Straight talking but no Str8 Acting from Lynks Afrikka

IDLES. Massive Attack. Banksy. Tricky. You can, I think, add another name to the list of Bristol-born innovators: DIY balaclava-clad Lynks Afrikka, the alter-ego of producer and performance artist Elliot Brett.

Notwithstanding the mask, the pompoms and the ripped cheerleader rigouts, Afrikka is the Alan Bennett of nocturnal deconstruction and queer empowerment. On the banger Str8 Acting, he cheekily sings of “drinking cold, cold beer in a hot straight club — it’s a lot like a pub but with slightly less chairs”.

Of the song’s inspiration, Afrikka said:

“The community constantly tells us we need to embrace our queerness and yet simultaneously there’s this total fetishisation of the straight man — to the extent that every third Tinder or Grindr bio you read will have ‘str8 acting looking for the same’ or some shit written in it. It’s totally f**ked. I wanted to try and answer a question that has been with myself, and I’m sure many other queer people, since first coming out: ‘Why the f **k should I ever want to be straight acting?’.”

The purveyor of self-proclaimed “gay industrial pop” is loved by The Guardian

(it named him in its ‘50 artists to watch in 2020’ article) and by Elton John (he playlisted Afrikka’s song Don’t Know What I Want

on his radio show Rocket Hour). And NME has described Afrikka’s new EP Smash

Hits, Vol 1 as a “glorious, day-glo statement from the Bristol artist, who looks a lot like a cult queer icon in the making”.

Afrikka has cited LCD Soundsystem as a major influence. “James Murphy,” he says, “has the art of restraint down to an absolute T.” Not that there is a lot of restraint in Afrikka’s live performances.

Unsurprisingly given how he looks, Afrikka is not shy with his views about the world. “What I think we’re now finally seeing is integration, in which LGBTQ+ people are becoming part of society but queer culture is being maintained and integrated into the popular consciousness in the process. I’m well into it.”

So are Afrikka’s growing number of fans.