The gentrification of Grime

Corpsey said:

Actually interesting that prancehall was brought up cos it seems like Noisey/VICE are somehow connected to all this. Are they just hitching to the bandwagon? How did grime suddenly become popular again? Was it the Drake cosign? I guess German Whip came before that. Someone sketch it out for me.

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To be fair I would say at the least Noisey and Vice got on the bandwagon first, they were doing videos for that Chronik EP way back in May '13. Compared to FADER and the like they were miles ahead.

Whether that was just one writer forcing the issue and being right though I dunno

Maybe something to take into consideration- Radio 1 is surprisingly adventurous with their daytime playlist so it wouldn't surprise me if Grime gets a look in. A good portion of their tracks are not obvious chart toppers, some might not even be from major labels. Some of the stuff they play, it's safe to say would flop if it didn't get that level of exposure. At times it's like the tunes that were on Gilles Peterson's GTA station. Commercially it doesn't make sense for a mainstream station to play that sort stuff. In my part of the world 'adventurist' radio programming would be to include camp nashville nickleback clones- it might be massive in the States but there's little incentive for local stations to play it as no European label is offering tons of payola to make it worth their while. Radio 1's equivalent of this would be things like George the poet 'Cat D', or German Whip- neither are obvious hits. Especially when you consider how catchy the hooks of Garage top tens circa 2000 were.

This topic is confusing.

More people are listening to it, and going out to it then they have been ever. Far beyond the reach of the traditional platforms like Rinse.

That brings new ears and opportunities. Not much negative to be taken from that.

It still is niche music clearly that can make a lot of noise on the underground and mainstream press.

From the time I've been listening to and going out to the music (over ten years now) it's always been a mixed audience, and i've found the people most protective of who can or can't listen to Grime feel some ownership over it because they knew about it from early. That goes for white and black people.

Noisey, Fader etc don't cover the music people complain, when they do people complain. Always has been, and always will be the case.

This year has been jokes really been so much hype, at times not enough product to justify it, but loads of great singles and moments. Next year the obvious next level is some of the bigger artists delivering albums.

My only interest really is hearing good music and being in environments where I can enjoy it live, and there was loads of that this year.

Corpsey said:

One of the interesting aspects of this latest argument is that some old riddims are now big again, but with a wider audience (Functions on the Low e.g.). I think that's a weird aspect of this grime resurgence - it's sort of repeating what it did the first time but with much more success commercially, as opposed to coming out in a 'new and improved' way. (Not saying grime hasn't moved on, I know Butterz e.g. have pushed things forward a lot. I'm talking about the stuff that's blowing up more.)

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Not actually that weird, just more version culture. Especially as lots of the new audience won't have heard those tracks first time round and they are still absolutely banging.

I actually think Grime almost HAD to have a resurgence, because it is so strong and pretty much everything else seems so weak right now.

rubberdingyrapids said:

it is funny though how grime is the only british dance genre to achieve its greatest success a full decade pretty much after it began. everything else made its mark much quicker (jungle, garage, rave, etc etc). even dubstep took off earlier than grime, if not exactly commercially.

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I think that's partly because of the vocals (particularly the raw vocals in the early days) - it slows down how accepting people are of a music and slows the spread of it. Dubstep was always going to appeal to an international audience because it didn't come with so much baggage - easy to make dance bangers and coffee table stuff to appeal to teens and middle aged people alike.

Also gotta figure that for a lot of these fresh faces to grime, they're approaching it as remixing the canon would happen in dance music. Obvious Jungle/Techno classics get remixed by guys who want to impress their peers all the time, no?

I laugh @ Logan's situation because I think he's outraged and surely he's had to have dealt with it from people who are more close-minded and just vitriolic than this writer no? And to be fair, there is a tiresome aspect when there's unsympathetic kids from a safer aspect of life playing 'explorer'. Logan's not one of THOSE GUYS, but his deflection paints him in that corner of perception.

