Monday 18 May 2026, 7.30pm
The Gate is an arts space for adults with learning disabilities based in Shepherd’s Bush, West London. We’ve been running for over twenty years and have a freeform, collective approach to exploring art with our members. People are free to express themselves creatively in any manner they choose to, but we also provide a space where people hang out, meet, form friendships, and find support in navigating the system. We think there should be a Gate for everyone, on every street corner.
Gate members have collaborated with Klein, Sly and the Family Drone, Mariam Rezaei, LA Timpa, 10Foot, Café OTO, the ICA, The Horse Hospital, Supernormal Festival, Spanners and Strange Brew / Cube Microplex (Bristol) to name a few.
Nadeem Din-Gabisi is a storyteller working in the realms of music, poetry and visual arts. Nadeem’s work channels his experiences as a British born, second generation immigrant of Sierra Leonean Krio descent.
Nadeem's debut album OFFSHORE out now on Moshi Moshi Music tackles themes of belonging, estrangement and identity with 'potent streams of consciousness'.
Labake Sabbath is a dynamic singer and spoken word artist who is also a lyrical free improviser. She writes music often with playful humour, sometimes about her lived experiences. This includes themes such as navigating public transport with limited mobility, memories of her friends who have passed on and celebrations of The Gate where she makes strong visual art as well as her music. Her live show incorporates this visual art and is as sincere and heartfelt as it is humorous. Her recent collaboration with Wayne from The Gate, who makes distinct drones on keys, brings in a frank and bewitching spoken word aspect to her work.
'There are 17 songs on the debut album by Labake Sabbath, but despite this relative glut and its variable styles, it flies by with a keen balance of emotion and humour, personal and political.' — Noel Gardner, The Quietus
Over the past decade, Dan has established himself as a key figure in Bristol’s, and the wider UK experimental arts and music community. A distinctive improviser and performer whose practice is centred on percussion performance, he has collaborated widely in important groups and ensembles including EP/64, Run Logan Run, and performed nationally at festivals and events such as Supernormal and Unwedding festivals. Dan is one of the most exciting percussionists working in the field today; he has developed a singular style and become widely known for the unique focus and intensity of solo and collaborative performances, which are often site specific in nature.
Duane Warner (known as Mr AKA Amazing) makes distinctively vulnerable lo-fi hip-hop and distorted EDM, which he builds around voice notes using his phone. His softly spoken lyrics are raw and vulnerable, often about feeling misunderstood, although when performing live he enters a hyped-up surrealist MC mode. Duane loves to collaborate, and recently stormed Bristol with an impromptu appearance with super-versatile drummer Dan Johnson, which has led to this first ever London appearance of the duo.
'Illegibility Mistakable: Master AKA Mr Amazing on Collapsing Drums collects several tracks from earlier, self-released albums – Think Big and Am I Being Unreasonable – into one righteous lump of lo-fi hiphop that’s somewhere between cLOUDDEAD and Adam Bohman. “MANGOBAY” sounds like someone wrestling with the ideas of life and relationships while speaking through a broken supermarket tannoy.' — Spenser Tomson, The Wire
Wayne is a long-time member of 54 the Gate, who can play deep and mystifying drones for hours on the Gate's freestanding keyboard. Lately he has moved over to the smaller Korg, which we can bring to gigs. His recent first-time collab with Labake Sabbath electrified Klein's residency at OTO — so here the duo return, with more gigs and a release planned for the future...
Gate Loops is an experimental collective of adults with learning disabilities from The Gate in Shepherd's Bush, London. The project began as an accessible vehicle to encourage folks who don't normally play musical instruments (and one or two that do!) to jam and join in, in a freeform way loosely based around a structure developed in workshops. Using self-made noise boxes, tape loops, loop pedal, laptop and videotape-synth setup, the performance is improvised around a prepared structure.
Love Permanent is the Gate's improv band, which comes together every Friday for a jam session at The Gate in which music facilitators jam with Gate artists. There is a predisposition towards tripped-out funk but it is stylistically unpredictable in the best way — it just depends who shows up on the day.
