End of March, I attended a TEDx event organized in Brick Lane (London). I love speaking in public but I know that my speeches are usually quite messy. Probably because I never rehearse them. This time I asked my friend Gilbert to help me deliver something clean, but never managed to book an appointment with him…

The conference theme being “Redefining the DJ”, I thought about sharing a couple of Laid Back stories but it took me quite a while to figure out how to organize those. Being interviewed by The Word Magazine about my career path gave me the angle for the talk… It’s been 10 years that I launched this Laid back thing without any clear mission statement and instead of considering it as a weakness, I wanted to explain why this is exactly our biggest strength. Because it gives us the flexibility to re-orientate our projects, abandon some, start new ones and stay agile. Time to redefine Laid Back…

Not quite clear for most people (including myself) to figure out what Laid Back is: a radio station, a blog, a label, … well I’d rather use none of them. That’s why we like to call us an agency (if we really have to use an “old school” kind of word to describe our organisation): Laid Back is working on projects and those depends on our partners’ needs. Strand wants to release a new album, LuiGi needed a label to release his 74 Miles Away album, Oli dreams about his first solo show, Farm Prod prepares a street art festival, … and the list goes on. My job is to be next to people when they have an idea that they’d like to make come true. And the great part is that those projects are more and more exciting, always different.

Not preparing this TED talk made me realize that failures, not reaching goals, changing directions have always been for the best… It’s all about telling stories even if, sometimes, some do not have an happy ending.

Thank you Caro for joining me on this trip and helping handle the stress, Rich, Orsii, the Mixcloud team (Nico, Nikhil, Joe & co), Ben & Lee at BBE for the good times and inspiring discussions… last but not least Tunde and the TEDxBrickLane team for inviting me.

More pictures from this event - Make sure to check the other speakers on Youtube… some of them are mind blowing.