Pitchfork reviews Run the Road

i think what bothers me most about discussions like this is that if these publications people seem to hate so much are actually reviewing these records, it's because <i>they have entered into mass culture</i>. like in a few weeks, when my store will begin selling <i>run the road</i> to middle class suburban white people in america. (or probably NOT sell any copies of it, but you get the idea.) despite stelfox's snotty dismissiveness, the fact that the seattle weekly lets me review grime mixtapes (aim high volume one, lord of the decks) is <i>not the norm</i>. most editors, in america at least, are loathe to assign anything that their readership can easily procure at the conspicuous consumption location of their choice. (the voice gave me a little grief about covering wiley and the "i luv u" single before american distribution was assured.) and if you're throwing product out to that large of an undifferentiated mass, then yr just going to have to deal with multiple viewpoints/interpretations/opinions. (mostly i would guess "the scene" is more pissed off by LACK of interest than poor reporting.) getting yr facts straight and doing your homework is a problem for EVERYONE in every industry these days. we live in lazy times.

signed.
jess
(who published one of the first pieces on "garage rap" in america [<i>chicago reader</i>, jan. 31st 2003] and is as protective of it as anyone, even as he realizes he cares less than ever, precisely because of the shit-or-get-off-the-pot aspects of it.)

p.s. the only review i saw of logan's mix cd was in the fader, possibly the trendiest american rag extant at the moment.

(i mean...<i>jan 31st, 2003</i>...when i think about what jungle/ukg did in two years...get cracking, youse!)

forgive me if this point has already been made somewhere (there's been a lot of grime threads recently and i can't claim to have read them all) but surely the 'manifest content' of grime that BB refers to is inherited from US hip hop. And given that a lot of US rappers talk up the violence & criminal aspect of their own existence even when they are far removed from it or were never really that close to it in the first place is it any wonder that there is a mismatch between the lyrics of grime mcs and the reality in east london which, as luka/logan point out, is hardly a warzone. It's a stereotype perpetuated by both artists themselves & commentators and it's an enduring part of hip hop culture. Even ghanaian hip-life artists rap about violence and ghanaian cities suffer amazingly low levels of violent crime, even compared to London

jess, if i was was being snotty at all (which i wasn't, it was very tongue-in-cheek) it was about the weekly and the voice's general editorial line (which i stand by not agreeing with 95 per cent of the time - the voice for one has published some of the most consistently fatuous writing on dancehall that i have ever seen - often by people who really should know better - Elena Oumano' recent piece a total exception to the rule, it was great). for example it's normally matos or chuck saying to me, directly or indirectly, that authenticity aint shit and that "knowing what you're on about" often precludes good writing/analysis/crit (which it certainly can - we've all read "insider" reviews that are either utter tosh or totally impenetrable self-congratulatory crap before - but it doesn't mean it's better to write ill-informed gibberish), yet on that thread i was sounding almost like them! you are normally an example that i hold up to the contrary. don't see jibes being aimed at you when they're not. i like you and like what you do - and thus it was cast in stone (hopefully).

fake-real

so if grime doesn't actually reflect its surroundings, if the gun talk and the ultraintense competition to make it (all those rhymes saying other people's rhymes are wack, they're nobody, going nowhere, crap clothes, i'm fucking your girlfriend etc etc) -- maiming egos), if all that aggro and bluster and "desperation" is in fact based in nothing, if as logan seems to be suggesting these grimesters actually have quite nice lives with all the designer goodies they could crave then....

that would suggest grime is a giant fraud, utterly fake-ass, gangsta-poseur bizniz ...

surely?

i mean, why are you even into it then?

at least the cliched "voice of the streets" take has some kind of logical consistency in re. why it's good/important/exciting

sure there's an element of media/cultural feedback, they are responding to hip hop's fantasies of gangstaizm, there's a kind of amplification cycle where those postures, threats etc have to be exaggerated and amped up for purely aesthetic reasons (make the rhyme scenarios more grisly than the guy before you)

but still, if you are saying that the grime/crime nexus is actually founded on almost nothing....

the unspoken thing here is: what is life in [east] london actually like? how grimy? and there's a bit of polarizing going on: it doesn't have to be nwa's version of south central to be grim; but at the same time nice gear is not the same thing as an easy life. east london doesn't have to be a warzone, but to go in the complete opposite direction, to say that people choose petty crime over further education... i'm no expert, but i don't think that rings true.

a schoolkid stabbed another school kid and left him to bleed to death about 5 mins away from my front door not so long ago, there was a shooting about 10 mins' walk away last week, a mate of mine was viciously mugged for his phone a few days ago etc. i have chosen to live in easy london and i love it - it's my home, and fair enough, it aint downtown kingston or south central, but life there is not easy for many people and can even be pretty grim at times for gentrifying media wankers like me, too. living there and seeing this stuff happen makes the music make a lot of sense to me, but i'm between two stools here. i can see logan's view of wanting to get away from this projected image and embrace the more positive, but i can also see the negative tracks as documents of the time.

