking out into the world.”

Confidence would return though and as Garvey points out: “Craig [Potter] and Jupp always wrote the beats together. We lost half of our groove machine when he left, not all of it.” The result is probably the most groove-driven El-bow record to date. Garvey’s current favourite song on the album is Trust the Sun, a par-ticularly rhythmic track. “It’s very up-tempo, very celebra-tory. It exorcises something in Pottsky (Mark Potter) – he brought a big spiritual energy to the tune. Then Craig (Pot-ter) got hold of it and made it inkier and dubbier. Of all the Elbow records actually, this is the one I’ve had least to do with musically. I wrote the string parts but, by and large, I was handed the music fully formed. It was a nice departure.”

The lyrics are still Gar-vey’s concern. One track in particular which has garnered interest in this sense is All Disco, particularly when he sings: “What does it prove if you die for a tune / It’s really all disco.” “The actual term ‘it’s all disco’ came from an interview I did with

A band like no other, Elbow tap into the romance inherent in everyone to bring soaring joy to the great swathes who come to their shows and send a quiver through the stiffest of upper lips. With over 25 years under their belts, seven studio albums and a back catalogue full of anthems, they are one the most consistently brilliant bands in recent memory, somehow retaining the air of local boys come good while attracting packed crowds to some of the world’s biggest stages.

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ElbowFeature

“Of all the Elbow records actuallythis is the one I’ve had least to do withmusically. It was a nice departure.”

Like anyone with a love of Manchester or in-deed music, the news of the attack at Ariana Grande’s concert at the Manchester Arena hit the band hard. Garvey’s thoughts on the matter though are characterised by hope. “Elbow have played there so many times, and I’ve had so many occasions of joy there. The entrance isn’t round the corner from Victoria station, it’s in the station, which is the gateway to the city when you’re from north of Manchester as I am. It’ll always have that attached to it now, but Manchester has a history of remembering its victims; those people won’t be forgotten. Tony Walsh put it best when he said: ‘choose love Manches-ter.’ And in my experience it always has.”

Our conversation turns to another city. It’s been more than eight years since the band last played in Bristol, though Garvey played his solo record at the 6 Music Festival in 2016. But it does hold a place in their hearts.

“We’ve always had a good time in Bristol. I collaborated with Massive Attack on three or maybe more songs from Heligoland. So to me it’s the Massive boys, and of course musically we love everything that came out in the late 90s. It’s a lovely city.”

It’s fitting that The Downs Festival Bristol will host them after so many years, Elbow being one of few bands in the country that have the tunes to match a stage and crowd of this size. That said, they weren’t always festival naturals. “The more anthemic tunes were written after we experienced big crowds for the first time.” Says Garvey. “There’s nothing of that nature on our first album but we started putting them in because we thought: why waste a choir that size? It’s a lovely thing. The Downs is pretty much the last festival we’re doing for a while, so we’re going to give it our best performance this summer.”

Black Francis of Pixies.” He explains. “But I wrote the tune because I heard a young musician died who I very much admired. I don’t know the details of the death but I suspect it’s standing too close to the work. I’ve always found it really macabre when people talk about the 27 club and things like that. I think it’s really sick. The song is a way of saying: ‘put everything into it but don’t let it cost your life.’ You’ve only got one.”

Mostly Little Fictions is decidedly joyous work. “If anything we’ve had to curb it in the past.” Garvey answers, when asked if it was hard to inject this cheer. “For the first time we felt like what was required of us was some positivity, because of just how fucking bleak things are at the moment. We all agreed the best thing we could do was write songs about love and togetherness. Along the way too,

there were songs about failed relationships which I’m sure in part were inspired by what happened with Jupp.”

For the rest of them, the bond remains strong. So too, does their love for the city, Manchester. From near-by Bury originally, it has become part of their make-up. Years were spent with the iconic Roadhouse practically their office, and in Station Approach they have one the great homages to a city. It is impossible to discuss the band without discussing the context of where they call home. “People in Manchester stick together and they look after each other,” offers Guy. “We saw that with the reaction to the bomb.”

