More than a decade after the popular Beirut Groove Collective first brought global soul-fuelled records to the Lebanese capital’s underground nightlife scene, the DJ duo behind the famed club night have moved their signature sound to London.
Co-founded in 2009 by internationally renowned DJ Ernesto Chahoud, the vinyl DJ collective used to run one of Beirut’s hippest weekly parties, the BGC All-Nighter, playing obscure 1960s and 1970s clubbing records from around the world. The collective’s range of eclectic sounds regularly packed the dancefloor with hearty partygoers until dawn and became a staple of the famously nocturnal city’s social scene.
Chahoud, who has one of the largest vinyl collections in the Middle East, specialises in Arabic and Ethiopian music, and has a taste for little-known gems and obscure dancefloor stompers.
Widely credited for introducing funk and soul to the city, the music researcher says the promotion of vinyl culture is about “digging” into new music.
“They call it digging-type club nights where there's always a new thing you're listening to. The records we play are mainly rare to find … it is also about digging into obscure records from the Arab world, Africa and elsewhere that we unearthed. This is the point of strictly vinyl. It basically means that the first time you are going to hear them will be at our club night,” Chahoud tells The National.
He and his wife, fellow BGC DJ Natalie Shooter, recently moved to London, a plan they put in motion well before last year’s blast in Beirut and subsequent economic collapse precipitated matters.
“We were lucky that we weren’t in Lebanon when the explosion happened because our club is just by the port … I don’t even want to really think about it, I was really lucky,” says Chahoud, trailing off. The couple's home and his record store, Darkso, were also damaged by the blast.
Shooter, a British DJ and music journalist from Derbyshire, had been living in Beirut since 2010 when she moved on a whim after picking up a copy of Zena Khalil’s book, Beirut, I Love You, in the library.
After a decade living and DJing in Beirut, Shooter, who ran the BGC's club nights with Chahoud, who she met and married in the Lebanese capital, was ready to move back to the UK. The couple have now made London their new home and want to bring the eclectic sounds they cultivated for years in Beirut to the city.
“We don't stick to one specific genre. We're very wide now we play basically anything that's good for the dance floor, mostly from the '60s, '70s, '80s and from literally all over the world. Sometimes Ernesto will play Soviet jazz records,” says Shooter.
“Basically anything that is obscure and designed for clubbing!” Chahoud jumps in.
The duo are coming close to the end of their four-week residency at the Palestinian-run Finch Cafe in London Fields and have upcoming sets booked at other clubs around the city. Their first performance this summer with soul DJ Malayka Erpen was sold out. Shooter admits it’s exciting for them to be part of the recent reopening of clubs and bars and the reception from revellers has been positive so far.
“We get a lot of reaction from people here because I think we are introducing sort of a new sound to the clubbing life in London with all of this authentic Arabic, clubbing music, that’s rare and mixed with Ethiopian, African, Armenian music,” says Chahoud.
The collective is catering to a crowd that’s more interested in sampling alternative funk-driven music than the typical beat-heavy pop tunes of other Arab music nights, he says.
“It's not the same as the typical Beirut clubbing experience, but it’s a Beirut underground music experience that fits everybody who's looking for a different kind of music.”
BGC will perform at Finch Cafe, London Fields, on Friday, September 3. More information is at instagram.com/beirutgroovecollective
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How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
