Leeds International Festival of Ideas (LIFI25) burst into life last night as a sold-out crowd gathered to hear two of its most anticipated sessions: “How Hip-Hop Changed the World” featuring legendary Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, and “Who Rules the World?” led by broadcaster Kirsty Wark.
From the opening moments, the festival delivered on its promise to provoke, inspire and challenge. In a packed theatre, Chuck D took the stage for a fireside conversation with broadcaster Nihal Arthanayake, exploring the roots, impact and ongoing power of hip-hop as a vehicle for social justice, identity and cultural resistance. The audience responded with energy, applause and engaged questions, reaffirming the genre’s capacity to shape discourse and power structures.
Earlier in the evening, Kirsty Wark chaired “Who Rules the World?” — a high-stakes panel exploring the complex web of power, influence, and hidden forces shaping global affairs. The discussion spanned topics from media ownership and tech giants to political lobbying and the unseen levers that steer narratives and policy. The panel featured Sam McAlister, Tom Burgis, Mike Bates, and Matthew Syed.
Human intelligence specialist Bates told the panel, “Geopolitics is like a chessboard, but there’s a game going on under the table that we can’t even see.” Matthew Syed added, “There is an emerging accord between China, North Korea, and Russia — a group of autocratic nations that want to reset the world order. That conflict is coming. Will NATO stand strong?” Tom Burgis concluded. “Trump is a kleptocrat. But he’s not alone — self-interested kleptocrats are enriching themselves the world over. They don’t care about the masses.”
Festival Director Martin Dickson reflected on the opening night: “Ten months of hard work begin now. From the moment we launched LIFI25, we set out not just to stage talks, but to create an open, genuine space — where music, power, art and politics meet in dialogue. It was never enough to bring names to a stage; what matters most is that those names provoke, unsettle, challenge, and invite participation. Tonight, with Chuck D and Kirsty Wark leading, we’ve signalled exactly what this festival must be: urgent, unafraid, necessary.”
He added: “In a world where conversations are too often siloed or superficial, LIFI is here to push past the noise, to invite scrutiny, new angles, and real listening. Leeds deserves a festival of ideas that isn’t complacent, that doesn’t shy from difficulty, that honours curiosity. And the fact that these opening sessions sold out shows how hungry audiences are for that kind of space.”
Over the coming days, LIFI25 will host further headline events, debates, panels and performances across Leeds Playhouse — probing questions of domestic abuse, gender and sport inequality, motherhood, fitness of power, democracy in crisis, and much more.
