JOHN-PAUL ZACCARINI is artistic director of FutureBrownSpace, a creative space of recovery, discovery and artist development free from white noise and the white gaze.

The space is designed for people of colour (POC) who operate in largely white institutions/ fields, and offers them breathing space to uncensor themselves.

Part of the Certain Blacks Heroes Festival, Zaccarini’s The MixRace MixTape is a stand up, spoken word journey of passion, hope, humour and classism, through which the artist and academic explores the political and emotional minefield of intersectionality in a highly personal and provocative performance.

Heroes is a festival set to inspire and entertain audiences beginning with a celebration of international female musicians Maria Uzor, Helen Adove Hawk, Daphne Sadeh and duo Eastern Strings.

As well as the frankness and humour of Zaccarini, LGBTQ+ poet, stand-up and academic, Heroes boasts an eclusive event from legendary grime innovators Ruff Sqwad.

As a finale, Heroes welcomes a rare visit from LT Beauchamp (AKA Chicago Beau), the esteemed Chicago blues innovator who played on the seminal 19 album Certain Blacks by Art Ensemble of Chicago, from which the London organisation takes its name.

Speaking to The Voice on how his experiences seep through every aspect of his work, Zaccarini says: “I’m a professor of Performing Arts at Stockholm University of the Arts. I’m also the only professor of colour.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the time I am the only POC in the room. With my sisters and brothers, I call myself Professor of the Black Arts, or Professor of Shade since sometimes I’m also the only vocally queer body in the room.

“And I have a big gob, gifted to me from being raised in Elephant and Castle by immigrant parents who upwardly mobilised me through public school. Queer mouthy brown boy with an expensive education. No surprise then, that in my performance lecture MixRace MixTape, white boys get a beating, along with #himtoo, #straight pride, #whitehistorymonth and #alllivesmatter.

“Perhaps the only way to deliver my message to this super cis-hetero whiteness with their racial anxiety and fragility was with the witty shade of the queen – winding up white boys is one of my favourite things – a black rage crafted into hyper-articulate hip hop and the soft brown vulnerability of the sissy boy cat purring inside the panther.

“It was crafty, it was designed to lull a white audience into a false sense of security and to speak to the POC crowd in code – if you know you know and if you don’t then you got homework to do.

“So I perform different identities associated with different insults thrown my way, and I’m in the middle of shame rage fear anxiety on the intersection of woke, on the cross roads of race and class, the bypass of sex and gender. And this is lecture.

“You can call me Professor Bender. Blackademic. Dragademic. And what happens when all the lights go green and all battles must be fought at the same time? When you are tired of fighting sexism on the floor while racism flashes up on your screen? Homophobia brothers, who got no clue, banging on your door and to the side right-wing queens are ganging up on you.

“Are you tired of not bringing all of you to the party? When you have to leave one of you at home so as not to make someone feel uncomfortable?

“Well bring it to the party. Bring it all to the party. And it will be a party or it will not be at all. Sisters and brothers, turn all your lights green and let yourselves be seen.

“With your soul and your spirit, our gut and loin, brain and groin, let your chakras speak and endorphins sing while histories spin and puke and struggle births the conception of the everyday divine, the goddess of rhythm and the gods of rhyme.

“The music of the cells, the molecular dance of pasts forming presence, vibrational chance. Describe the future In your speculations. And in your fictions, may the past be your tutor. May you be present in your prediction.

“Sisters and Brothers – this is the MixRace MixTape.”

Certain Blacks Presents: Heroes, February 2-17 Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Rd, London E1 6LA John-Paul Zaccarini — The MixRace MixTape February 3