blissblogger said:

so if grime doesn't actually reflect its surroundings, if the gun talk and the ultraintense competition to make it (all those rhymes saying other people's rhymes are wack, they're nobody, going nowhere, crap clothes, i'm fucking your girlfriend etc etc) -- maiming egos), if all that aggro and bluster and "desperation" is in fact based in nothing, if as logan seems to be suggesting these grimesters actually have quite nice lives with all the designer goodies they could crave then....

that would suggest grime is a giant fraud, utterly fake-ass, gangsta-poseur bizniz ...

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...which would be completely at odds with all the "I'm real/you're not" lyrical content. "don't buss gun/if you aint got one" etc.

I agree with the media feedback idea but to me some kind of twist is added in that process to make grime. So Solid appropriated US gangsta rap's imagery wholesale. but when current grime artists talk about their lifestyle it's much more beliveable because of the unique UK twists - London references, UK accents and dialects, their own cultural pre-occupations not exclusively those of the US.

I suppose the fake/real argument is answered when you consider that the scene’s epicentre is Bow (hardly South Central LA). But I think the idea that the music is a product of its environment is a little too simplistic. Bow like a lot of inner London is a concoction of people from different backgrounds, with Victorian houses worth half a million upwards next to shabby Council blocks. The experience of Bow is different to different people (I’m sure Spike Jonzee was expecting a desolate British ‘hood’ when he took the pics of Bow for Dizzee’s album). The break up of social housing – moving from Council ownership to housing associations - who are able to sell a percentage on the open market and also develop ‘part ownership’ and ‘key worker’ schemes – has really accelerated gentrification in inner London. Near where I live in Bow, you’ll find an organic gastro pub, a new coffee bar, a ‘cutting edge’ art gallery and an expensive membership gym*. It’s all very different from the Bow portrayed by Riko, Wiley, Slicks, Gift – but this is pretty much the same in all four corners of London…communities losing their pubs, shops and other places to the high spending genetrifyers (-even in the much more lowly New Cross, where I work). So a lot of the faux gangster talk is really about a reclamation of identity for the endz – something that isn’t particular to one area but across London. And yes, alot of the stuff about the crime, the guns and the ‘no pot to piss in’ is talked up and over-the-top, maybe it’s a reaction to all the over-the-top talk from estate agents/property developers about the area ‘being on the up’.

*which I don't frequent ('cept occasionally the bar)

p.s. the only review i saw of logan's mix cd was in the fader, possibly the trendiest american rag extant at the moment.

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Maybe b/c other publications didn't get a hold of it. Fader got wind of it after my friend had sent the editor a copy, who in turn had gotten a hold of it from me.

I won't argue that these mags aren't simply trying to stay on top of trends but its alot better than getting shit press in trance and prog focused mixmag esque publications. Fader is at least trying to intro. the music to a market who would be more likely to embrace the music.

Blackdown said:

logan: you complain you don't like the left/liberal/guardian journalist template for grime which implies that grime people who chose crime are victims of their own cirumstances.

god help the scene if the agressive right wing press (of which we have FAR more of in the UK) get hold of grime.

their template is that all criminals should be hounded and then punished. ask So Solid Crew: all they did wrong was have a gig in the west end. it took the scene two years to recover.

be careful what you wish for...

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If you think that is ALL So Solid have done, then you are very naieve. Do you think that the three members of their crew who are currently either convicted or on remand for VERY serious violent crimes have done nothing to warrant it?

The discussion regarding the lifestyle of young kids in major cities of the UK is not a discussion for a music forum, so please don't go into my remarks too deeply, as they have been condensed greatly. Luka being from Stratford understands my points, and also understands I have simplified things greatlly. Yes life is difficult, if you are young and choose to move in certain circles or dress a certain way. It can also be dangerous if you are unlucky enough to come across the wrong person on the wrong day.

Wiley recently returned from trips to Harlem and Atlanta and after going to their "downtown" areas, he told me it was like another world compared to what he has seen living in Peckham and Bow.

Logan Sama said:

If you think that is ALL So Solid have done, then you are very naieve. Do you think that the three members of their crew who are currently either convicted or on remand for VERY serious violent crimes have done nothing to warrant it?

Wiley recently returned from trips to Harlem and Atlanta and after going to their "downtown" areas, he told me it was like another world compared to what he has seen living in Peckham and Bow.

