Inside the Big Issue: Superstar DJ James Hype

On 22 November, James Hype will play the Bristol Beacon. The Merseyside-born DJ plays on average 130 shows a year, mainly in North America and Ibiza, and Bristol is one of only two UK dates he is playing in 2025.

For it, he is bringing over his SYNC show, in a 360° set up, from his Hï Ibiza residency where the venue lights and screens will be triggered by his live mixing. So far, so normal in the jetlag-defying, cash-spinning, Instagrammable world of the peripatetic DJ.

What’s different is that all the money raised from the Beacon show will go to fund the building of new micro-homes in conjunction with Help Bristol’s Homeless.

“Homelessness is becoming more of an issue in the UK and it’s very apparent when you go to major cities like London and Bristol,” says James of why he got involved. “We’re all out there chasing these wild aspirations of becoming a huge DJ, but there are some people who don’t even have their basic needs met.” DJs today, he says, “get paid a lot of money” and really need to give back.

Read more in this week’s Big Issue.

What else is in this week’s Big Issue?

The plot thickens: how allotments became political

National Allotment Society (NAS) legal adviser Tyler Harris was coming back from holiday on Sunday 3 August when the representative body was inundated with press enquiries. It’s far from a normal occurrence.

Labour’s latest failure was behind NAS’s packed inbox. The Daily Telegraph had run an article accusing Rayner of “declaring war” on allotments. Is it true?

Ronan Keating’s rollercoaster life

He’s a hard-working dreamer who realised his ambitions of pop stardom. In this week’s Letter to My Younger Self, Ronan Keating tells us he still can’t quite believe it happened.

Rockall, Malin, Dogger: 100 years of the Shipping Forecast

It is 100 years since BBC national radio first broadcast a weather forecast specifically designed for sailors in our coastal waters. Those whose safety depends directly on this service are relatively few. But there is a legion of landlubbers who cherish the Forecast for its hypnotic rhythm and inexplicably evocative sea areas.

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It’s helping people with disabilities. 

It’s creating safer living conditions for renters.

It’s getting answers for the most vulnerable.

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