Leviticus

History is Made at Night posted last week about the Luton anti-EDL demo, including this:

Good to see Leviticus sound system at the start of ‘We are Luton’, playing some Bob Marley as usual! Leviticus is a successor to the Exodus Collective who famously put on massive free parties and festivals in Luton and surrounding area in the 1990s and early 2000s:  ‘https://bobsbeat.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpThe Leviticus (formerly Exodus) Collective are a Luton based Sound System and Social Movement who see ‘Leaving Babylon’ as re-building our community on the principles of oneness, sharing and co-operation, instead of those of greed, competition and hoarding which underpin the ‘Babylon System’. So we re-claim disused lands and properties in our town to create our own tribal dances, free festivals, workplaces and homes…building an alternative ‘way of life’ right here in Luton’.

Luton is generally portrayed in the media as a town dominated by the racist EDL on the one hand, and hardcore islamists on the other, but obviously most people have no time for either of these tiny factions. Leviticus offer a different vision of  ‘Revo-luton’. I went to one of their dances last year at the Carnival Arts Centre in Luton, with reggae in one room and drum’n’bass in the other – and a crowd with White UK, African-Caribbean and Asian people partying together. Over the years Exodus/Leviticus have mobilised many more people in Luton than the EDL have ever managed.

I have lots of happy 1990s memories of dancing to Exodus Sound System, at various festivals in Hackney (I’m not sure which: they blur into one: Hackney Homeless, the Squatters Ball, the Volcano festival?) and at raves at Cooltan in Brixton.

This video gives a good flavour of that era. Watch documentaries Movement of Jah People and The Battle for the Farm.