If you are going to be London this coming weekend, there is only ONE place you should be .  The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is presenting QUEER FREQUENCIES  a free, two-day takeover of Black queer music culture . Its the third weekend of The Music is Black Festival from East Bank, an eight-month celebration of Black British music inspired by V&A East’s exhibition The Music is Black: A British Story

This particular weekend is a takeover by London’s queer collectives, celebrating the sound, legacy and future of Black queer music culture – from underground club spaces and grassroots collectives through to the artists filling dancefloors right now.  

That framing matters. Black queer people have always been the engine room of club culture, and the euphoria we take for granted on a good night out was built in rooms the mainstream did not make space for. Queer Frequencies puts that history on an outdoor stage, in the daylight, for free. Access has always been a queer issue and a class issue at once, so a weekend with no ticket, no door tax and step-free routes across the whole site is a quietly radical thing to build.

Who is curating it? Well, Saturday belongs to Shy One and Donnie Sunshine. Shy One started DJing on pirate radio at 13 and has spent two decades championing queer, Black and marginalised club spaces, most recently releasing her debut album Mali. She takes The Waterfront Stage. Donnie Sunshine, an east London born multi-disciplinary artist, curates Mid Terrace with a mix of forgotten cult classics and niche current picks.

Sunday is handled by Mark-Ashley Dupé and Joel Mignott. Mark-Ashley, known as the Prince of Peckham, brings a genre-blurring sound spanning pop, house, R&B, ballroom, Afrobeats, dancehall and Brazilian funk. Joel was the first DJ to play the main stage at London Pride in 2024 and is programming Mid Terrace.

Closing Saturday night is Zinzi Minott, the first dance-trained artist to be artist in residence at both the Serpentine and Tate.