Alok on Returning to London With Bombastic ‘Rave The World’ Show: ‘It’s Personal For Me’
Categoria: Musica
The Brazilian musician and DJ on returning to the U.K., playing for over one million people in Rio De Janeiro and his next era.
Por Billboard | 08/05/2026
When Alok returns to London this June, it’s not just another show. He’s heading back to Brixton — the same area in the capital where he once worked as a barman after moving there in 2010 and struggling to find gigs — to debut Rave The World, a new concept he’s been building across both his live shows and his music. The show is set to run for one night only at the O2 Academy Brixton on June 5, and for him, it carries a lot of personal weight. Related Alok Breaks Latin American Record With 1,000 Drones at Tomorrowland Brasil: ‘Thank You for Writing History’ Watch Rihanna and A$AP Rocky Get Ready For 2026 Met Gala: 'I Feel So Pretty, Oh My God!' The Rolling Stones' 'Foreign Tongues' Features an Amy Winehouse Cover The project also marks a shift from his previous Keep Art Human era, a show rooted in ideas around technology, presence and how people engage with music. That production leaned heavily on scale, with large stage builds, choreographed dancers and a visual narrative that unfolded across the set, which he famously brought to Coachella in 2025. With Rave The World, he’s moving in a slightly different direction. The idea is to strip things back to something more immediate, a concept that lands within seconds, whether it’s on a festival stage or placed in the middle of a street. At the core of it is what he describes as a “rave box,” a compact setup where pre-shot clips of dancers are projected in a way that makes them feel physically present. It’s also designed to travel. Unlike his previous productions, which relied on large builds and dozens of performers, this one can move easily across spaces while still holding its own visually. At the same time, the idea extends beyond the stage. Speaking exclusively to Billboard U.K. , Alok shares that he’s closing his label Controversia and starting a new one under the same name, Rave The World, using it as a space for music that sits closer to clubs, raves and festivals, and doesn’t necessarily fit within a major label system. Back when he first moved to London with his twin brother, things looked very different. Their psytrance project had early traction, but the move didn’t go the way they expected. “We didn’t have the requests, we didn’t have gigs,” he says. “Me and my brother, we broke up our project.” What followed was a reset, one that eventually led him to start over on his own. Now, more than 10 years later, he’s going back to that same part of the city to make good on a mission over a decade in the making. You lived in London back in 2010. What do you remember from that time, and how did it shape you? I lived there with my twin brother [Bhaskar Petrillo], and we had a psytrance project called Logica. It was going quite well on platforms like Beatport and we had a lot of requests in Europe. We moved there thinking it was going to be good for the career, but what happened was actually the opposite. We didn’t have the requests, we didn’t have