Fearless new album to feature LGBTQ musicians from world’s most dangerous places to be gay
By Will Stroude
A groundbreaking new charity album featuring music from LGBTQ artists from some of the world’s most anti-gay countries is set to be released next month.
Rainbow Riots will feature LGBTQ artists from countries including Uganda, Malawi and Jamaica, where homosexuality is punishable by over a decade in prison and violence against the gay community by both the public and authorities is widespread.
As well as helping to shine a light on gay life in some of the world’s most repressive anti-gay countries, money raised through sales of the record will go towards the LGBT+ charity of the same name.
Artists featured on the album include a queer rapper from Malawi, a trans Zulu singer, and a range of artists from Uganda – though others have chosen to remain anonymous owing to the threat danger they face in their home countries.
One Ugandan artist whose work features on the record says: “Our lives are already in danger – it doesn’t help if we keep quiet.”
Rainbow Riots has been composed and produced by Swedish artist and activist Petter Wallenberg, who began the project after being caught up in the middle of a brutal police raid on Ugandan Pride in the summer of 2016.
Wallenberg says of the project: “Imagine that your very existence is a crime and that the police, authorities and lynch mobs chase you simply because you are who you are. This is reality of LGBTQ people in many countries around the world.
“I created Rainbow Riots as a movement to fight for freedom against tyranny.”
The first track to be taken from the album is ‘Equal Rights’. The song has already been picked up as part of the UN ‘Global Goals’ campaign: an initiative to end extreme poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030.
Rainbow Riots is out on June 16, preceded by lead single ‘Equal Rights’ on May 17.
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