In How Clubbing Changed the World, actor Idris Elba (The Wire and Luther) explores how United Kingdom's dance music and its accompanying nightclub culture became "the most significant British cultural export in the last 20 years" and helped change popular culture across the globe.
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The recent documentary, which Elba both narrated and executive-produced, debuted on Aug. 24 in the U.K. on Channel 4. Now the bass-pumping, treble-shaking 90-minute film can be watched via YouTube.
With interviews from producers and DJs such as Nile Rodgers and Goldie, the film chronicles how U.K. youths turned to regional American music such as New York hip-hop, Chicago house and Detroit techno to escape bleak social conditions in the 1980s. From those early influences, U.K. DJs and music makers developed their own styles, creating popular subgenres from trance to dubstep. These days, Elba explains, the U.K. leads the world's club movement commercially and culturally.
Watch the full-length documentary below.
Previous recommendation: 'Black Star, Crescent Moon': A Shared Struggle.
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