Quick one before we get into it: Sunday or Monday for Carnival? Hit reply and tell us which one you're doing.
Welcome to No Skips. This is the big one. Carnival turns 60 this weekend and a lot else gets planned around it. Channel One opens the warm-up Friday, Body Movements takes Southwark Park Sunday, and Ladbroke Grove swallows the city from Sunday morning through Monday night. We've also started something new: a running list of free nights, because not every week can be a ticket week. Here's a glimpse of what's on this week and what's ahead.
CARNIVAL AT 60
Panorama opens the steel band competition Saturday. Sunday is Family Day from 10am. Monday is the main parade. The static sound systems cut out at 7pm sharp both days, which is the entire reason the afterparty circuit exists in the first place. There's no Night Tube either night, so plan your way home before you plan your outfit. Both days stop for a 72-second silence at 3pm for Grenfell.
THIS WEEK
Channel One Sound System: Carnival Warm-Up
🗓 FRIDAY | 📍 Village Underground
🎟 Tickets
One turntable, four decades of dub, no pretence. This has been the actual start of Carnival weekend for longer than most of our readers have been going out, and it still is.
Habibi Funk & Friends: Open Air Weekender
🗓 SATURDAY–SUNDAY | 📍 Hackney Bridge
🎟 Tickets
Lebanese jazz, Arab funk, Sudanese jazz, in a garden on the Lee Navigation. Good option if you want bank holiday energy without the Carnival crush.
Body Movements Festival
🗓 SUNDAY | 📍 Southwark Park
🎟 Tickets
Five stages. Eris Drew and Octo Octa run T4T LUV NRG in one of them, Roza Terenzi's in another. A cut of every ticket goes back into the community fund. The south London answer to whatever's happening in W11.
Rinse: Carnival After Party
🗓 MONDAY | 📍 Paradise by Way of Kensal Green
🎟 Tickets
Amapiano, afrobeats, dancehall, in a pub you can walk to from the top of the route. This is where locals actually end up once the systems cut at 7.
FREE SHOWS
New thing we're trying. Free nights worth knowing about, a few weeks out.
FRIYAYS at Club Makossa | Fri 28 Aug
Free before 11pm. Dalston, house and bass, no cover if you're early.
Free Open Decks, The Faded Community | Club Makossa
Free, DJs picked by raffle for a 20-minute slot. Go to play or go to watch people get their first sets in.
Resident DJ, Peckham Levels | every Saturday
Free from 7pm. Progressive house before you head out, or just stay.
WHAT'S ON: WILKINSON
Worried About Henry: Wilkinson
🗓 Sat, 7 Nov | 📍 Drumsheds
🎟 Tickets
More than 40 acts across three rooms, all day, with Wilkinson topping the bill off the back of his new album. WAH has sold out its last four Drumsheds shows. Book this one now, not the week before.
THE BOOTH
Michael Bibi & KETTAMA — "Mystery of Raw" (feat. Wu-Tang Clan)
Bibi's been playing an early version of this since 2018, a KETTAMA edit that never had a proper release and became one of the most asked-about IDs in the scene. Now it's official, Wu-Tang cleared it themselves, built off the "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" vocal. It's going to be in every set for the rest of the year.
🎧 Listen here
EDITORIAL
Spotify's doing something actually good for the 60th
Original Koffee covering Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds," recorded at Notting Hill's own Island Studios in the first place, plus Shenseea and V'ghn. For once a streaming platform's Carnival tie-in isn't just a banner ad.
👉 Read more here
No Night Tube either Carnival night
Sunday and Monday both run without it. Ladbroke Grove, Holland Park and Westbourne Park shut or go exit-only through the day. Easiest way out is walking to Paddington. Check TfL before you commit to a route, not after.
👉 Read more here
ONE FOR THE PRODUCERS
If Carnival's got you wanting to chop up a soca or dub sample, Sonura Studio splits any track into clean stems in seconds. Handy if you're already mid-session this weekend.
ON THE FEED
Our full rundown of London's best clubs, by the people who actually go to them.
👉 Read the list here
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