“For the first time we felt like what wasrequired of us was some positivity, because of justhow fucking bleak things are at the moment.”

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The Downs Festival Bristol The Downs Festival Bristol

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Feature

GrooveArmadaBack To

The Roots

Formed at the moment when club culture crossed over into the UK mainstream, Groove Armada strode the pathway paved by the likes of Fatboy Slim and The Chemical

Brothers to become one of the biggest acts in dance music. Tracks like Superstylin’ and I See You Baby took the band’s profile in the stratosphere and they perfected a live show that was unrivalled in the genre, culminating in the spectacular Black Light tour and the now legendary final shows in Brixton in 2010.

Since then, Andy Cato and Tom Findlay have returned to their roots, doubling back to the lean house that soundtracked the early parties they would play. With their unique appreciation of spectacle undimmed, their DJ sets have continued to light fires under dance-floors and festival crowds alike. Speaking to us before their headline slot on our second stage, Tom Findlay takes us through their many forms and what to expect from them at The Downs Festival Bristol.

What was the thinking behind leav-ing the live show behind and getting back to your roots?There were a few things at play: When we finished Black Light, we

did an album and tour which we were really proud of, and it felt like the end of a cycle. I remember doing festival gigs where we would play with a full band and then someone like Laidback Luke would come on in a superman outfit and just smash it. We felt like things had changed. Also it felt like a peak for us, when I listen back to that recording Last Night In Brixton I don’t feel like we left anything on stage.

What makes up a track that you really enjoy playing at the moment?It’s something that’s got a really essential groove, and then I’m con-

scious that people are still waiting for those drops a bit. Not an overblown one but enough to keep the enthusiasm going. It seems to me that the interesting producers now are mining that rootsier, classic house sound.

It’s been 20 years since you start-ed releasing as Groove Armada. How have you managed that level of longevity?It helps that we have gone through lots of different periods. I see our

career as three or four different phases. There was the thrill of just making records and having a deal in the first five years, then another five of trying to break the live thing and cracking that. And now this return to clubbing and finding a love of that again.

We’ve been good at challenging ourselves to do something different and we’ve timed those decisions well. With this house thing at the moment we’re really enjoying it.

Let’s talk about those early hits in the late 90s. Some of them are so familiar, do you feel like there’s a point at which some of them aren’t your tunes anymore?Yeah completely. Some of them end-ed up in ads as well so I think sub-

consciously you’re slightly distancing yourself from them. I’ve had times when I’ll hear At The River in a cafe and it might take me a minute before I realise that it’s us. I can remember writing it, but it feels like it was a completely different time in my life and we were completely different people.

How do you feel dancefloors have changed in that time? Was there more genre jumping in the 90s?One of the less positive things about now is that slightly generic UK

house thing. I don’t want to sound like I’m saying things were better in my day because in a lot of ways they weren’t. But when you go to a party everyone’s basically playing house music. Back then you would go to clubs and there would al-ways be a house room, a disco room and a funk room. Those influences then naturally blended into each other because that was your night out.

How do you build a set as DJs that still work on huge festival stages?We play the same sort of records to 20,000 as we would to 1,000

people. But you’re just cultivating a bit more drama. We’re conscious that it’s a different experience when you’re dancing in a crowd: you want to put your hands in the air, you want moments. We have this thing where we do our own lighting and visuals.

When we would play with real mood of the moment bands, we didn’t have people singing our songs back to us any-more because it wasn’t our time. So all we could do was make sure the show was super tight and deliver everything. We try to bring a bit of that nous from years of stagecraft to what we do as DJs.

What do you think people are looking for in a good festival?Well, we set up Lovebox in Lon-don. We were all about the ho-

listic festival experience. It’s about having interesting things to do on site, well curated music, good food, nice spaces. The rest of it will take care of itself. If you put all that stuff in place you tend to get nice people and that’s what makes it.

