MICKY MURRAY

the country for other artists, but on the whole, when she is writing, the song tends to come first, then she decides where it goes.

She said: ”It does vary, but generally it’ll be a song written for myself that gets handed over to someone else. The Jax Jones and MistahJam tunes for example though, were written specifically for them. Each track is different, really. I remember doing a Little Mix session years ago and that was specifically for them, but generally these songs get cut after I’ve written them and usually they’re written for my project that don’t get used. I put the same amount of effort into each one of them though, as you want to do your best work, no matter where it’s going to end up.”

As well as her relentless writing and recording schedule, Becky has been busy most of the year creating The Art Of Rave, her hit podcast on Spotify examining the history of UK dance music from the perspective of those who were there at the time.

She said: “That came from an idea from my boyfriend, who suggested I start a podcast interviewing all my favourite people, as I know them all. I was getting into session with DJ Zinc, I’d already written a song for Andy C and so on. I always loved hearing all the old rave stories from my boyfriend and my brother, but I’d also felt that I’d missed out on the golden age of rave, especially when I first started going to Ibiza, as it felt that something magical had been on the island, but had left.

I wanted to find out if that was me and my terrible fear of missing out, or whether other DJs who’d been on the scene for years and years felt the same. Interestingly, everyone’s opinion has differed on it. Some have suggested that technology and phones has played a part, others think some people just don’t enjoy it as much as they used to, or the fact that the music is so much easier to create now means that because there is so much of it, it can feel more throwaway, but others say directly because of that technology, you have so many people creating incredible, diverse new music and people sharing raves online. So it’s been fascinating for me to hear all those old stories and new perspectives on both back in the day and the present scenes.

I absolutely loved making that podcast. It’s nice for other people to hear that maybe their golden age of raving isn’t necessarily the same as s o m e o n e else’s. I have a new series just coming out, which I’m really excited about. I’ve just done Fabio & Grooverider and I’m looking to do Annie Mac. I want to do a few more female producers, as well as some rave writers too. We want to branch out into people who weren’t just DJing at raves, but get other voices and experiences in there too. I’m really looking forward to it.”

With so much going on, it’s no wonder Becky is excited about what the future has in store for her and needless to say, she has a plan: “Hopefully, world domination! I want to sell millions of records, I want to travel the world, play shows to good people everywhere I can. It’s taken me eight years to get to where I am just now, so I’m up for another eight years of trying to break the rest of the world as well, so hopefully I’ll get there. That’s my dream, anyway. Whether I get there is a different story, but I’m going to do everything in my power to be able to.”

IT’S A SIN.

LIKE SO MANY OTHERS,

I’VE been watching It’s A Sin, don’t worry I’m not going to give you any spoilers! But realistically, if you haven’t watched It’s A Sin by now then you deserve to hear spoilers! But if you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks it’s a drama set in the 1980s and follows a group of young queer people in London throughout the of the HIV/ AIDs pandemic and it’s so brilliantly done!

There are so many great scenes, including one of the infamous ‘AIDs KILLS’ advert we all know – if you haven’t seen it you need to, just search ‘HIV advert 1980s’ and you’ll see for yourself the level of misinformation being broadcast on TV about HIV at the time. But this really made me think about the lack of education in schools on LGBTQ issues and myths about LGBTQ people, something which I think about quite a lot, and If you believed what society tells you about queer history then you’d believe that we somehow just arrived in the US before the Stonewall Riots and then immigrated to the UK in the 1970s, just in time for the AIDs/HIV outbreak.

I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like to grow up as a gay man in the 1980s, I’ve read books and watched documentaries, in fact I make a point of buying a book from Gays The Word book store in London every time I visit, but I don’t think any amount of reading or viewing can really give you a true representation of living in such an oppressive time. In the 1980s we pretty much lost a whole generation of LGBTQ people, more people were finally standing up to fight for the rights of our community and then HIV and AIDs took out such a huge proportion of LGBTQ people, that’s a whole generation of activists, of unwritten history that’s just been lost because safe sex isn’t considered something that schools should be educating our young people on.

Watching It’s A Sin and witnessing the misinformation going around at the time, from not being safe to use the same cup as someone with HIV to it only effecting gay men, it’s not surprising that what little knowledge there was out there, was largely inaccurate. Many of these untruths are still believed today and still effect public policy, I’ll never forget an Assembly debate about PrEP in November 2016 when an MLA stood up and explained that he didn’t realise that HIV effected people other than gay men, a legislator in a developed country in 2016. It wasn’t until recently that gay and bisexual men could give blood in Northern Ireland, a life time ban existed right up until 2016, and the same arguments used in the 1980s were still being used then, and even then gay and bisexual men had to abstain from any sexual contact for 12 months before being eligible to give blood, until recently.

The “morning after pill”, a well-known and widely used form of contraception waslegalised in the 1980s, one pill that can prevent an unwanted pregnancy, which can be taken up to 5 days after intercourse, yet instead of teaching young people that if they do end up having unprotected sex then they can go to their GP or a sexual health clinic and get a pill it’s just not discussed, so no wonder we’re still trying to teach people what undetectable = untransmittable means.

This brings me onto the recent conversation about Conversion Therapy. I feel like I’ve been going on about this an awful lot, but it’s really important and relevant. When we discuss a ban to conversion therapy and what that really means it’s much more than saying “we think you shouldn’t refer people to faith-based counselling to stop them being gay” we need to make sure that the possibility is wiped out so that the organisations or individuals who are proving conversion therapy under the disguise of “counselling” don’t exist any longer, and we need our schools to be affirming of LGBTQ young people.

Following that, you’ll probably have seen the controversy over Nelson McCausland, former DUP MLA and Minister in the NI Executive, after he posted an article about a man who claims that he is no longer gay due to becoming a Christian. Mr McCausland, who has a position on the board of the Education Authority and is partly responsible for what is taught in our schools, is very vocal about his opposition to various equality legislation and supportive of various types of conversion therapy.

In a time when Scotland have announced that they’re going to include LGBTQ history on their syllabus we have people who support segregated schools and conversion therapy, and oppose marriage equality and access to healthcare on the board of the organisation who control the education of our young people.

How do we expect to have an education system which meets the needs of the young people availing of it if the people at the very top of that system believe that a sizable proportion of them need to be “cured”.

Young people are being failed by the education system.

Bit more doom and gloom than I usually like but a topic I feel very passionate about, and on that, keep yourself educated and I highly It’s a Sin, even my mother has recorded it, and she watches repeats of Midsomer Murders! -- Thanks,

Micky Murray

Follow me online: Instagram: @micky.p.murray Facebook.com/micky.murray.75

This is an opinion piece from the columnist/contributor and not the opinion of GNI MAG / Romeo & Julian Publications Ltd.