rise above
i would have thought (and this goes back to jungle if not earlier) that the crucial determinant is class not race
uk urban areas have long had a mixed race/multi-race underclass where race is really irrelevant -- look at someone like dj hype and his life story -- the kids dress the same, talk the same, carry themselves the same, are into the same music -- (there are probably very subtle differences of status and racial coding going on though -- for instance it seems like there's a lot more black mcs than white ones, and that it's easier to be a white grime dj -- perhaps because being an MC is a more discursive/symbolic function and therefore in a black-coded genre it is more authoritative to have black representatives on the mic', they are more visible than the djs, yagetme)
but yeah, class -- the whole imaginary of grime is organized around ideas of people who are outside trying to get in, down but trying to rise up, etc etc
it's a huge part of grime's selfconception, hence the language of "gutter" (even briefly "sewer'!), gully, etc etc -- the word "grimy" itself as a badge of identity (especially when you see it as a polar switch from 2step with its more aspirational imagery of being criss)
if you present yourself as "gutter" and take that as your identity, you are saying we are society's waste
there are elements of fantasy/exaggeration/media feedback etc, but....
it's obvious that when Bruza descibes some fantastical revenge or defeat for an enemy he is not describing something he's done, or is even likely to do BUT
i would argue that even fantasies are SOCIAL FACTS, the fantasies you are drawn to are deeply revealing and saying something about where you are
so i respond to the bad boy/ghettocentric stuff in grime (as in jungle before, in US hip hop) as having both a fantasy/pure aesthetic element (rhyming about maiming, humliating etc is what we do, ergo i will write rhymes that are more cruel/grisly than the previous guy) and actually giving you some real-world information
are why are all these people drawn to such an intensely competitive, hierarchical, status oriented, alpha male, dog eat dog, war of the sexes, etc etc music culture?
what are they venting through this music?
re. indians, pakistanis etc, don't know about Grime, but there was a strong contingent of South Asian luv for 2step, i remember going to Cookies & Cream and there was a huge posse of incredibly stylish and beautiful indian babes and their boyfriends who were all incredibly dapper. i asked an indian friend of mine about it and he said that blinging it was an age old part of indian culture and that might have something to do with.
ukg/2step seemed very polycultural london, weren't their a whole load of cypriots involved (hence the aiya napa connection),
also the west indies conneciton does not just equal jamaica, there all the other islands in the Caribbean that people are from, they all have different influences and inputs musically. people from africa too.
more than being a postcolonial music it is more precisely a post-Commonwealth music (interesting too that there's such luv for grime -- and it goes back through 2step through jungle to hardcore -- in Canada, the Toronto scene is way anglophile)