You’ve played in Bristol many times. How do you rate it as a place to play?It’s always a good place. We would always have good gigs

there and good after-parties. The cities that are important in my upbringing really are London, my home, Manchester where I was a student, and probably Bristol because it feels like it has a lot in common with where I grew up in terms of spirit and roots. Vibes have always been great in Bristol.

We’re really looking forward to have you play. One last question: What else is in the pipeline?We’ve got a couple of mixes coming out, we’ve just remixed

You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon, which we’ve turned into this low-slung house groo-ver. You’ll definitely hear it at The Downs Festival, probably as an exclusive. We’ve got a couple of EPs coming out down the line and we’re entertaining the idea of what to do with our 20th anniversary. There’s some thoughts of possibly doing some live shows again. I’ve got teenage kids now and they were too young the first time around – so it would be cool for them to see the show.

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Feature

Roni SizeTwenty Years

Of NewForms

Roni Size & Reprazent’s New Forms won the Mercury Prize in 1997, a year that also saw the release of Spice Girls’ Spice, The Prodigy’s Fat of the Land and Radiohead’s OK Computer. It repre-sented a watershed moment for jungle and drum & bass, legitimising it in mainstream culture like

never before. Not only that, Size and the crew brought an unseen level of musicality to the genre and opened the doors to a whole new evolution of the sound. The album changed his life yet in the subsequent years he’s continued to make forward-thinking music while staying true to the sound he helped define.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the album’s release, something Size rightly feels is worthy of cele-bration. When he answers the phone he’s exhausted, having just flown back from the USA where he’s just performed nine shows across the country as far ranging as Texas, New York and Los Angeles. Despite the jetlag, the passion in his voice is still very much audible. “In 20 years the music has stood the test of time” he says. “So we wanted to make sure we celebrated it. Not me, not Reprazent, just the seminal album that won the 1997 Mercury Music Prize, New Forms.”

To achieve this he’s put together a new show where he will play inside a spectacular lightbox inspired by the futuristic grandeur Size witnessed at a Deadmau5 show. Encased in a cage with timecoded and 3D mapped graphics projected on its façade, Size performs an enhanced live set. “When I looked at the different possibilities of how to do it properly, we chose to put together all the music that came out of New Forms, some that people have heard, some that people haven’t. I perform live with my equipment floating in the middle of the stage – there’s no drummer, bassist or MC. I love to do that but I want to fulfil some personal ambitions as well, to know I can go out by myself as a performer.”

The visual experience isn’t the only aspect that’s enhanced. As Size explains: “Everything is a little bit different, remixed and re-edited. A lot of work has gone into this, it’s not just been slap-dashed together. I’ve still got a little bit to do today, some final little tweaks and touches.”

Revisiting the tracks is some task, to even get to the recordings someone had to scour the vaults at Universal for the physical entities. The team digitally archived everything for Size to be able to select and remaster the pieces that would become integral to the new show. Given how seismic an impact the album New Forms had on his career, revisiting them carries a certain amount of weight for the artist. 

For Size, what he remembers most of all is the time afforded to creativity when your only responsibility is to make music. “It was so prolific, the amount of work that we put into making the music back then, it was incredible. Whenever I hear the track Matter Of Fact, for instance, I always think: ‘wow, how on earth did I do that?’ If I had the same amount of time, I would probably be able to make a record that good now.” That kind of time is rarely available to those who reach the level of success that Roni Size & Reprazent have achieved. Size’s recent trip to America offered a pin-drop as to just how far the album reached. “I did nine shows in a row over there and every person I met said that New Forms was the first time they encountered that beat. The beats they had heard before were hip-hop and house, but after hearing New Forms they had to go out and find out what this sound was and where it came from.”

