華 HANA 001 · The First Bloom

An electronic night titled 華 HANA 001 · The First Bloom, held at Not For Sale Gallery in Hackney Wick. The bill pairs a Belgian rapper and slam poet with a Malagasy songwriter, alongside Yukari, EMI (11) and Fresh Lov3.

The evening is billed as electronic and brings together Yukari, EMI (11), Scylla, Fresh Lov3 and D LAI. Scylla is a Belgian hip-hop rapper and slam poet, born in 1980 in Brussels, active since 2002, whose first album, Abysses, came out in 2013. D LAI is a Malagasy songwriter, born in 1987 in Ampanihy, Madagascar, who works as an auteur-compositeur, writing and composing their own songs as both lyricist and composer.

The two acts with documented backgrounds offer different routes into the programme: spoken-word and rap on one side, original songwriting on the other. The title uses 華, the Japanese character read as "hana", meaning flower, and adds the numbering 001 and the subtitle The First Bloom.

Not For Sale Gallery is a gallery at 83 Smeed Road in Hackney Wick, east London, and the evening takes place in that space.