I do have memories of a popular grime blog/production figure once being 'disgusted' with that footage of Titch getting himself thrown off the plane for being unruly. There's an obvious clash in a sense with how wide-reaching an appeal grime has, and more often than not you have to confront people who live and conduct themselves differently...

Certain people have a sort of desire to remove the people who judge from ivory towers, or question the power granted onto whiter or higher in class figures naturally because society is fucked. I think the dialog is generated in a bit of adolescent outrage and can be hyperbolic, but its always been there.

Put it this way, one blogger who posted on Dissensus once suggested elsewhere that it was 'confidence' that made JME or Jamal Edwards a success. That's true, but its also a wide-range of issues for some artists/producers/DJs that can help them or impede them. Its home-life, its sociability, its talent, its how the person reflects on that talent. No different with any genre.

Some interesting background from Sian Anderson here http://www.thefader.com/2015/12/21/how-pirate-radio-made-grime-great-again

Just a few months into our pirate radio dream, in June 2010, Rinse were given a community FM broadcast license by U.K. communications regulator Ofcom. Among other changes, my show got censored. It made a huge difference: I ended up not playing tunes from my favourite artists—like Merky ACE (the rawest MC in south east London), Chronik (an even rawer MC from east London’s veteran grime crew Slew Dem), and more—because the tracks sounded so awful as radio edits with the curse words scrubbed out. And with this being grime—as lyrically uncompromising as it gets—most of those MCs weren’t going to pay for the studio time to make clean versions of their tracks. Like me, MCs do not want to be censored. Grime has always been about freely venting your frustrations—so getting a singer on the chorus and remembering to use language your grandmother can relate to defeats the point.

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With misrepresentation of grime rife in other mainstream media, it’s crucial that we continue to support the underground stations that represent talent in its rawest form and keep them alive. Mainstream radio will forever be great at bumping these artists up to the next commercial level when they are ready to convert what they do into radio-edited MP3s. But it won’t be able to offer them the hours of unlimited and uncensored airtime they can use as practical tools to become the best spitters in the game—not with the logistics of adverts, hourly news, brand associations, and content warnings.

The grime experience is inseparable from the pirate radio experience. If you want to feel true grime in 2016, don’t solely get sucked into the commercial hype. Although cozy studios, sparkling wines, and VIP areas in raves have been the norm this year, don’t underestimate listening to pirate, learning the bars, going to a grime rave, getting bruised in a mosh pit, and rewinding a back to back MC set 10 times just to catch all the punchlines. Those luxuries didn’t birth our current leaders in grime—and those luxuries won’t be the things that birth our next generation of grime stars either.

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I swear grime keeps having these identity crises

You might be right, but to me the 'primitive' stuff is the most stunning to this day, precisely because it IS so 'primitive'. I'm putting air quotes around that cos I don't actually think it's unmusical or whatever.

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i still hear old tunes and am amazed at how bracing they are, but i wonder if in years to come, we will hear it like we do some of those old chicago house tunes for example (or 50s rock n roll, etc) and think, wow that sounds... old. or 'simple'. which would not be a bad thing. it would mean the music has gone somewhere else.

i dont think grime is having an identity crisis though. everyone seems happy about where its going. theres just a kind of recognition that things have changed. but whats the alternative? it was obv around 2008-ish that the original audience wasnt sticking with it as faithfully, or in those numbers at least, so something had to give. and this idea of middle class fans/producers diluting or misunderstanding it, well maybe they might a bit, thats what happens when a new group enters a genre, but hip hop still made some of its best music when it was popular with white middle class teens, so who cares really. (though obv when it tilts in favour of one audience over the 'core' one, that might be when you get problems, or a loss of original intent, at least)

inexplicable slow motion shot of tobz drinking rosé here

are mode fm and radar radio actually ON the fm dial? otherwise i dont really get that fader piece by sian anderson.

http://www.thefader.com/2015/12/21/h...me-great-again

only skim read it so might have missed some obvious details. but i dont need a piece on how the pirates made grime a decade back. i wanna hear it on pirates today.

rubberdingyrapids said:

are mode fm and radar radio actually ON the fm dial? otherwise i dont really get that fader piece by sian anderson.

http://www.thefader.com/2015/12/21/h...me-great-again

only skim read it so might have missed some obvious details. but i dont need a piece on how the pirates made grime a decade back. i wanna hear it on pirates today.