New Forms represented an expansion of the drum & bass universe in ways that were previously out of reach. It added subtlety, dynamics and a sprawling scope not seen before. You can practically trace the history of the genre to landscapes defined as pre- or post-New Forms. You can hear the spaciousness of tracks like Brown Paper Bag in the likes of Calibre, and the bass-weight acrobatics of dubstep pioneers DMZ can be traced back to tracks like Down. How does Size see the changes in drum & bass since then?

“Well, it’s come so far into its own world now that you have this music in every country. Each place has its own vibe and sound: Europe, America and Japan all are very distinct. One thing I would say is that when it was formed in the UK you could hear who made what tune, a Dillinja tune sounded like a Dillinja tune, Adam F had his tip, the Bristol sound was the Bristol sound, whereas now you can’t necessarily hear that. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but you would love to be able to hear the voice of the artist. If you hear Bruce Springsteen you know it’s him because you can hear his voice.

“It’s gone through so many stages and technologies which has kept it fresh, but at the same time, it’s past the initial formative stage and settled into what it is.” With this tour, the aim is to celebrate a piece of work that deserves celebrating, but Size has never taken more than a few years off. After 20 years in the game and more spent honing his craft, he retains a passion and love for the music. What keeps someone interested for such a long time?

“Well look, I’ve just come back from New Orleans, and that was an experience seeing how they responded, that was really inspiring. They weren’t influenced by our culture – nothing except the beat. They heard it having never heard it before and had to go and search for it. That fascinated me. I was overwhelmed. That’s why I’m still passionate about what I do.”

It’s the kind of respect he commands everywhere. Undoubtedly though, this hits its highest reaches here in Bristol. “Playing in Bristol is always very exciting. My love affair with Bristol is completely undiluted. It’s going to be special because I know so many people here and the Downs is my old stomping ground. It’s exciting.” If he’s anywhere near as excited as we are, he, like us, will be crossing the days off his calendar.

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ArtistsArtists

Line-UpElbowFormed in 1990 (as Mr Soft), Elbow spent

years honing their craft in Manchester, working their way upward to become one of the UK’s best-loved bands. They won

a Mercury Prize for 2008’s The Seldom Seen Kid  and with 2014’s The Take Off and Landing of Everything they scored their first UK number one album. Now returning to Bristol for the first time since 2009, their anthemic, euphoric, towering live show will close out the summer with a flourish.

De La SoulThe original DAISY age rappers and purvey-

ors of afrocentrism, De La Soul are kings of the guest verse and early champions of some of hip hop’s greatest in Mos Def and J Dilla. Dave, Maseo and Posdnuos have consistently deliv-

ered from rap’s left field. Drawing on classic tracks from their 1989 debut, big hitters from last year’s and the Anonymous Nobody… and everything in between, this promises to lift the crowd 3ft high and rising.

Seasick Steve2016 saw Steve perform his biggest ever UK

headline show at Wembley and achieve his fifth consecutive Top 10 album in the UK with his new record, Keepin’ The Horse Between Me And The Ground. It’s an album celebrating being alive, still going strong, and lov-ing every minute of it. Steve con-tinues to win friends and fans all over the world with his amazing live performances. He’s one of the wildest live performers on the road today. Definitely a show that should not be missed.

Soul II SoulThanks to their distinctive style and massive

hits like Back To Life (However Do You Want Me), Soul II Soul were one of the biggest successes of dance music’s chart

explosion at the tail end of the 80s. Thanks to their fluid line-up and the drive of bandleader Jazzie B, they’ve had the longevity to match. In recent years their sets have taken many forms and whatever they pull out of the bag, it’s going to go off.

Bristol Hi FiComprising of Bristol stalwarts Daddy

G (Massive Attack), Queen Bee and leg shaker Mr Benn, Bristol Hi-Fi blast out a heavy, heavy sound built on a solid foundation of reggae basslines and hip-hop beats. The

result is a mix of afrobeat, Latin bass, boogie, funk, hip-hop, jungle, and dub. Holding down the vibes at The Downs Festival Bristol this year will be Bee and Benn complemented by the sweet tones of LK on the mic.

