Before you post yet another, ask yourself

[Blackdown]

I think the grime malaise is part of a wider teen fantasy structure that you can get something-for-very-little ... not that dissimilar to reality TV really... they see Jay-z and think 'well, I can spit rhythms, I will get that big'... everything that was necessary for that success, not only all the tedious labour and promotional grind, but the 'success infrastructure' of hip hop itself, is occulted... you just have to watch those grime DVDs, with their massive gleaming, whooshing title sequences that deliberately ape the most gargantuan blockbusters to hook into the fantasy... (course the contrast with the reality - a few blokes in a shed with a mic shot on a shaky video camera - tells you all you need to know about the distance of that fantasy from where grime actually is).

grime has this inconsistency where one moment they're 'real' and 'road' and wearing their poverty and desperation like a badge of honour. and then the next moment they're 'making ps' and 'set to blow' and acting like they're Jay-Z. grime's full of contradictions, you just have to get used to that, but this one is still a bit odd.

 

[Diggedy Derek]

this is why when Roll Deep went on Westwood for the first time this year, i thought it was so interesting that wiley talked about 'your own situation' ie setting up your own label business. the roll deep lp was licenced to Relentless not signed.

Wiley seemed quite rude to Westwood on that show, but in retrospect his cautiousness is kinda astute. I paraphrase in Westwood speak-

Westwood- "so yeah my brother, your hot album is signed to Relentless now, damn that's a good look"

Wiley- [sounding much more English than Westwood] "well, it's an alright look, I guess..."

Still, the Roll Deep and Kano albums seem to have sold reasonably well, according to Blackdown?

 

[hint]

To come back to the original post, how about introducing something similar to the Crap / Not Crap forum over at Electrical Audio?

It channels the pointless / amusing / throwaway discussion into one place and cuts to the chase.

 

[Logan Sama]

grime has this inconsistency where one moment they're 'real' and 'road' and wearing their poverty and desperation like a badge of honour. and then the next moment they're 'making ps' and 'set to blow' and acting like they're Jay-Z. grime's full of contradictions, you just have to get used to that, but this one is still a bit odd.

What some might label inconsistency, others may well go as far as calling it hypocrisy.

 

[Tactics]

soooooooo

this is a garage/grime post now?

 

[gabriel]

looks like it, and fucking good job too, most of the interesting stuff on here comes in the last couple of pages when people start talking about MUSIC. i vote for no more meta-threads on dissensus, at least in the music section. LMAO @ the 'dissensus will eat itself' comment. too true.

 

[Culla]

hip-hop: the decadent years

soz, long post, on hip-hop, not grime....

KPunk is mostly right on hip-hop. “Rap” as an industry is so big that even a huge underground of barely competent rhymers and under-achieving producers can be supported. It’s been a long time since hip-hop has been interesting sonically, let alone, politically. Nowadays I will admit that I buy new hip-hop/r&b because it is a universal, good-time music – people at non-specialist parties/clubs/bars respond to it more than any other genre, including house. But I can’t see what good is coming from most of the visual/lyrical signifiers of the genre.
I’m barely a few chapters in but Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop is surely going to restore some faith in hip-hop, and the potential of hip-hop. It starts brilliantly, detailing how the systematic breakdown of the Bronx area – cut through with an expressway, deprived of social services, development of the ‘projects’ as landlords arsoned their buildings, etc – was the main reason why black and brown consciousness was emasculated by gang wars and territory beefs. Kool Herc and co briefly broke the violent mould, but it was a brief moment – hip-hop and thug life became one.
IMHO, capitalism is intrinsically part of hip-hop’s depoliticisation and hip-hop is intrinsically part of black culture’s depoliticisation. Chang shows that, after Herc and Flash, the cultural shifts were much more important than any politics to African Americans. This is only what was happening in any other “community”. In its ever-present need to expand – constantly enfranchises previously marginalised areas, but only ever on its own terms. No-one has asked why, since gay culture has become a massive industry in its own right, why no “gay” music of any interest has been produced, why it has become a parody in the public eye. Or after the Roses and the Mondays, why we had legions of indie-dance facsimiles who, despite what they said, weren’t bothered about integrity or being bandwagon-jumpers. For most black “hip-hop” artists, as is the case with most white “pop” artists, there is never any thought of questioning where they are, what they’re selling, why they’re doing it – they’re trying to make an attractive package that sells ££$$££$$. Indeed, many of the most famous hip-hoppers have been middle-class guys exploiting a black, working-class sound – Dre, Run DMC, LL, etc.

None of this is to say that great art can’t be created within the system-supporting format – Paid In Full is genius.

 

[k-punk]

i vote for no more meta-threads on dissensus.

