Lava La Rue on what this election means for the creative and queer community
Through her 21 years of life, Lava La Rue has experienced and created a lot. Musician, rapper, designer, producer, MC, founder, to name a few talents, she was making music at 16 whilst in foster care, and hasn’t looked back. Raised working class by her Jamaican grandma in an area of London with one of the starkest equality gaps in the UK, Lava La Rue knows hardship, and knows the importance of political progression. Fighting back against gentrification and inequality with London as her canvas as a queer person of colour, La Rue’s art is as vital as it is refreshing.
Proving the power of using your platform for progress, we meet the vibrant polymath in the days before the election to discuss how it will affect us: from the queer community to the music world, Lava La Rue is fighting for the right, and so should you.
What do politics mean to you?
Politics is just a state of those who have been appointed (both by the people and other) to govern society, to me personally it’s looking at those groups who claim to run / look after my country and see how this is reflected in my local communities. If something’s not right I fight for it, if progression is made, I celebrate it.
Why do you vote?
Even though I think the whole UK voting system is flawed as fuck and needs to be deconstructed all together…the amount of lives that have been dedicated for marginalized people to vote, lives lost so that “coloured” people can vote, women can vote…they were all so a young black woman like myself could have the freedom to vote today and I can’t let these go in vain.
Simply the fact British women have only been allowed to vote on the same terms of men (aged 21) since 1928 is actually crazy when you deep it. That was only 91 years ago, which is barely any time in comparison to the idea of centuries of political progression we’ve made all based on a vote that has only included people like me to have a say over the past couple of DECADES!
So now I vote for all the people who even now do not get a say: for young working-class kids and immigrants brought here as a product of colonisation, who are told they are the problem. For families being threatened to be displaced because of fake tabloid news.
What will this election mean for the queer community? What will it mean for your creative community?
Everything and nothing. Marginalised communities have always been the ones first & worst affected by political fuck ups, corporate greed and gentrification.
The queer community is the pumping heart of the creative community whether that’s fashion/music/art/film…but if there’s anything I’ve seen queer creative community leaders show is resilience.
We move regardless.
These communities were born from the need for safe spaces, and survival from harsh political environments. So, whatever happens they will be there for each other, BUT that’s not to say that the political outcome doesn’t matter then, because at the end of the day there’s a lot of things queer & creative communities have to fight that they should not be fighting for in the first place.
Your collective NiNE8 create everything yourselves, why is this?
We’ve had to make it all ourselves because we were all we had access to. Most of us are still working our day jobs doing all the bits we can on the side just to fund our creativity, and that’s the life of a working-class artist. So, what we can do is swap and trade resources in order to create more opportunities for each other and it creates our own artistic network born out of 9 kids from totally different backgrounds sharing an experience from growing up in London.
Have you noticed the impact of austerity on music?
100%. Just from my personal experience, I cannot stress enough that it was the programs that gave underprivileged kids access to free music equipment that helped me pick up my first guitar and write my first song. The times my family were hit worst by austerity I was not gonna do music altogether because I needed a job that I could instantly eat from otherwise I was literally not gonna eat.
The more art programs are cut, creative spaces are taken away, the more we take from community services rather than the billionaire pockets that hold enough resources to sort everyone…the more kids you’re gonna have put their creative dreams to the side trying to pattern their own lives on the streets and getting involved in messy survival situations that doing music could have kept them out of. I’ve seen it happen to many times.
Do you think music should be political?
All art is inherently political because that’s how art started. But I don’t think ALL music should be political, music (like a painting) just creates an experience …sometimes you just want something pretty to look at or listen to as a form of escapism, and sometimes you wanna experience something that gives you a new perspective…I like the options but I do think some of the greatest songs of all time are political.
Do you think music can cause social change?
Of course. Musicians are some of the most influential people and with every political movement, there has been music that has been the soundtrack to these changes from Bob Marley to Gil Scott-Heron to every bloody punk band in the punk movement. They create subcultures of kids don’t just dress like the artist, but through their music realise these values also represent them too. At least that’s my goal as a musician.