Mike Skinner DJ SetWith his project The Streets, Mike Skin-

ner told the stories of your average bloke on the street: relationships, hangovers, clubbing and existential crises; while simultaneously elevating UK Garage to a level be-yond that of which anyone anticipated. Since retiring his notepad in 2011, he’s continued telling stories and making people dance through DJing at his Tonga club night, run with Manchester crew Murkage. Having recently returned to beatmaking with Tonga Balloon Gang, Skinner’s finger is firmly on the pulse.

The DistrictsPennsylvania boys The Districts special-

ise in widescreen cinematic rock. With the release of their third album Popular Manipulations imminent, they have built a catalogue of tracks that sound twice as big as the stages they play. Expect transcendence.

Roni SizeRoni Size has been a part of the musical

fabric of Bristol for nearly 30 years. Having cut his teeth playing at parties in the early 90s, Size’s 1997 album New Forms marked a watershed moment for jungle and drum & bass. Winning the coveted Mercury Prize, the album brought the underground genre crashing into the main-stream, changing its trajectory forever. It also brought a level of musicality previously unseen and 20 years on it still stands tall. With the new lightbox show specially built to commemorate New Forms two decades in existence, this promises to be a spectacle to rival any we’ve seen before.

KeirOpening the mainstage is young RnB/

indie crossover artist Keir. With his powerful vocals, riff-heavy guitars and nods aplenty to legends such as Etta James and Shirley Bassey, the Bristol singer is set to blow-up this year. Catch him before the masses catch on.

 

Groove ArmadaGroove Armada have left an indelible

mark on the history of electronic music. Equally known for hazy trip-hop cuts like At The River as big beat blowouts such as Superstylin’, the London duo have one of the most eclectic, electrifying sets around. With so much to draw on, we can’t wait to see what they have in store for their headline slot on our second stage.

David RodiganDavid Rodigan MBE enjoys legend-

ary status in both the UK and Jamaica for his tireless pro-motion of the island’s music. Rodigan first fell in love with Jamaican music age 13 and has since made it his life’s work to promote it. In Jamaica he has clashed sound systems from Bass Odyssey to Stone Love and earned the respect of many, as proven by his bottomless bag of VIPs from almost every famous Jamaican artist in the last 40 years. With an insatiable energy that belies his 65 years of age, the Gentleman Rude Boy is sure to start a fire up on the downs.

Mad ProfessorNeil Fraser aka Mad Professor is a Guy-

anese dub producer and a digital pioneer. After moving to London at the end of the 1960s, he channelled his obsession with electronics and sound into recording lovers rock bands and putting together his seminal Dub Me Crazy series. In 1989 he linked up with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry for the first time with Mystic Warrior forming a partnership that would spawn ten collaborative albums.

He continues to release both alone and in collaboration with artists such as Pato Banton, Sly & Robbie and Cedric Congo. A genuine pioneer.

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Bristol FoodBristol Food

A Taste Of

Bristol

BiblosBiblos offer a delicious, fast-

food fusion of Middle Eastern and Caribbean cuisine. Flatbread sandwich wraps combining quality marinated meats and veggie fillings packed with salads, pickles and homemade sauces have made them a Bristol institution.

Burger TheoryBurger Theory offer a huge

variation on the timeless burger. With a focus on sustainability, they source some of the finest produce the South West has to offer to satisfy vegans, vegetarians and meat-lovers alike.

CantinaEl BurritoFresh, vibrant Mexican

street-food full of goodness and nourishment. Heat levels are adjusted to match any prefer-ence, ranging from mild to ‘stupid!’

Castaway Kitchen A family-run business evolved

from a love of food, travel, music, surfing and the outdoor life; serving up Mediterranean influenced street-food.

Chunky Chips Wicked Dips A firm favourite with festival

goers. Chunky Chips are always twice fried award winning British chips – served with lashings of handmade hot and cold sauces.

