How MC Geezer and Deaf Rave are bringing music to the masses and creating a space where deafness is celebrated.
There are a few things everyone experiences when going out to the club: being crammed into a sweaty dark room, encircled by flashing strobe lights, surrounded by half-drunk people trying their best not to nose dive onto the dance floor, and most importantly feeling that thump of the bass blaring through the speakers as the DJ runs through their usual setlist of top hits.
Nightclubs have always been bastions of self-expression and acceptance. It’s the one place where people could go where they were allowed to just be weird. Yet, even in these spaces where everyone should be accepted and able to enjoy themselves, there is a strong undercurrent of discrimination and judgement. This has specifically affected people with disabilities who want to enjoy themselves when going out.
“That was one of the most discriminating moments of my life”
Troi Lee, experienced this injustice when he tried to go to a rave with some friends and the bouncer wouldn’t let them in because they were using sign language. Recalling the event he says, “That was one of the most discriminating moments of my life.”
This event led him to create Deaf Rave, which aimed to unite everyone through love and passion for music. He wanted to create it to promote the deaf community’s unique identity, as well as teach people about deaf culture. That is why he wanted Deaf Rave events to be somewhere everyone felt welcome.
There are around 12 million deaf or hard-of-hearing people in the UK, according to data from the Royal National Institute for the Deaf. These are 12 million people who needed a space where deafness was celebrated and that’s where Deaf Rave came and helped provide that space.
Deaf Rave allowed Lee to cross paths with Adam Taylor, a deaf MC rapper who goes by MC Geezer when performing. Taylor recalls meeting Lee when he was a 17-year-old up-and-coming artist and his cousin convinced him to come to one of Deaf Rave’s events. During their initial meeting, Lee asked him if he could MC in sign language and he said he could give it a go. That meeting led to them collaborating together on Deaf Rave; 19 years and several tours around the world later the partnership is as strong as ever.
Taylor described his musical journey as very long. He grew up deaf with both of his parents also being fully deaf, leading to him discovering music when he started attending a mainstream school instead of a deaf school. He gravitated towards drum and bass music because of the emphasis on physicality and feeling the music.
“I didn't have that deaf identity growing up.”
When recounting his upbringing Taylor says, “I didn’t have that deaf identity growing up,” because he had never attended a deaf school. He found that identity and community once he met Lee and joined Deaf Rave and performed at several events. He credits this collaboration with helping him sharpen his music skills. He was a part of Deaf Rave’s first music production course, where he learned how to use software like Logic Pro to create beats. Before that he used to rap over instrumental beats he found from other artists.
Deaf Rave has continued these music production courses, most recently partnering with Groove School to offer DJ workshops for deaf people. Richie Littler, the workshop instructor, mentioned that during the workshop students wore Woojer vests which helped them feel the bass of the music they were creating.
Despite the advancements in technology, Littler expressed disappointment that the vests didn’t allow wearers to feel higher ranges of music and felt that music technology was too slow in making the necessary developments that would allow artists to create music using these higher ranges.
Taylor mentioned that he regularly uses this vest when making music. He used this technology to create his debut EP as MC Geezer, The Ying and Yang of Deafhood, and after getting funding from the Arts Council he released a second one W.Y.S!? (What You Say!?).
Remembering the production process he says, “I wanted to change my style to be hip hop with a bit more of a UK style, which was just a learning curve.” That’s why he credits W.Y.S!? with making him a better MC.
Aside from releasing music, Taylor also mentioned that he is working on a one-man drum and bass show about what it’s like being deaf and suffering from mental health which has taken most of his focus. According to Taylor his show, the working title being Sound Inside a Deaf Ear, would show what kind of sounds deaf people hear while tackling aspects of deafness and mental health. But he still intends to release another EP, Geezermania, in 2024 to complete the trilogy he has set up.
He mentioned that he experimented with higher pitches, but since you can’t really feel it his main focus was the bass.
Bass is integral to the deaf community because it allows them to feel the music. That is why Taylor said he wanted the heaviest bass possible in his music. He was able to achieve this using music technology that made the bass more physical, like SubPac and Woojer, to achieve that feeling people would have at the club.
Music that’s meant to be felt as much as heard.
This physicality and feeling of being in a club are what Steve Snooks, the Director of Sales of SubPac, said that the founders envisioned with the technology. He further explained that the vests are meant to allow musicians to have more control in creating music, especially in the lower ranges where you actually feel the music in your body. He adds onto that by saying, “You can be profoundly deaf and still discern the key of a song and you can still create in a medium that people stereotypically associate with audible sound.”
Working beyond audible sound has allowed musicians like MC Geezer to create music that’s meant to be felt just as much as heard.