Beirut Groove Collective's Ernesto Chahoud

The Beirut blast caused hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries and billions of dollars worth of damage.

Ernesto Chahoud, a DJ from Lebanon, and founder of Beirut Groove Collective, started buying records when he was 13-years-old.

Today, he has more than 10,000 and he knows each one. He said: “Each one has a story, my collection is constantly evolving."

He is living with his wife, Natalie, in Tufnell Park, having left west Beirut for north London.

Ammonium nitrate that was stored in the Port of Beirut, exploded on 4 August 2020.

It compounded the collapse of the century, according to the World Bank.

The local currency had lost 90% of its value. And rolling power outages along with a lack of essential goods and services created a dystopian reality for so many in Beirut. 

Ernesto was outside the county when the blast happened, and said: “Everything changed. The whole country was destroyed. First, I feel angry. Second, I feel lucky I wasn’t there. It’s weird.

"My house was damaged, my record store was damaged, the club was on the floor, it was unbearable."

The only thing that did survive the blast was his 10,000 records.

Ernesto said: “It was a struggle every day on all levels. People lost their money. Poverty is rising, rising, rising. Everyone just survived. It was the worst experience of their lives.

“I can’t express anything but agony and anger."

Ernesto knows a lot of people who died or were injured because of the blast. He said the country will need at least ten years to recover and that Covid was a minor detail.

When I spoke to Ernesto, on Friday 6 August, he had just finished quarantining. His vaccine wasn't certified in the UK so he spent two weeks isolating.

At first, he sounded groggy and slightly irritable. But this is understandable. Any amount of time penned up in a single spot is frustrating. He quickly rallied and became the radiant personality that his fans love to listen too. Ernesto is passionate. Passionate about music, about politics, about social justice. He darts from topic to topic, launching into each issue with zest.

Being born into a Communist militant family in the middle of a civil war has made Ernesto a political person. And he said that music is political.

As a child he played with guns as toys and listened to revolutionary songs from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Sudan. He said these powerful revolutionary songs have shaped his taste in music.

Ernesto was 16 when he started his career as a professional DJ. By 19 he was being paid full-time. More than two decades later, he is still getting hips to sway, heads to bob and feet to tap. 

He first came to London ten years ago for a set in a small art gallery in Hoxton. He said: "It was incredible."

Since then he has performed live sets all over the country. When we spoke, his next event was at The Night Owl, a new club in north London. In Beirut he hosted a weekly night with more than 600 party-goers, so the Night Owl's capacity of 100 is comparatively small.

Ernesto's diary is filling up with bookings, but he said he is cautious to accept gigs because he wants to start his own night and build his own crowd. He also wants to avoid any excessive commercialisation of his work.