Blacktronika: Rockers!
Solar Myth
1131 S Broad St.
Philadelphia
June 26, 2026
Before anything, punk is a social music. Historically, its vitality has been inextricably tied to the health of local scenes where shared values are as important as physical proximity. For Black punks, this notion of shared community through punk rock has always come with a caveat. More often than not, Black punks have found themselves alienated and marginalized within the broader punk scene and this dynamic has left us with a cruel contradiction. Black punks are denied the very sense of belonging and community that the scene was supposedly founded on. What do you do when you’re Black and carrying around what feels like centuries of pent up rage and longing with no outlet to exercise it?
In 2005, Rockers! was founded to answer this question. As Philadelphia’s only women-led POC Punk showcase, the monthly event ran for over a decade at iconic Philly venues like Aqualounge, Tritone and Kung Fu Necktie. The founders, Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), Rebecca Roe (both Ayewa and Roe of the band The Mighty Paradocs) and host Adrian Jackson (aka St. Skribbly LaCroix) built a scene that transformed a loosely affiliated circle of bands and music fans into a true community. When it all came to an end in 2016, the Rockers! crew could confidently say that they left it all out in the mosh pit. Tonight, on June 26, 2026, this now-mythic party was resurrected for the fourth night of King Britt’s Blacktronika festival and its odd mixture of feral and warm, communal is just as present as it was back in the day.
Hosted at Solar Myth in South Philly, the event was packed with performers and supporters who’d spent many a night hanging at Rockers! back in the 2000s and 2010s. I briefly served as house DJ for Rockers!, so I was elated to see many old friends and folks I hadn’t chatted with in years. Jackson opened the night holding court and introducing Philly queer sci-fi writing crew Metropolarity. Backed by producer and synthesist Steve Montenegro, Metropolarity co-founders Magus Monk and Alex Smith lit up the stage with their surreal and futuristic visions of a post-apocalyptic Philadelphia. From there, punk/metal/hard rock trio and Rockers! veterans Joe Jordan’s Experiment came through with a blistering set of tunes full of volcanic riffs and brutal breakdowns. When the lead vocalist and guitarist led the crowd in a chant of “Fuck the system funk the war machine,” before launching into a fast paced punk song, it felt like the spirit of Rockers! had truly been revived.
Next up, The Mighty Paradocs ripped through their set of hip-hop-infused punk songs. As guitarist Nick Millevoi and Joe Jordan played their lightning-fast riffs, a tambourine was passed around the audience while people moshed in the first few rows. The entire set ended up looking and sounding like someone had staged a punk show in the pulpit of a Pentecostal church. Once the Paradocs ended their set, they were joined on stage for a freestyle session by Philly rap legend Reef The Lost Cauze, Cvgebird, Ashanti Newman, Sheena (of Rockers! Vets The Baptist Preachers) and Ximena Violante. The joy and unfiltered creativity of the session was palpable and the room was untied in a shared experience that we hadn’t had together in nearly a decade. Twenty years of blood, sweat, tears, memories and community can never be easily summed up, but Sheena put it best when she remarked on the mic, “this is the best family reunion I've been to in a long time."
