Ten Cities - by Johannes Hossfeld Etyang & Joyce Nyairo & Florian Sievers (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A nocturnal journey through local histories of clubbing in Africa and Europe

The image of the DJ dragging his record case through international "non-places" and deejaying in clubs around the globe is a contemporary cliché. But these club scenes have rich, geographically differentiated local histories and cultures. This book expands the focus beyond the North Atlantic clubbing axis of Detroit-Chicago-Manchester-Berlin.

It looks at ten club capitals in Africa and Europe, reporting on different scenes in Bristol, Johannesburg, Cairo, Kyiv, Lagos, Lisbon, Launda, Nairobi and Naples. The local music stories, the scenes, the subcultures and their global networks are reconstructed in 21 essays and photo sequences.

The tale they tell is one of clubs as laboratories of otherness, in which people can experiment with new ways of being and assert their claim to the city. Ten Cities is a nocturnal, sound-driven journey through ten social and urban stories from 1960 through to the present.

Review Quotes

Ten Cities takes us dancing into urban centers from Africa to Europe, allowing us to recognize and remember the importance of clubs as experimental fields and protected spaces.-- "Flaunt"

an incredible compilation of text and imagery that investigates the "nocturnal practices" of clubbing, music and dance.--Ayla Angelos "It's Nice That"

[Ten Cities] tells the story of club music and club cultures in ten urban centers across Africa and Europe from 1960 to March 2020. Twenty-one essays with unique and diverse voices, photo sequences panning the various decades and playlists unfold over 560 pages to a retrospective testimony until the day club culture (temporarily) died.--Tino Hahn "TITEL Mag"

[T]his brilliantly covered book... tells the story of club culture in ten cities across the world, from 1960 to March 2020. Essays and photographs provide a "rich evocation of local habits, tastes and rhythms... in club capitals including Bristol, Lisbon and Nairobi--cities that represent a welcome shift beyond the focus on the overexposed epicentres of London, New York and Ibiza," writes Louise Benson. Compelling reading for anyone mourning their former night life--Editors "Elephant"

Travel from East to West without having to leave your bed with Ten Cities, a compilation of stories on the club culture of ten urban destinations across Africa and Europe including Nairobi, Cairo, Kyiv, Johannesburg, Berlin, Naples, Luanda, Lagos, Bristol, and Lisbon. Initiated by the Goethe-Institut, the project is a comprehensive meditation on global dance music; it brings together three editors, 21 authors of various backgrounds, and 19 photographers to compile playlists and photographs, as well as thought-provoking insider accounts of each scene and how it has evolved from the 1960s up to now.--Editors "Electronic Beats"

The need to dance is ultimately one of our most primal urges, and Ten Cities makes the case that, regardless of geography or economy, people will always figure out a way. In the end, the atmosphere and community of any club is always intrinsically tied to liberation--the need to move, the very human desire to be free.--T. Cole Rachel "W Magazine"