Eat likea Greek Make like a true Grecian with

traditional Greek pita souvlaki wraps using lo-cally sourced lamb and chicken, halloumi wraps with balsamic glaze and home-made tzatziki. All herbs and oil come from a Greek farm.

Far East Noodles Generously portioned Thai,

Japanese and Malaysian dishes. Made with lots of fresh veggies and handmade sauces. No nasty ingredients.

Funky Fish and Chips Full traditional fish and chip

shop all produced fresh onsite and made with love!

Hot N Saucy Meat Company Delicious halal roasted meats

and gluten free baps ‘n wraps. Served from vintage handcarts.

Los Hermanos Los Hermanos Combinados

is born out of two brothers’ love for cooking and eating great tasting food. Big, bold flavours every single time, whether it be pork, beef, poultry, vegetarian or vegan.

Mexican Mexican Street Food! Fajitas,

burritos, tacos, nachos, wedges, chilli and yuca fries. Delicioso!

My Coffee CoBarista coffees, great selec-

tion of cakes muffins and tray bakes. Wake up and smell the coffe!

PanCrêpes Sweet and savoury crepes,

cooked freshly to order. A classic.

SkeweredTasty snack-style street food

at affordable prices. Run by two friends from Bristol with almost 30 years combined expe-

rience in food and events.

Stone Baked If your thing is traditional,

quality pizza, then ‘your thing’ is Stone Baked If it’s not traditional and quality then it ain’t Stone Baked

Teriyaki Shack Two of the UK’s best loved

Asian dishes – Chinese chicken balls & rice and vegetarian spring rolls. Perfect every time.

Gopal’s Curry Shack Vibrant indian street food.

Fresh, aromatic and seasonal vegetarian and vegan dishes, lovingly prepared.

The Hippy Chippy Triple cooked, hand-cut chips

served out of a psychedelic VW campervan.

Bristol is home to some of the country's finest street food and at The Downs Festival Bristol we bring you the best of the bunch in one place. All our traders are locally-based, independent businesses, with a sustainable ethos that matches our own. More importantly all involved pour their heart and soul into making top quality cuisine for the festival masses. 18 19

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Charity & SustainabilityCharity & Sustainability

Charity

We at The Downs Festival Bristol are committed to using our platforms to work with charitable organisations and help bring about the changes we want to see in the world. We’re delighted to be working with My Cause UK to enable our volunteers to support the causes dearest to them, and to be using FRANK Water’s FreeFill scheme to provide fresh filtered water to festival-goers with no waste. Guest-list donations will also be shared between four fantastic organisations that work tirelessly in and around Bristol to provide invaluable support to the people that need it most.

Partners

FRANK WaterFounded in Bristol in 2005, FRANK

Water is committed to providing water, sanitation and hygiene to communities in need in India & Nepal. At The Downs Festival Bristol, look out for FRANK Water mar-quees and trolleys where you can buy a FreeFill bottle or wristband and enjoy unlimited refills of fresh, cold, filtered water throughout the festival.www.frankwater.com

My Cause UKMy Cause offer the chance for vol-

unteers to work at their favourite festivals and raise money for their favourite charity. They work with over 170 charities as diverse as Mind, War Child, Shelter and Cancer Research UK, as well as a huge range of festivals including our own Love Saves The Day.www.mycauseuk.com

ABC - Aid Box CommunityAid Box Community (ABC) is a Bris-

tol-based humanitarian organisation set up by group of ordinary people in response to the continuing refugee crisis. Coming from all walks of life they’ve come together to pool time, energy, skills and money to provide the victims of one of the biggest hu-manitarian catastrophes of our gen-eration with much needed essentials.www.aidboxcommunity.co.uk

Help Bristol’s HomelessHelp Bristol’s Homeless is an innova-

tive social enterprise based in Bristol, committed to helping those without a home access secure accom-modation and supporting them in reaching their full potential. Help Bristol’s Homeless aim to develop a site providing short-term emergency accommodation and support to those who need it.www.helpbristolshomeless.co.uk

Sustainability PolicyWe recognise that climate change is a

challenge to the quality of life for many in the world today as well as for future generations, and that events have environmental impacts. We are founded on the concept of respect; this includes our staff and volunteers, audience, local residents, nature and all of our partners. Our goal is to have a positive impact and this translates into our attitude to the environment.