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i'm not "naieve" i was talking about one specific event and the impact it had on the music industry: the shooting *outside* Romeo's birthday bash at Astoria in about 2001 (?) that triggered the current de-facto garage ban in Westminster and the right wing/tabloid backlash that killed 2step as a commercial entity until Dizzee's LP.

re "downtown areas," wiley also said the same to me in interview when he'd just came back from harlem a few years back. personally i found it very hard to get used to the word "ghetto" being used when i first heard it, as london bares no resemblance to true ghettos or shanti-towns of the world.

That was the first publicised event. there had been many more previously. And there was a reason people kept going to So Solid related events with guns looking for certain people.

Logan Sama said:

That was the first publicised event. there had been many more previously. And there was a reason people kept going to So Solid related events with guns looking for certain people.

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if you think i'm trying to defend So Solid then you misunderstand me. my point was that once So Solid had drawn rightwing/tabloid attention to their "road" way of living, it was a fight they could never win and their careers were in ruins. none of us want that to happen to grime.

Most people in grime don't roll with the sort of people So Solid associated themself with, and they were not in as powerful enough of a position in the music industry for those events and relations to be ignored, as it is in America with Hip Hop.

blissblogger said:

so if grime doesn't actually reflect its surroundings, if the gun talk and the ultraintense competition to make it (all those rhymes saying other people's rhymes are wack, they're nobody, going nowhere, crap clothes, i'm fucking your girlfriend etc etc) -- maiming egos), if all that aggro and bluster and "desperation" is in fact based in nothing, if as logan seems to be suggesting these grimesters actually have quite nice lives with all the designer goodies they could crave then....

that would suggest grime is a giant fraud, utterly fake-ass, gangsta-poseur bizniz ...

surely?

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It's a bit of both, surely. Reflection of surroundings as well as reflection of the influence of hip-hop/dancehall lyrics leading to exaggeration (especially in lyrics talking about 'ghettos' and AK47's and the like).

You've lived in both New York and London. Is there anywhere in London that looks as fucked-up and run down (and is as monochromatically black in population) as, say, Brownsville in Brooklyn? I went to a lot of the worst parts of London in my squat raving days and nowhere looks as bad as the worst parts of New York, let alone the worst bits of some of America's poorest cities. Then again, no part of London just exudes opulence like the Upper East Side.

I think you've missed Logan's point as it were, not necessarily that life is super nice on East London estates, but that a certain amount of exaggeration is employed in some of the lyrics. There aren't true black ghettos in London, at least not in the American sense, and there aren't even really enormous zones of deprivation, like you'll find in places like Glasgow, because London is quite mixed both racially and economically (as in Bow itself, like Bun-U says).

Wow - pure intensity from BB and Logan.

To bring up an almost cliched and somewhat tired argument though - surely US hip-hop has its own internal break between a structure as big industry versus an outward projection of ghetto authenticity? For instance, Jay-Z's hardly living street; but that doesn't make his music less vital for certain aspirational social groups - I mean, on the contrary, he's a made man. Can't grime operate in a similar way?

I think it's an important counterpoint to the tension developed out of these claims for legitimacy. As an aesthetic (not literal) representation of East London, grime's abstraction is surely the point. It allows the movement to resonate in a much wider sense - web forums such as this one would not be filled with so many 'outsiders' otherwise, and it wouldn't really exist as any kind of force to be reckoned with.

Logan - while it may or may not be appropriated or uploaded into the mainstream to your liking, I don't think that it's fair to undermine the currency of your own scene in retaliation. Particularly, since grime articulates a cultural mindset that's becoming increasingly commonplace around the 'overdeveloped' world - a feeling of being under surveillance, exploited, alienated, etc. I'm sure I'm just repeating sentiments already stated more clearly by Simon further upthread.

But about that 'structured lives & going to school' business; just reminded me of a recent McKensie Wark quote about similar stuff - what he calls infoproles. Sure, Dizzee and Wiley could have gone to school and become accountants or whatever, but they didn't. It's not as if they've been forced to 'live the street-life', they've made a choice, what turns out to be a deeply political one:

"The information proletariat - infoproles - stand outside this demand for education as unpaid slavery that anticipates the wage slave's life. They embody a residual, antagonistic class awareness, and resist the slavery of education. They know too well that capital has little use for them other than as the lowest paid wage slaves. They know only too well that scholars and the media treat them like objects for their idle curiosity. The infoproles resent education and live by the knowledge of the street. They are soon known by the police."


(and now I seem like a complete liberal middleclass wanker for quoting that).

There aren't true black ghettos in London, at least not in the American sense, and there aren't even really enormous zones of deprivation, like you'll find in places like Glasgow, because London is quite mixed both racially and economically (as in Bow itself, like Bun-U says).

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One of the positive cultural aspects of the music. US Hip-Hop could take a note or two from grime heads when it comes to accepting racial diversity in music.

Keith P said:

One of the positive cultural aspects of the music. US Hip-Hop could take a note or two from grime heads when it comes to accepting racial diversity in music.

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Yeah, definitely.