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ITW : Olympe4000 - Burn the patriarchy first

Adélaïde de Cerjat

On November 3rd, Olympe4000 will be making her first appearance during the Positive Education festival, which runs from October 31rst to November 5th. She'll be behind the decks with Von Riu. The new resident of La Machine's "La Préchauffe" mentoring program has been active in the industry for a number of years. Founder of label Adrenaline Quality as well as party concepts, mentor, producer, DJ, we went to meet her to find out more about these initiatives!


mana : Hello Olympe4000, you're performing this year in B2B with Von Riu at Positive Education! Not the first time you've teamed up as a duo. Is it a choice on your part, or is your energy so striking that you're often booked together?


Olympe4000 : I met Von Riu on Rinse three years ago and it just clicked. When we're together, there's a kind of fusion of ideas and energies. We realize that this frenetic energy is as present behind the decks as it is in real life. We're working on an EP together...



How much do you study the backgrounds of the people you do B2B with?


What's great about B2B is the creative communication and exchange that takes place. It's a learning experience: you're confronted with other ways of mixing, other ways of linking tracks.

To prepare for a B2B, I generally listen to the person's projects, then we call each other to exchange ideas, as with Bambounou, or we send each other tracks, as with Mézigue. Sometimes, when I mix B2B with friends, then it's more spontaneous, like with baby-B.


Another B2B I really enjoyed these last few weeks was with Pia Concept in Bordeaux. Last year, I was a mentor for the training program Move UR Gambettes. For six months, we helped seven DJs to become more professional. Among these was Pia Concept, with whom I did a B2B at Bordeaux Open Air. It made sense to have continuity between the training and this B2B together in front of 3,000 people.


How important is mentoring for you?


It's central to both my private life and my professional practice. I believe we should support each other as much as possible and deconstruct competitive relationships.


Patriarchy is a typical flaw in the music industry. Could you mention any other flaws?


We need to change the structure of the entire electronic music industry. More inclusive line-ups require a change in all the professions in this ecosystem: more gendered people in key positions (programming, technicians...). Check out the manifesto by Consentis titled "Reinventing the night" which is a must-read when thinking about how to improve our work and party spaces.


Inclusivity, what does this symbolize for you in electronic music today?


We can create communities, circles, and feelings of belonging that make us feel less alone and isolated. I'm more in favor of non-mixed spaces, in certain types of events. Non-mixed spaces are a solution for freeing speech and bodies.


Is that why you organized your own festival, Sisterules, during the pandemic?


Yes, it was during the lockdown. There was an outpouring of stream and it was all men. You were locked up at home, and as you scrolled on social media, it was all about cishet guys. I thought I'd create this festival to counteract that, all the while not being too Parisian-centric.


There are quite a few projects out there today that aim to give visibility and support minority groups, like Connect'HER, Au-Delà du Club, Soeurs Malsaines, Venus Club.


We're still in a transitional phase, with a lot of things changing at the same time, and I think that in the process, some people are finding it difficult to find their place. Even if inclusivity is created, and you bring people into new spaces, it's not necessarily going to create safe spaces. But by expressing ourselves, we allow things to regulate themselves. The fact that she's talked about it, that we're aware of it, that we're writing it down, that we're creating discussions with the places to make sure it's the right way to proceed.


One of the tools suggested by certain associations such as @consentis or @actright is to insert a safe charter in riders. It says that artists want safe places with different criteria and that if this is not respected, they may not play.


As the Soeurs malsaines collective points out in a text I found very accurate: "It's been a while since we've seen the word Safe overused just about everywhere, particularly in the events industry (...) Nothing and no one is 100% safe and inclusive, so stop with these empty words".


I also read somewhere that if the artist finishes their set, they'll be escorted by a member of the venue or security to the safe area of their choice. In any case, there are new tools. I'd like to pick up on another of your initiatives: the launch of your label Adrenaline Quality.


The label, which I launched last March, aims to give visibility to people that I appreciate. In terms of musical identity, it's olympe club music. It's pretty broad, whatever I feel like playing. I want to release identities, people who try out new things. The idea is to offer new sounds, infused with different styles.


With this project, I'm collaborating with Beats by Girlz. I saw that there was a wave of mix courses, which is important, and I quickly wondered how to get more female producers on the scene? How do we promote access to CAM (computer-aided music) for gendered people? That's what the Beatz by Girlz association is doing, with a presence in about sixty countries, and offering the democratization of access to technology through CAD training. These are free two-month courses. We work on a compilation once a year with students from Beats by Girlz. The first one is being released in December.





Do you have any other projects or desires at the moment?


Spend more time in creative residency in the wilderness with friends, get tested, prepare for the release of my second EP in early 2024, laugh loads, finish the EP with Von Riu, continue learning to speak Arabic, meet more artists, explore, praise non-productivity, praise rest, move forward on my project at La Machine!


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Artistic direction : @olympe4000 & @siro2violette

Photo : @simonchirat

Make up & style : @siro2violette


You can follow Olympe4000 here.


Tickets for Positive Education are available here.


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