Pasty.
Caveat - I’m fucking knackered so forgive the fog. The only contention I have with the original tune is there’s never going to be a day where I’d want to listen to it again, authentic cultural creation, novelty flash or otherwise. There’s kids having fun and then there’s a momentary attention grabbing artefact of something that will ultimately be forgotten within a year or so. Without social media, BBC3, abortions like Vice and a platform like YouTube, how many here would even have heard of them? It’s McDonalds-esque which isn’t snobbery and it’d be crass to think otherwise. As performance it works. As music it doesn’t.
To further the bad boy chiller critique, Nottingham produced some killer hip-hop acts over the years that usually get overlooked, but even this hub deteriorated with time. NG83 were a quality crew of kids who nailed their repertoire of music and dance, probably best viewed through this documentary
NG83 When We Were B Boys (2016) - Plot summary, synopsis, and more...
www.imdb.com
There were waves of artists. The 90’s produced Out Da Ville and The P Brothers who were among some of the more fully realised talents who came later
Explore the discography of Out Da Ville. Shop for vinyl, CDs, and more from Out Da Ville on Discogs.
www.discogs.com
Explore the discography of P Brothers. Shop for vinyl, CDs, and more from P Brothers on Discogs.
www.discogs.com
Heavy Bronx label
UK hip-hop label run by The P Brothers.
www.discogs.com
Big Daddy magazine caught the apex of the wave, short lived but diverse and focused in scope
Big Daddy Magazine is a U.K. Hip Hop Graffiti magazine.
rapzines.com
Big Daddy was a bi-monthly UK based hip hop, soul, funk, breakbeat and graffiti magazine. After a print run of twelve issues Big Daddy Magazine ceased publication and changed its name to Grand Slam Magazine which ended again after a shorter run of four issues. Some issues included a cover CD...
www.discogs.com
Within a few years though, an extreme escalation in gun crime accelerated the city prolapsing. Then, somewhere in the middle of that, Pitman appeared and in the last decade Sleaford Mods are possibly the last and best known act from these lineages (and i doubt too many here see them as ‘culturally relevant’). Imho with the latter, this has nothing to do with race and everything to do with white working class men getting a bit too serious with their art. The age of these protagonists plays into the viewers/listeners reaction to their cultural mix too.
What I’m trying to tease out is that, musically, there’ve been recurring talent pools in this country, but most of the good shit gets overlooked which compounds the search, leaving us clawing at and clutching for authenticity. The shock and novelty of the new. I see a large component of this through the lens of English notions around class anxiety. And whatever paste is, Covid will riff all over that for better or worse. Even then it isn’t
all so grey, even if the weather is. Hardcore is proof that a melting pot can (and does) unfold/coalesce now and again, where class means (and meant) nothing and where the quality of music IS everything.
There’s Lego everywhere, I’m fuckin pasted.