“I hope the visitors discover what liberation sounds like”

Honey Dijon is curating a jukebox installation for the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center in Manhattan.

Part of a new exhibition marking the 55th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the installation recreates the original jukebox and music playing at the now-iconic Stonewall Inn gay bar on 28th June 1969; the night of the historic police raid that sparked the Pride movement in the US.

Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ and Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ are among Dijon’s selections. In a short introductory video, she explained that Stonewall figurehead Marsha P. Johnson recalls the latter song being played on the jukebox “the moment the police burst in”.

“We visibly know what it looks like, but what did it sound like? What was the soundtrack to these people’s lives?” she said of the project, adding: “I hope the visitors discover what liberation sounds like.”

Find out more about the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center via their site. Entry to the centre is free.

Dijon was among the hundreds of electronic acts who played Glastonbury 2024 at the weekend (26th – 30th June), with headline performances from Coldplay, Dua Lipa, and SZA.

Earlier this year, Dijon teamed up with Jamie xx for a collaborative single, ‘Baddy on the Floor.’

Read about how the electronic sound of San Francisco’s dancefloors soundtracked gay liberation in the ’70s and ’80s.