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I don't think they are I think they're online only. I think an actual radio is pretty alien to most young people nowadays, It's just an app on your phone you never use.

semi related -
http://www.theguardian.com/society/...d-deprivation-east-london-newham-unemployment

What’s behind the huge fall in deprivation in east London? And no, it’s not gentrification
Newham council’s scheme to tackle unemployment and skills shortages has helped it go from being the second poorest local authority in England to the 25th

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Radar Radio is run by the son of billionaire Mike Ashley (of Sports Direct and Newcastle Utd) lol

Wasn't Geeneus' dad a cabbie?

not sure if that says anything about the gentrification of grime specifically, or just music/the arts in general...

Corpsey said:

One of the interesting aspects of this latest argument is that some old riddims are now big again, but with a wider audience (Functions on the Low e.g.). I think that's a weird aspect of this grime resurgence - it's sort of repeating what it did the first time but with much more success commercially, as opposed to coming out in a 'new and improved' way. (Not saying grime hasn't moved on, I know Butterz e.g. have pushed things forward a lot. I'm talking about the stuff that's blowing up more.)

I don't mind personally, I think it's great that Skepta is doing grime tunes rather than shitty trance-pop hybrid songs.

Actually interesting that prancehall was brought up cos it seems like Noisey/VICE are somehow connected to all this. Are they just hitching to the bandwagon? How did grime suddenly become popular again? Was it the Drake cosign? I guess German Whip came before that. Someone sketch it out for me.

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This really makes all of here who thought this stuff was amazing 10 years ago and wondered why it wasn't bigger seem like geniuses, huh?



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the old riddims thing seems to have started about the time butterz started i think (not sure). i just remember tuning into lots of shows and being surprised suddenly how it seemed okay to cut in old tracks with new ones so freely, compared to just a few years before when it was like a bombardment of brand new instrumentals. prob thats to do with net culture. or something going on in the genre (people leaving, disenchantment from djs, some stasis maybe). but it seems to have just continued from there. so now you have lots of refixes, people vocalling ancient tracks (like stormzy's functions on a low version), re-releases/re-issues (like what butterz have done), and a general back and forth between the past and 'today'.

Patrick Swayze said:

Radar Radio is run by the son of billionaire Mike Ashley (of Sports Direct and Newcastle Utd) lol

Wasn't Geeneus' dad a cabbie?

not sure if that says anything about the gentrification of grime specifically, or just music/the arts in general...

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can't really say he got there because of that though, though it might've helped with affording the Brick Lane location. Didn't he get his start by interning at Night Slugs after meeting Bok Bok in a smoking area? I can see your point though, most people just can't afford to do an unpaid internship like that. That's why fashion is so upper class.

To be honest, I'd say that working class people who were in the mix at the time really don't have the nostalgia for radio like people who's only connection to grime was radio rips do.

old riddims, represses etc - I assume people have seen this?
http://www.reloadz.bigcartel.com/

at the time when we started I think people were still playing old instrumentals, or going back to them because they didn't think anything was better at the time, and there wasn't as many people making it anymore. We used to go at the other DJs for playing old tunes a lot on Rinse.

What we tried to do is stretch out a bit what could run really. From when we started to like end of 2012 some people wouldn't even say what we were doing was 'real grime'.

The major thing that changed at this time though was the producers actually becoming DJs themselves, them starting to play at clubs and the rest and then I guess the flood of new music came from that. Before that if tunes weren't getting played by a hand full of people it was a lot more difficult to get heard.

Note we never reissued anything. We tried with Ghetto Kyote, but it didn't happen in the end back in 2013.

Last year we released 'Scars' though from Newham Gens that was made in 2005, but it never got released for some reason that I still haven't worked out yet. Ha.