“Their Wigs Were Sweating Off” – How Queer Bruk Is Revolutionising The Black LGBTQIA+ Scene In London
When I start my video chat with Akeil Onwukwe-Adamson on a hot summer afternoon, he immediately tells me this interview is not the first time he and Dua Lipa will be in the same orbit.
“About two years ago, Dua posted on her Instagram but she accidentally tagged Queer Bruk instead of Queer Britain. So, I was actually tagged as part of Service95 for about 12 hours.”
He was referring to a post by Service95 founder Dua shouting out this article about Queer Britain – the UK’s first LGBTQIA+ Museum.
“Obviously ‘Queer Br-’ [Bruk] is only a few letters away from ‘Queer Britain’,” he says. “So, when I saw [the tag], I was like, ‘Crap, did I forget I was working with Dua Lipa?’”
It wouldn’t be unusual for Onwukwe-Adamson to do something extraordinary and then forget about it. He’s always moving (and speaking) at a hundred miles a minute, working to take Queer Bruk – described as ‘London’s duttiest Black queer night’ in its Instagram bio – from strength to strength.
Just a few months ago, for example, he explains that Queer Bruk “were at the British Library and had [musician] Tiana Major9 perform. That was an intimate, smaller thing – and that finished at 9pm, and then I had to run to the Southbank Centre because we had a massive rave that started at 10. We flew in amorphous, a DJ from LA… the duality is real.”
08.08.2024
Onwukwe-Adamson was born in Hertfordshire to a British-Nigerian mother and Scottish father. He spent part of his childhood in Spain (his mother, Flora, bought a farm and ran a “hippie commune” there in the late ’90s) before moving to Tottenham in London as an eight-year-old, where he has remained ever since.
Growing up as a gay man in London meant he spent plenty of time in clubs across the city. However, as he got older, he began to feel uncomfortable in both the straight and LGBTQIA+ nightlife scenes.
“I’ve seen guys being literally held up by the neck just for twerking,” he says. “Just for dancing. Just for being themselves. Just for wearing something that edges on non-gender conformity. But then I will also go to gay nights, and they will play one Sean Paul song and that’s the only Black representation you’ll see. So, I was like, ‘Well, why don’t I just do something?’”
While there were other Black queer nights and events catering to LGBTQIA+ people of colour around (for example, Pxssy Palace was founded in 2015), Onwukwe-Adamson was keen to organise events for “Black people of all genders.”
Hence the name Queer Bruk – ‘Bruk’ being Jamaican patois for ‘broken’, and also used to describe someone who has become rebellious, or ‘bruk out’. “It does what it says on the tin,” he explains. “It’s going to be a night that’s predominantly playing Black music… and then also it’s gay as f*ck.”
Onwukwe-Adamson explains: “I primarily wanted to do Dancehall, Reggae and then also Afrobeats was a key one… actual music from the diaspora. Music that we grew up with. And part of it as well is how homophobic the lyrics are. Like, how rock ’n’ roll is it to be twerking on another man, listening to the most homophobic lyrics?”
For a brief period, in 2023, he fell out of love with event planning: “I decided I would quit my job and do this full time, and I was so unhappy because it was so reliant on selling tickets for me to earn money.” But now that he juggles it part-time with a day job in marketing, all is right in the world.
At the very first Queer Bruk, Onwukwe-Adamson planned for around 100 partygoers. 200 showed up. “Girls were telling me their wings were sweating off,” he says.
Now, he plans for around 350-500 per night. Although will have the odd event, like earlier this year at the Southbank Centre, where he’ll sell almost 1,000 tickets.
When you open the doors to a Queer Bruk event, “you’ll see red, yellow and green lights [Pan-African colours],” he says. “We have a DJ playing, usually young, Black queer talent. And then just a whole lot of beautiful Black bodies in different shapes and sizes… it’s just such good vibes, it’s so positive.”
5 Black Queer Creatives Akeil Onwukwe-Adamson Adores
- DJ Donnie Sunshine– An East London-based multi-genre DJ and Queer Bruk regular.
- DJ Jordss – The musician and founder of Girls Can’t DJ, a platform and talent incubator for female identifying and non-binary DJs.
- DJ Talia A Darling – The DJ, model and host of The Redlining Podcast.
- Mark-Ashley Dupé – Who runs a similar club night to Queer Bruk, called Jungle Kitty
- Ike Muotoh – “He does all of the graphic and artwork for us, but also has his own skincare line called Dibia.”
Seun Matiluko is a British writer and researcher in law, race and politics. She has written for publications including Gal-dem, The Independent and Glamour, and is the host of the podcast Seun’s Talking Drum British And West African
