Theorization of the grime " discourse "

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Kaiser said:

sorry for my shoddy english, I'm French =)

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shoddy? no way!

tempted to agree with kaiser, though i reject the idea that nodding one's head is the best form of appreciation for anything...

i don't think it's theorization per se that disqualifies grime as subversive

rather, i think it has to do with the internet being the central route of diffusion -- a slightly different problem

i.e., outside of east london and essex, the grime scene has not developed as an underground scene that others slowly catch wind of

instead it's been spread via the internet through the channels of the post-rave intelligentsia -- i.e., diffused more by way of the printed word than by the power of the musical experience -- diffused more by isolated bedroom thinkers in communication with one another than by subterranean dj tribes

(granted, newspaper and magazine articles were instrumental in publicizing rave, but the rave phenomenon had already developed on its own before receiving such treatment)

plus, grime isn't nearly so strong a phenomenon as rave was -- i.e., not only is grime parasitic upon constituencies that rave created, grime has nothing to offer the wider world aside from its own sonically radical self -- i.e., there's no radically new subculture atttached to grime, no new drugs, no new modes of celebration, no new ways of relating to others, just the naked grime sound and new ways of mixing records

and none of the aforesaid is intended as criticism of people here -- i think everyone had good motives and intentions -- and indeed it's not even about people's intentions -- it's simply the way the world works today

global communication via the internet has replaced underground conspiracy and intrigue

I think its just gotten to the point where psuedo intellectual bloggers spend more time picking it apart then listening to it. Its getting quite tiring. I buy records and I enjoy playing them. Its not some life affirming, spiritual experience.

Kids on road aren't sitting around likening their culture to some black revolutionary movement. They go to raves, tune into radio and enjoy the music and raw vibes. End of
The "punk" attitude is definitely there but you're drawing parallels between 2 completely different cultures.

Its not that complex, grime was never intended to be. We're talking about a form of music that was spawned from minimal 8 bar patterns comprised of 808 samples.
Enjoy it for what it is.

.02

Keith P said:

I think its just gotten to the point where psuedo intellectual bloggers spend more time picking it apart then listening to it. Its getting quite tiring.

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yes, but surely you as an american wouldn't even know about grime were it not for the bloggers

so it's a complicated issue

Keith P said:

Kids on road aren't sitting around likening their culture to some black revolutionary movement. They go to raves, tune into radio and enjoy the music and raw vibes. End of story . . . . It's not that complex, grime was never intended to be . . . . Enjoy it for what it is

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errrr, i don't think it's that simple or dispassionate (at least not in the proper east london & essex context)

and if it is that simple, then that counts pretty heavily against the grime scene

Keith P said:

I think its just gotten to the point where psuedo intellectual bloggers spend more time picking it apart then listening to it. Its getting quite tiring. I buy records and I enjoy playing them. Its not some life affirming, spiritual experience.

Kids on road aren't sitting around likening their culture to some black revolutionary movement. They go to raves, tune into radio and enjoy the music and raw vibes. End of
The "punk" attitude is definitely there but you're drawing parallels between 2 completely different cultures.

Its not that complex, grime was never intended to be.

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Music as just entertainment, a depoliticized and desensitized commodity?
I think this is indeed the general idea about music nowadays.

This locks heavily into the 'will youth be fooled again' thread.

dominic said:

i don't think it's theorization per se that disqualifies grime as subversive

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Indeed, I don't think the majority of producers (in the widest sense of the word) or listeners of grime pay the slightest bit of attention to grime theorising on message boards. So for the vast majority of participants in grime, the theorising is irrelvevant.

I'm glad for the appeal of grime outside of it's core audience, cos without it, I would have heard a lot less (ie. I would have listened to Dizzee and prhaps wiley). But I don't think that it means much more to the grime "movement" than a few more records sold. I doubt it influences their behaviour strongly.

I hope this topic is a weird attempt at sarcasm.

Otherwise I feel sorry for the person left with the soggy biscuit when you're all finished wanking over it.

I think it's odd that so many people are obsessed by "what the grime scene would think of us" in a way that doesn't appear to be the case with other comparable genres (jungle, hip hop, dancehall etc.)

I think the first post is a bit bizarre. Contrasting the "reality" of "this never-before-heard acoustic phenomenon" with an illusionary knowledge-gleaned-through-discourse necessarily ignores the fact that it's <i>through discourse</i> that we're trained to recognise newness (ie. grime can only sound "new" in relation to other music and the discourses surrounding it; its newness is not an inherent property).

But we've had this discussion before...

yes, but surely you as an american wouldn't even know about grime were it not for the bloggers

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I didn't have to clock people's blogs when I began ordering garage records. I've been buying from shops in the UK for awhile. Internet played a key roll for me once north american distribution went down the shitter but it had nothing to do with livejournal or blogspot.

