Rave Culture

Heaven, a place where unlimited comfortably, joy, and love consumes you. A place where all your troubles seem to become inexistent. A place with no hate, restrictions, prejudice, judgments, or bias. A place where you have limitless freedom to express yourself. A place where anyone and everyone is accepted. A place that encompasses concepts of peace, love, unity, and respect. A place where your surrounded by other people with that value these concepts. The Electronic Dance Music culture is my heaven.

Electronic Dance Music, known as EDM, is a modern musical genre rooted from disco that began in the late 1980’s. EDM in fact, is a broad category of electronically produced genres with a variety of styles and sounds. Within EDM there are DJ’s and producers. DJ’s selects existing songs and then plays, mixes, and transitions them using effects, loops, and other techniques through hardware (DJ decks) and software. Producers actually create music electronically through computer software creating a multitude of sounds that cannot be done with instruments. DJing and Producing go hand-in-hand because producers often learn to DJ to showcase their music and DJ’s often learn to produce to create their own music. The EDM movement began in warehouses and nightclubs and quickly progressed to large shows and festivals. EDM is not just a type of music nor a profitable industry, EDM created a culture that immensely impacted the modern generation.

In the 1980’s in Europe, the rave culture began.  In order to avoid law enforcement, secret underground dance parties in warehouses called a “rave” began where attendees would dance the night away to fast paced electronic music performed by a DJ.  The party culture gained popularity from teenagers and young adults in the United States in the 1990’s. (NGI, 2001) Over a short period of time, raves became less secretive and highly promoted. However, the party drug ecstasy or MDMA and other drugs flooded the rave scene that tainted the rave reputation. On the other hand, the Kandi culture was formed within the rave scene to spread the concept of PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect). Kandi are hand-made and personalized beaded bracelets with a meaningful word or a short phrase. Rave attendees would trade these bracelets with other ravers through a handshake that spreads PLUR and signifies acceptance. (Van Dyk, 2013) The steps to trading Kandi include: first Two people make peace signs (Peace), then they form their hands into hearts (Love), then they join the hearts and hold hands (Unity), next they slide the bracelet from hand to hand, finally the two that traded each other would hug (Respect). (Van Dyk, 2013)

Source:

Van Dyk, J. (2013). The Meaning Behind the Neon Beads. Glow. Retrieved from  http://www.clubglow.com/edm/the-kandi-konnection-whats-the-deal-with-rave-beads/