For Our People: BORN N BREAD

From DIY zines to workshops and club nights, community is everything for this five-strong, Peckham-rooted collective.

The BORN N BREAD collective are busy. Between the five of them, they have jobs to hold down, kids to raise, lives to lead. On the Thursday evening when I link up with them, Chika is looking after her toddler and Adelaide is on the move running errands around town, and the other three haven’t even finished work yet. We’re all locked into the everyday hustle just to get by, but these five women from Peckham are collectively doing so much more on top of all that.

As BORN N BREAD, Abigail, Adelaide, Chika, Olivia and Stephanie have built up an open-ended enterprise covering music, media and community-oriented projects to uplift marginalised voices, especially those of Black women. They’re not exclusively focused on their home turf in Peckham, but it is formative in what they do – it’s where they came together as school kids, and they’ve grown up as the area has dramatically changed.

To watch them DJing, you can tell BORN N BREAD run deep. There’s a level of sisterhood which trumps any back-slapping DJ camaraderie you might be used to seeing behind the decks. Chika and Adelaide have been friends since they started secondary school, while Abigail is Chika’s godsister after their mothers grew up on the same estate. Olivia is Abigail’s sister, and Stephanie and Adelaide bonded going to dance classes at Pineapple Studios in Central London. They all left Peckham around 2009 to go to university at a pivotal time for the area. Studying everything from biomedical science to fashion marketing to molecular genetics, they followed their own paths but found themselves back home after, confronted with the early onset of gentrification changing their neighbourhood before their very eyes.

“When we came back from uni it was just a totally different space that we didn't really recognize,” says Chika. “I remember going into Peckham to get some food. I walked into the shop, and by the time I walked out, there was this big line of people outside the Bussey Building. I was so shocked. I think I did a Snapchat or something, like, ‘is this actually Peckham?’”

Naturally, seeing the change so drastically over a relatively short space of time left Chika and the others wondering what it meant for them and their community, and there’s no escaping the racial backdrop to this situation. Long-standing Black businesses pushed out to make way for young white ventures to cater to a young white crowd – the change was far from subtle. Between them, Abigail, Adelaide, Chika, Olivia and Stephanie came together with a plan around 2015 to counteract the gap they observed between the influx of white creatives to the area and those from the Black community who had been there all along.

“Adelaide originally had the idea to make a zine for us to speak our truth and speak our minds,” explains Chika. “Our first zine was called Black, and that was just to explicitly say, ‘Hello, we're here, and we do deserve a spotlight.’ The majority of people that came in were white, and to see that stark change, and see some of our Black people who have businesses being pushed out, was quite difficult. So that zine was a protest, to let whoever was reading know we have talented people in our community.”

“Our second issue was about our trip to New York,” says Adelaide, “and it took in stories on gentrification happening globally. For us it wasn't just a personal diary – we wanted to tell stories from other communities going through the exact same thing as us, as well.”

The zine was a truly DIY endeavour – a scissors and glue, cut-and-paste job scanned and printed on the sly at work. Side-stepping the traditional grind of industry arrangements, they met Kelela in the street and dealt with her directly for a feature, and likewise electro dancehall star MeLo-X. The Kelela hook-up eventually led to BORN N BREAD’s first brand collaboration – opportunities driven by real-world connections rooted in community.

Through giving voice and prominence to Black creators in and around Peckham, their project became a vital bridge across that aforementioned racial divide. One of the places they distributed the zine was Charlie Bones’ record shop Do!! You!!!, which led to him inviting them onto his dearly departed NTS breakfast show. One thing led to another, and soon enough BORN N BREAD were a regular fixture on one of London’s most beloved radio stations.

“Charlie Bones gave us an opportunity like, ‘your story needs to be told,’” says Adelaide, “and then Femi from NTS loved us. But we didn't even know how to DJ. We were talking so much rubbish on NTS. But the chat was always going wild and the show got really popular.”

Music isn’t the sole focus of BORN N BREAD, but it acts as the fabric that helps bind them together. In soundsystem style, they fluidly glide between genres depending on who happens to take control, and there’s no fixed time for any one of them to be playing. Even in the space of one hour you can travel from Afrobeat and Ghanaian sounds to RnB and disco, but they’ve more recently had the run of the whole night at spots like Peckham Springs and now The Prince Of Peckham.

“The party at Peckham Springs is a free night for people to just come, vibe, have a boogie,” says Adelaide, “but we prioritise it as a space for our people. And when I say ‘our people,’ I'm talking about Black women who want to find a safe space to dance.”

What’s different about BORN N BREAD as DJs is they’re not pursuing these gigs in the careerist way most people do. The music is an extension of their wider aim to amplify and provide opportunities for their community. When brands come knocking, as they always will for such infectious, successful energy, the girls look first and foremost at where there are opportunities for people from their community to use their talents, whether they’re photographers, film-makers, designers or stylists.

BORN N BREAD are also carrying that forward as they team up with GALA this year. As well as hosting a stage on the Bank Holiday Thursday, which is spotlighting DJs from their wider community, they’ve teamed up with the festival to organise additional talks and workshops exploring topics around access and opportunity.

“We’ve already got Josey Rebelle lined up for her first ever IRL interview,” explains Adelaide. “She’s going to be talking about her journey as a DJ, her longevity, and the importance of women in musical communities and on radio.“

As a collective, Abigail, Adelaide, Chika, Olivia and Stephanie are carrying each other like any lifelong group of friends would. As a unit, you can see the fun they have together – a positivity which radiates outwards, whether it’s when they’re on the decks or in the projects they help initiate. The vibe is infectious, and by doing great things themselves, they’re inspiring others to do the same.

“We’re running a community call-out competition for someone to come and DJ with us at GALA,” says Adelaide. “We want to ensure more Black women are seen in these spaces. It’s that ripple effect of other individuals realizing, ‘I can DJ too. If those Black girls are doing it, why can't we?’ It's the importance of opening doors, as opposed to shutting them.”

• Words: Oli Warwick
• Photos: Sulay Kelly