Alok Returns to Brixton for One-Night ‘Rave The World’ Show and New Label Launch

Alok will stage a one-night-only Rave The World show at O2 Academy Brixton on June 5. The performance doubles as a personal return: he lived and worked in Brixton in 2010 and says the date closes a long-running cycle in his career.

The new production follows his Keep Art Human era, which leaned on large-stage builds, choreographed dancers and a narrative set that he took to Coachella in 2025. Rave The World is conceived as a leaner, transportable concept that can read instantly in a festival field or a city street.

At the heart of the show is what Alok calls a “rave box,” a compact rig that projects pre-shot footage of dancers so they read as physically present. The setup is designed to travel. “We shoot real dancers and project them inside, so when you see the show, it feels like they are really there,” he says. “And we can place this box anywhere in the world, even in the middle of the street, and people get it immediately.”

Alok is also shuttering his Controversia label and launching a new imprint under the Rave The World name. He tells Billboard U.K. the label will focus on music that sits closer to clubs, raves and festivals — releases that may not fit a major-label framework.

Now, more than 10 years after he first lived in the neighborhood, he is returning to the same part of the city where he once worked as a barman.

From Logica to Alok

Alok and his twin brother Bhaskar Petrillo moved to London in 2010 with a psytrance project called Logica. The project had traction on platforms like Beatport, but the move did not translate into UK gigs. “We didn’t have the requests, we didn’t have gigs,” he says. The setback prompted them to end the project and for Alok to restart on his own.

“When I came back to Brazil, I told my dad that I wanted to quit music and go to university because it was so complicated to live through art. My dad told me that if he had my talent, he would be way bigger than I am… So I said ‘OK, this is my last try. I’m going to keep doing it, but I’m going to do what I want to do, not what you want me to do.’ And that was the best decision.”

He remembers leaving CVs at clubs and eventually getting a bartending job at a Brixton pub. Returning there for a headline night was not his idea at first; it came from his team as a way to “close the cycle.” “It’s something personal for me,” he says. “Sometimes you try to avoid it, like why go [back to] Brixton again? But now I have to go back and kind of… heal myself.”

How the concept formed

Rave The World started from a need to connect with a new generation. Alok says he noticed Gen Z forging culture differently and wanted a clearer purpose. A conversation with his creative director’s daughter reframed the idea. She rejected the notion of “saving the world,” telling him there is no other world and that older generations had failed it. He removed the S and the project became Rave The World. “When I Googled it, it said ‘do you mean save the world?’ I said no, I mean rave it. And when I told her that, she said that’s amazing, she connected with it.”

Large-scale shows and collaborators

Alok has performed for massive crowds, including audience sizes reported at Copacabana Beach. “Honestly, when you play for over a million people, you only realize that when you see the footage after. In the moment, you can’t really understand it,” he says. To manage sightlines at those events he describes a 30-meter-high, 360-degree pyramid stage that lets him see the entire crowd. The Copacabana number is documented at one million people at past events.

On collaborations, he recently worked with Khalid on “Dive Into Me.” The track evolved after clearing sampling issues tied to Fatima Yamaha’s “What’s a Girl to Do.” “He changed the lyrics of the verse and did a fantastic job. We spent like eight hours in the studio recording a lot of lines,” Alok says. “Then the next day he said he still missed some things and went back to the studio again.”

Alok also made a guest appearance at Sphere in Las Vegas supporting ILLENIUM. “It’s one of those very unique venues in the world,” he says. “The experience is really out of this world… He did everything and gave me space with visuals and effects. He was super humble to do that.”

For the new label, he plans selective releases that reflect the Rave The World concept. “Not many releases, because I’m not worried about quantity. I just want to release what I really believe in. Some of these songs might not be accepted by a major label because they are more for clubs and festivals, but that’s the direction now.”