Yeh, I think you shd start a thread to that effect ... it would be a meta-meta thread....

 

[k-punk]

grime has this inconsistency where one moment they're 'real' and 'road' and wearing their poverty and desperation like a badge of honour. and then the next moment they're 'making ps' and 'set to blow' and acting like they're Jay-Z. grime's full of contradictions, you just have to get used to that, but this one is still a bit odd.

Think you've missed the point of what I was trying to say. I have no problem with grime folk wanting to be as big as possible; will-to-underachievement is nothing to be proud of. No: my point was that there is a massive discrepancy between where they are now and where they want to be, with little awareness of what is involved in getting from one to the other. Surely it is the scene itself that imposes these value judgments, and the contradictions are part of why it has limited commercial success. The way things are set up, the demand to be 'street' is directly opposed to the demand to be successful - no-one can meet them both.

 

[Diggedy Derek]

I dunno- hasn't this tension between success and faliure been central to hip hop and reggae for a couple of generations at least? Although I take your point that in grime the contradiction is more pronounced.

 

[Blackdown]

Think you've missed the point of what I was trying to say. I have no problem with grime folk wanting to be as big as possible; will-to-underachievement is nothing to be proud of. No: my point was that there is a massive discrepancy between where they are now and where they want to be, with little awareness of what is involved in getting from one to the other. Surely it is the scene itself that imposes these value judgments, and the contradictions are part of why it has limited commercial success. The way things are set up, the demand to be 'street' is directly opposed to the demand to be successful - no-one can meet them both.

i agree but i didn't miss your point bro, i've been watching these incompatible demands for years...

 

[bun-u]

Doesn’t this mirror the exact same tension in all of capitalism – the rhetoric of ‘with just a little graft and talent, you can make it’….not being matched by the reality …. ‘you probably won’t’

 

[k-punk]

i agree but i didn't miss your point bro, i've been watching these incompatible demands for years...

fair enough! I thought ppl were suggesting that I was attacking grimestas for 'wanting to be like Jay-Z'... I have no problem with that ambition at all...

 

[blissblogger]

Doesn’t this mirror the exact same tension in all of capitalism – the rhetoric of ‘with just a little graft and talent, you can make it’….not being matched by the reality …. ‘you probably won’t’

that's always been one of my main fascinations with hip hop, right from 86 actually -- the delusions of grandeur vs. the constant spectre of anonymity and failure -- it's like false consciousness versus apprehending the structure that ensures nearly everybody will be anonymous/failed.... and the contradiction is distilled into the maxim "don't hate the player, hate the game" which is one inch, one millimeter, from being a revolutionary insight.... but never makes the leap to grasping that it's all the players-wannabe who think they can play the game and win, who by their competition and striving ensure that the game endures.... that's America, in a nutshell

grime is poised on the knife-edge of that contradiction (its part of the Americanisation of Britain, the anyone can make it bullshit) but i wonder how long it will be able to teeter there, how long is will sustain its ebullience, before it realises the game is tilted so far against it

and in additon to being colonised by American ideology, partly grime's enemy is American hip hop -- most British people would rather have American gangsta fantasies rather than something closer to to home... too edgy, too real

 

[hint]

Who's telling the Grime MCs that they're going to "make it", though?

Who's telling them that they're making this incredible, exciting, different music that stands on its own and deserves special attention?

I see the "delusions" coming from 2 directions:

Firstly - the battle culture that is a traditonal part of modern MCing. You brag and boast and convince people that you're the best, because at grassroots level that's what counts. It's the "best" people who get gigs, spots on radio and invites onto mixtapes.

Secondly - sooner or later, artists expect any hype to pay off. The column inches add up and hopes are raised. If you have experienced writers telling you how great you are, surely you can be forgiven for assuming that it will lead to success in the music business?

 

[Blackdown]

grime is poised on the knife-edge of that contradiction (its part of the Americanisation of Britain, the anyone can make it bullshit) but i wonder how long it will be able to teeter there, how long is will sustain its ebullience, before it realises the game is tilted so far against itl

i think this is a simplification though because it only sees half of grime MC's objectives. sure, one aim is to be rich, but the other is to attain status amongst their peers. grime may be teetering on the first of those objectives, but on the second it's wildly successful. MCs are total street heroes in their local enviroment.

and in additon to being colonised by American ideology, partly grime's enemy is American hip hop -- most British people would rather have American gangsta fantasies rather than something closer to to home... too edgy, too real

this is definitely something that holds grime back. its uncanny how an invisible industry army of prs, pluggers, radio programmers, major label employees, tv execs, newspaper editors, magazine journos etc quietly stop 99% of all UK street music that shows angry black faces to the nation (with "Pow/Forward" surely the exception). "oh but it doesn't sell" comes the cry, "has anyone ever heard of it?" they say. not in your world they haven't and it's definitely chicken and egg.

