To round out the year RAGGA NYC founder Neon Christina was featured on nyctourism.com and partnered with them to promote a New Years Eve weekend party at Bosa Nova with hosted by @tuna__turnerof Yardy World featuring artists like @memphy, @appetizr and @neonchristina himself playing a set!
“It has been such a crazy year so I wanted to go out with a bang! A Ragga NYE spell. A reminder of the sexy AND silly sorceresses that came before us [who burst through] the chaos of years [past]. See you on the dance floor and stay tuned for more to come! 2025 It’s up!”—Neon Christina
Check out the article here to read more about Christina’s work and impact with photography by @djdumpling and the interview by @chala.gram
Sound of Ragga NYE 2024 from Neon Christina:
”I’m not gon lie it toke me by surprise to see ppl follow this project/ my practice and gagged that I cared about the lives of colonized people a year ago. Just as I was gagged that people used to come to Ragga Nyc and only expect to hear Dancehall music as if Caribbean people haven’t made so many different types of art. I was also gagged Meta tried to come for my edges and de platform this project over the past year because I felt it was important take a minute and draw the connections for my black folk watching Ragga Nyc between what we see through out the world and how it ties back to us. From genocides to trans rights to abortion rights to many countries in the Caribbean fighting for rights against imperialism like Cuba. I think though all this has re set my commitment to community and how mixy this project is! Not a one sided version of what it is “to be Caribbean and queer” but an ever flowing, expansive multitude of identities that support and feed into each other. Cheers to being mixy and moving to the uncertain future together.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about this beautiful resurgence into 90s Eurodnace and 90s club music I’ve been hearing out on the scene and if it has any roots to what I do here at Ragga Nyc. There is the obvious note that: the children of immigrants from all over the diaspora have moved to the EU and US to make new genres of music that with out a doubt were informed by what they heard at home with their parents. That aside I was gagged to find out that: Sonique who made the hit song “It Feels So Good” has Trinidadian parents, Haddaway who made the hit “What is Love” has Trinidadian heritage as well and C + C Music Factory who made “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” are a group of Puerto Rican, Dominican and black folk. We OUTSIDE! This music harkens back to a time of so much political and social chaos from the AIDS epidemic and Cold War still raging on. In the midst of that we found each other on the dance floor to bloom romance and hope. Here we are again as we have been in the past.”