For The Downs Festival Bristol, our fantas-tic traders are all as local as possible, and we’re committed to leaving the site with all of its natural beauty intact. This means we will have a full waste management plan in place including a commitment to recycling as much litter as possible and a recyclable cup scheme on site.

There will be no parking on site as we wish to discourage people from travelling by car and in-stead use our travel scheme in place with local transport. All vehicles and generators on site will be powered using Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil, a form of biodiesel using a hydrogen catalyst in place of methanol.

Sustainability extends beyond nature into ensuring a continuing positive relationship with Bristol and the downs. To that end we are committed to provid-ing inspirational entertainment, managing relationships with integrity, adding value to the local area and creating new opportunities for everyone involved. We ask that all in attendance treat the site with the respect it deserves to ensure everyone can enjoy this beautiful part of Bristol’s makeup.

Human For Rights NetworkThe Humans for Rights Network is

focused on empowering refugees and asylum seekers to have their stories heard, despite the continued absence of reporting in mainstream media. The network trains volunteers and grass-roots groups in how to record and report the abuses refugees continue to face.www.facebook.com/pg/humansforrights

Drake MusicDrake Music is the leading national

charity working in music, disability and technology. They specialise in the use of as-sistive technology to break down both physical and societal barri-ers to music-making.www.drakemusic.org

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The Information

TheInformation

Akalawith

The Information launched last year at the inaugural Downs Festival Bristol with the aim of platforming people, causes, ideas and ex-periences that are relevant to modern society, both locally and globally. It’s something we want to grow and develop and the dis-cussions taking place will inform the conversation for next year and the years to come.

Our headliner this year is the interminably talented Akala: rapper, writer, educator and thinker. As a MOBO Award- winning artist with over ten years in the game, founder

of The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company, and well-respected public speaker, he is perfect-ly placed to top the bill on The Information Stage. He’ll be giving us a history of the MC in hip-hop, touching on elements from across the rich history of this most singular of musi-cal movements. We called him ahead of the festival to talk about his new EP and graphic novel Visions, and pick his brain on some of the topics we hope to address this year.

Let’s begin by talking about Visions? There's a long history of storytelling in hip-hop but this longer-form nar-rative feels quite groundbreaking. What was the inspiration behind the EP?It's not my first foray into longer-form storytelling but it’s the first

time that you’ll hear it as music. Visions was originally written as my fourth Fire In The Booth, but it was too conceptual so I decided to turn it into a comic book. I do feel it’s quite ground-breaking: not only because it’s this longer form – I wouldn’t claim to be the first rapper to do that – but because it has the accompanying comic book and it’s about life-progression, reincarnation, spirituality… as well as street stories of growing up in “the hood”.

Why did this project work with a comic do you feel?I've become obsessed with graphic novels over the last five years.

So now I've got a tendency to want to put everything in that format. This particular pro-ject works because there's a lot of stuff in there you can say in a lyric but the visuals convey something that really embellishes it.

Let’s talk about Hip & Hop, your children's book. Is this the first time you've focused on young children?No it's not actually. The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company started to get approached to do a lot of pri-

mary school stuff about six or seven years ago. I felt I wasn't silly enough to work with primary school kids but my business partner really persuaded me. It turned out that I'm the silliest person in the world and I loved it. As adults we can forget just how powerful the human imagination is. With Hip & Hop I got approached by Oxford University Press. I thought it was cool, I thought it was credible and I thought the editors understood why it was important to get someone with credibility with a hip-hop audience to write the stories.

In the Hip & Hop book the message is that you can achieve whatever you want. Was that something you were really keen on conveying to youngsters?We decided on a theme together: myself, the editor and the artist.