 

[Blackdown]

Who's telling the Grime MCs that they're going to "make it", though?

...

Secondly - sooner or later, artists expect any hype to pay off. The column inches add up and hopes are raised. If you have experienced writers telling you how great you are, surely you can be forgiven for assuming that it will lead to success in the music business?

do any MCs actually read magazines bar RWD?

 

[hint]

do any MCs actually read magazines bar RWD?

Dunno... do you think they just live in a bubble, like X Factor contestants or something?

"My mates say I'm wicked - where's my Hummer?"

Didn't someone loop up the Deftones? I certainly wouldn't confidently assume that Grime artists only read Grime-specific journalism, whether it be in print or online.

 

[blissblogger]

Blackdown sez:

i think this is a simplification though because it only sees half of grime MC's objectives. sure, one aim is to be rich, but the other is to attain status amongst their peers. grime may be teetering on the first of those objectives, but on the second it's wildly successful. MCs are total street heroes in their local enviroment.


i don't think that would ever be enough for grime, though, not for the invidual egos or the collective ones... they could never be content with be godstars on Stratford High Street

(the idea that its journalists who Puff-ed up that ego is daft.... the ambition and delusions of grandeur and high hopes existed long before the press showed up... again, the Puff sample on Roll deep's 'terrible', that's from 99 -- no, what caused it was watching American rap, especially the Bad Boy stuff.... also, don't forget, there's high bench mark set by 2step with its massive crossover, AND there's So Solid Crew who got to number one... so it's not so much that the high expectations are unrealistic as that something's changed, there's been a shift, the odds have gotten titled against grime in some way… so it’s not so much that the expectations are unrealistic but that reality has changed in just a few years)

as a fan-onlooker i have a sense of injustice, that this amazing music should have gotten way bigger way quicker. but then i wonder A/ where does that "should" come from? and B/ if i feel that unfairness, what do the actual members of the scene feel?

i think one thing that's shifted is that while your media types like the whole "voice of the streets" angle, your punter-people sorts don't buy it, literally.... partly they don't have room in their lives for something so harsh and hard and real, but mainly it's they don't really care, deep down really don't want to know about the voices of the British streets .... 20 years ago that angle of championing (“these are the often ugly but compelling voices of the streets and it behoves you to listen to them”), might have paid off more, but now people don't respond to it... indeed some resent what they perceive as social worker-ist guilt-tripping... it's all part of the postsocialist privatisation of social life thing... there's a large amount of shit not being given!


(on a tangent connecting to other threads in other forums, i really fear that bush's indifference and callousness towards news orleans actually reflects the attitudes of his core supporters towards the underclass ... on some TV audience call ins and email ins here you actually are hearing from these people now, and they say stuff like "all this blaming the government is wrong, people should help themselves, it's their own fault if they didn't take steps to get out"... again its that "i refuse to feel guilty, feel empathy, whatever, with these people who are not like me" )

sorry bleed through from other topic, back to grime and meta-grime and meta-meta-grime!

personally even without the social angle, i think grime ought to have won over purely on its excitement and novelty and the charisma of the mcs and musical inventiveness .... but it hasn't, yet, and well, i'm mystified


viz Black down comment:
but the other is to attain status amongst their peers

thing is, you could say the same about improv or the noise scene... or probably any small music scene really, sadsack indie rockers too ... at the moment grime is teetering on the edge, it could go either way: either become a proper equiv to Hip hop (with regular presence in the charts and accepted status as Voice of the Streets) or it could dwindle into an unpopular vanguard, with audience that largely consists of other practioners and some fanzine writers (us bloggaz!)

it might not be a disaster, aesthetically, if the second option occurred... but it would not live up to the promise of the genre, in my opinion

 

[Blackdown]

personally even without the social angle, i think grime ought to have won over purely on its excitement and novelty and the charisma of the mcs and musical inventiveness .... but it hasn't, yet, and well, i'm mystified

i blame the industry a lot for this. look at CD:UK etc, tedious TV stations like The Box, VH1, MTV. look how PR lead newspapers are, how blinkered rock-dominated magazines are ("no we can't cover XYZ grime artists, we've already done a grime feature <i>this year,</i>" said OMM to me once). it's like an artist doesnt exist until a PR says they do. the whole industry is so safe, so managed, so corporate. they can not deal with genuine, angry, exciting, unpredictable genius/maverics like wiley n co.

i'm sure the industry would argue back that no one buys grime because it's too angry, but that never stopped metal or punk. it's a nasty cycle: labels say grime doesnt sell because it's angry, labels & PRs dont push it, grime doesn't sell ... the artists get angrier.