Words by LargeUp Crew—
For the past few years, Red Bull Music Academy has been organizing sound clashes pitting DJ crews from multiple genres against one another, in an annual “celebration of sound system culture and its ongoing influence on hip hop, dancehall and dance music.” The way we see it, the annual Culture Clash events are an opportunity for the rest of the music world to catch up to reggae and dancehall in the field of DJ-driven entertainment, and to see what they’ve been missing if they’ve never been to a true sound clash—which are centered on crowd interaction and have a whole different (and livelier) energy than a technical skills-oriented DJ battle.