Music as just entertainment, a depoliticized and desensitized commodity?
I think this is indeed the general idea about music nowadays.

This locks heavily into the 'will youth be fooled again' thread.

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So music isn't meant to be entertaining anymore? Sounds rather dull to me.
I'm not saying that we should take away political or social relevance from music genres or the sub cultures that surround them but it seems like people are picking this shit apart way too much. Aren't all the dj's, mc,'s and producers who make this stuff ultimately doing it b/c they simply enjoy it?(unless of course they're looking to cash in)

I know thats why I play grime. I love the shit and just don't see myself focusing on another genre.

Logan Sama said:

I hope this topic is a weird attempt at sarcasm.

Otherwise I feel sorry for the person left with the soggy biscuit when you're all finished wanking over it.

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Yeah, but you can't be surprised that it's come to this here on dissensus can you?

Tim F said:

I think it's odd that so many people are obsessed by "what the grime scene would think of us" in a way that doesn't appear to be the case with other comparable genres (jungle, hip hop, dancehall etc.)

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I think that when hip-hop was a form of music played in a 12 block area of New York, it would have been discussed like grime is now (if the means to discuss it in this way - blogs, forums, etc. - were available).

Grime seems to be a fairly regional thing, with a fiarly small group of people making it and playing it. The beefs that you see are an outcome of this as well (all very MC Shan/BDP etc). There's no grime community for me to be part of in Melbourne, unlike hip hop and drum and bass, and even to a certain extent dancehall. So it's inevitably going to be a little 'from the outside looking in' for me.

How this works for people who live in London, I don't know.

Melchior said:

Grime seems to be a fairly regional thing, with a fiarly small group of people making it and playing it. The beefs that you see are an outcome of this as well (all very MC Shan/BDP etc). There's no grime community for me to be part of in Melbourne, unlike hip hop and drum and bass, and even to a certain extent dancehall. So it's inevitably going to be a little 'from the outside looking in' for me.

How this works for people who live in London, I don't know.

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You could've said the same thing about hip hop and Dn'B at one point. Don't get it twisted, half the kids playing Dn'B in the states are all members on D.O.A.

dominic said:

i.e., outside of east london and essex, the grime scene has not developed as an underground scene that others slowly catch wind of

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or rather, i should not have said "slowly"

before the internet, when things were more subterranean, things developed much faster

so maybe it's the subterranean networks that have broken down

or maybe grime is simply too weak a phenomenon (i.e., not the music so much as the lack of extra-musical factors) to spread like wildfire to places outside of london and essex

i.e., were grime really powerful, subterranean networks would have come into effect spontaneously

which would mean that the discourse on the blogs and on the internet, far from hurting the grime movement, have advanced it further than it o/w would have gone

but for whatever reason, grime seems to have a bit of a credibility problem in the states right now -- though this may simply reflect my conversations w/ people biased against grime

Grime is superficially very similar to hip hop, which is why in this country most "urban" kids outside London listen to hip hop rather than grime, because there is a far greater push of hip hop on them as something they believe they can relate to, as opposed to this music which is actually made by people like them.

Hip Hop has more marketing money.

The "subterranean networks" get drowned out by 24/7 Hip Hop marketing from US funded music tv and "if it aint a guitar band or house, we ain't playing it" daytime music programming policies on UK music with out radio stations.

Keith P said:

You could've said the same thing about hip hop and Dn'B at one point. Don't get it twisted, half the kids playing Dn'B in the states are all members on D.O.A.

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I'm sure, but DnB was well under way as a global scene by the time the internet started to be a real way to distribute music. So I heard about it from people playing it in clubs, same as everyone else.

I heard about grime through woebot.

I think though that the <i>particular</i> level of self-conscious handwringing that goes on is largely a result of the conflation of participating in the grime scene with revolutionary praxis - it's like the grime audience are the third-world workers and we are the lefty academics.

During 2001/2002 2-step garage was basically as underground as grime is now (more official compilations yes, but less press coverage too! Unless you count bad press for So Solid), but I think the sense of disparate international followers being on the outside looking in was just accepted as a fact of life. Whereas the discourse around grime seems to emphasise self-consciousness about cultural disengagement. Distance from the scene is no longer merely a practical issue in terms of engagement and enjoyment (ie. how on earth do I track down this CD/hear this pirate set/find somewhere to dance to this music); it becomes <i>ethical</i> too.

(ie. the fact that i as an Australian am enthusiastic about grime seems to often inspire suspicion, as if my location and identity prima facie invalidate any perspective I might have; this never happened when I was writing about 2-step garage).