In the Studio: Jonny Banger

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sports Banger is a fashion house, rave organisation, and London community centre run by Jonny Banger. The cornerstone of their work is bootleg T-shirts which mix satire and humour with a sportswear aesthetic. One of Sports Banger’s best-known t-shirts features two very different and well-known brands - the Nike and the UK’s National Health Service. In 2020, this simple T-shirt became highly-coveted. Selling out in minutes on limited runs during the height of the UK’s Covid lockdowns, Jonny Banger used the proceeds to set up a food bank in his neighbourhood, feeding 160 families every week for two years. Poet Talia Randall meets Jonny in his studio - Maison de Bang Bang.

Transcript

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0:00.0	T-shirts bootleg and rave fashion pop culture art,
0:03.9	DIY anarchy, politics, class activism.
0:07.6	That is the world of sportsbanger.
0:10.6	Hello and welcome to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service, the program which
0:18.7	steps inside the brains of some of the world's most creative people. I'm Talia Randall. I'm a poet, a writer, and a radio
0:27.8	producer. In this episode I'm going to be running around after the man at the helm of what he calls a ragtag collective.
0:36.4	I'm John, uh, John Sportsbanger,
0:39.4	sportsbanger is the label brand, something, we're still working it out.
0:45.0	John Wright
0:46.0	aka Johnny Banger
0:48.0	is a fashion designer known for
0:50.0	provocative slogan t-shirts
0:52.0	and rave inspired coll kaleidoscopic cat walk shows.
0:57.1	He also sets up food banks. He puts on exhibitions. He runs a record label, Club Nights. The list goes on and on.
1:07.6	Raised in the club, Pirate Radio and Free Party Scenes,
1:11.5	John's work is deeply influenced by DIY counterculture principles.
1:16.4	He's an artist that could only have emerged out of the London rave scene.
1:20.9	The heart of this work is community. So as well as spending time in Johnny Banger
1:26.7	studio in London, I'm also going to be meeting some of the people he works with.
1:31.2	John loves to give everything away for free.
1:33.8	John is a sort of multimedia troublemaker really.
1:37.4	It's special.
	...

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