First things first: A big „THANK YOU“ for showing up to our Blockparty on 16th of July. We were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people who were there to support us and our message.
Since we planned the first MIDNIGHT Blockparty in 2019 our number one goal was to give back to our community and add cultural value to our hometown - Mönchengladbach.
This event is intended to happen once a year to give you, our community, a voice of your own and the ability to see and meet your role models and heroes. It doesn’t matter who you are, which background you have, whether you believe in a certain religion, nor what your gender, your sexuality or the color of your skin is: As long as you share the same values as our community does - Freedom, open-madness, respect, Hip Hop and Urban Culture - you will always be welcome.
There have been conflicts with the city administration of Mönchengladbach for a very long time now and it seems like the envy us and the community we reach. The whole conflict escalated when an article was written about us and the Blockparty, which described the event luridly.
For this article, the „Rheinische Post“ didn’t even bother to ask us any questions about the background of this event, nor did they seem to care why we hold it at all. At no point did anyone from the „Rheinische Post“ reach out to us. Not before, nor during or after the event.
Mark Nierwind was indeed at this event, but he is not a representative of MIDNIGHT and it was very presumptuous of him and the „Rheinische Post“ to report as if he was. Again: At no point of time did anyone talk to a representative of MIDNIGHT to get further information or insights into our motivation and drive.
Also did the headline of said article state, that our event went off „peacefully“ which left us with the question if they expected anything else. At the same time there was happening a food festival in Mönchengladbach and it was covered completely different in a through out positive wording.
Why was there so much attention paid to the one Bengalo we lighted? The Bengalo is a sing of freedom and joy, however the article puts it in a completely negative light without even mentioning, which positive and great things actually did happen.
For example us bringing out big artists like Kwam.E out to Mönchengladbach:
We will continue what we have done before: Never cooperate with the city administration. Whether it is founder money or the Ordnungsamt making everything more complicated that it actually has to be, while other, white, brand owners are promoted.
From today on, we distance ourselves from what the city represents politically.
We still want to thank the independent institute of the neighborhood management for helping us fund the party like it took place.
To the city administration:
Being envious is ok, but in the way you show it, it is counterproductive for the city and everyone who lives here.
As a brand we will continue to work out of the city of Mönchengladbach but we will only cooperate with independent institutes that have no connections to the city administration.
We don't even unterstand, what is not to like about our concept itself. Having this event take place led to us collaborating with „Dr. Martens“ on the next one!
On september 7th we will gather in Berlin to celebrate again. We will give out free beer and the artist line-up for this event consists of an awareness-speaker and some great musicians like Prinz Pi, Albi X, Yung Palo, Mercy Milano and STZY.
Join us on September 7th at So To (Tor Str. 72, 10119 Berlin) at 5PM!
