While highlighting global, national, and regional trends in EDM is worthwhile, it seems like many major blogging platforms in the EDM community are oriented towards the pushing of a small batch of superstar DJs. Surely, this amounts to an excellent web strategy to reach wide audiences around the globe and proliferate music widely, and there is no doubt that these headliners create beautiful, meaningful music. Yet, this predominate blogging strategy leaves many peoples music and stories ignored in our local Columbus dance music community. Who is promoting and celebrating the creativity and beauty coming out of the Columbus dance music community? I am, because I am strictly interested in helping build our community in unison with the DJs, promoters, VJs, videographers, photographers, dancers, and music-lovers.

This is at the core of why I named this project Local Autonomy. I wanted all of us to have autonomy, or control, over what we do with our scene locally, how we promote, and how we frame ourselves. Yet, I wanted to advance this project as more than a mere rehashing of present talking points. Pointedly, I wanted to offer a forum to explore how our present is informed by the past of our scene and the bigger scenescape we are surrounded by. This entails the use of this digital storytelling device to actively pursue the stories and experiences of both the present and the past to understand how our scene works. It is my expressed hope that the sharing of the oral histories of new and old school members of the scene will help bridge the gaps between different crews, merge generational divides, and prompt people to actively question the ways that we think about our scene and its music. Though this means I will be on a very single-minded intellectual endeavor, I am not interested in promoting and pushing any other artist, scene, or label unless they too are holding us down. Such projects are left to the countless other web platforms out there covering the larger dance music landscape. I just hope to help carve out our own niche in that continuum for us to celebrate and learn about our own. In essence, I want to use this social media tool to retain and celebrate the autonomy we have over our local scene and its flourishes of fun, creativity, and innovation.

Want to Connect with Local Autonomy?

Email: local.autonomy@gmail.com

Local Autonomy is always up for collaboration with the wider Columbus community. Don’t be a stranger! Drop us a line!