My mum used to treat ‘I can't’ as a swearword, so my mum has to take some credit for that too. She taught us you can achieve anything you want to, even though she knew it wasn't bloody true. It so happens that for me and my siblings it has panned out quite well but I don’t want to give the impression that my mum being encouraging is everything. Because there’s lots of people whose parents are encouraging and things still become shit for them. But I do think young people need to hear that more often.

What’s your take on the relationship between creativity, performance and politics. For a while it hasn't been seen as very cool. Yeah, particularly in hip-hop. Weirdly enough, for an artform that comes

from the hood, it became really anti-poor people, all about Cristal and Bentleys. I'm not knocking those rappers but when you have an artform that comes from the hood that says nothing else it becomes dangerous. Thankfully we're past that period. Kendrick Lamar and Jay Cole are two of the most successful rappers in the world. There is again in some form of comment on what it is to be a black person in America in popular culture.

In 2017, The Information will consist of three parts:

The Information Stage:The Information Venue:The Information Tent:

“My mum used to treat ‘I can’t’as a swearword. She taught us youcan achieve anything you want to,even though she knew it wasn’tbloody true.”

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Performance and talks by individualsPanel discussions and participation sessionsExhibitors

The Downs Festival Bristol

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Do you think the internet and the democratisation that comes with it has allowed the change to happen?Completely. If there was no internet you would still have record labels

pretending that no-one wants to hear people rap, essentially. Which is what they were doing prior to web channels like Grime Daily and SBTV. Artists can now get 100 million views on YouTube before they sign a record deal. TV, radio and the major labels are still important but they're way less important than they ever were.

With grime in particular, it feels like it’s shifting to having a more political voice. #grime4corbyn is an example. Why do you think that is?I think a lot of people are very ig-norant of the political traditions

within the Black British community. No-one in our community is surprised by this. In the history of the Caribbean in particular there were lots of socialist experiments: Michael Manley in Jamaica, Maurice Bishop in Gre-nada... these traditions have become really solidly embedded. I’m from north London so even though I don’t know Jeremy personally, I know people who lived on the estate that he lived on for a while, people whose papers he helped secure. A lot of people have been written off as the bottom of British society, as basically useless, so the moment that someone came along that gave a shit about them they all rushed to get behind him.

How do you think we can encour-age young people to organise and engage in community activity?Politics needs to become cool again. People need to realise how politics

affect their lives. You can't afford to not engage in the political process and you also can't afford to be fooled into thinking that the political pro-cess is just voting. We need to create a vibrant civil society. Haiti is a much poorer country than Britain that has a very strong civil society, an incredible commitment to democracy that they have suffered awful repression for. So in our relatively comfortable state, there's every reason to think we can build something similar.

The Information

A lot of people are newly interested in politics since the election. What is a good place to start for someone looking to get more involved?Anything. Just do it. Join a party and get some experience in organ-

ising. Go out and volunteer… read a couple of books… find your way. You're going to get in where you fit in just by trying. Feed homeless people: that’s a political act. We live in a society that hates poor people where we throw enough food away to feed millions more than we do, because we'd rather do that than give it to the homeless. Community engagement is political.

You do a fair amount of this circuit. What are the best things that come out of doing these talks?I was tremendously affected by several speakers when I was grow-

ing up. I saw KRS One give a lecture when I was seven. My mum says I saw Angela Davis but I was really young and I saw a brother called An-drew Muhammad who still does a lot of commu-nity education today. These speakers profound-ly affected my view of the world. So I think it’s that engagement. Then the questions that come out make me think about my own positions a lot more. Hopefully I inspire some young people or any age group to act on what I'm saying and go out and research. I might be wrong. If it provokes you to think critically and tell me I’m wrong then great. That's enough for me.

“Politics needs to become cool again.You can’t afford to not engage inthe political process and you also can’tafford to be fooled into thinking that the political process is just voting.”

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