Unorthodox Event is leading the first Queer movement in Drum & Bass

A low red light picks out clubbers grooving to DJ Undisclosed on Peckham Audio’s subterranean dancefloor, hyped up onstage by bearded drag queen Ash Kenazi and Ayebaitari, who’s just finished her opening set. The drum ‘n’ bass crowd’s usual jeans and t-shirts uniform has been swapped out for fishnet one pieces and suspenders, while Ash’s brother Nathan X - otherwise known as Toby Nathan, founder, DJ and mother hen at Unorthodox Event - moves through the dancers in a gold fringed bikini top and black lipstick. The aesthetic screams cyberpunk, but with a campy queer edge.

This is the result of a year-and-a-half’s hard graft by Nathan, who’s spent the pandemic building drum ‘n’ bass’ first queer community. In the absence of nightclubs and physical LGBTQ+ spaces, the bulk of his work has happened online, uniting the scene’s disparate queer members in the Unorthodox Event Facebook group.

Unorthodox managed to squeeze in one socially distanced night in the lull between lockdowns last September, but tonight will be their first proper post-lockdown outing. Together with parties like Ayebaitari’s Queer Rave (which had its first event with Nia Archives and Greentea Peng only a few weeks ago) and the Drag n Bass parties in Leeds, a queer movement within d’n’b is well and truly bubbling.