i was chattin to a mate about working with a lot of rappers (he runs a production outfit, does a lot of tracks and vids etc) last week and he mentioned how of a logistical nightmare it is to get young mcs to do any real work, a lot of them cant get past the fact that you have to work your arse off for fame/cash. because its a hobby they get pissy as soon as it starts getting hard work and indie bands tend to recognise that you have to work gutter venues every night to build a rep. how many grime crews will play 5 gigs a week chasin a deal? and the crew mentality makes a mess of things too as theres always hangers on and fuckin about. the successful grime heads are the ones with a serious work ethic.
these are all really good points, but not entirely comfortable to discuss and something we need to be careful with.
from my own personal, practical perspective, as a writer who spends a lot of time covering the work of and talking to jamaican artists, a group with a terrible rep for reliability, most grime artists are far and away worse to deal with.
that's the reality of it and there's no real getting away from the fact, no matter how much i'd like to. what problematises discussions of this kind, though, is that you get into issues of representation when you start making blanket statements about the reliability, work ethics, understanding of business and suchlike of certain groups of people.
yes, these perceptions are partly deserved in a number of cases but when applied in a non-specific way they become dangerously close to the kind of racist/class-prejudiced stereotypes that i'm not at all easy with.
now, i'm not accusing anyone of anything here, but these things really have to be judged on a case by case basis and sweeping condemnations not hurled around on the internet too much, otherwise they become accepted as truth.
plenty of grime MCs, dancehall deejays and rappers are highly motivated, intelligent individuals who want success and who are prepared to work for it, many are also people who just love music and are going to continue making it, regardless of whether that success comes. some
are lazy bastards, but i'd place bets that a fair proportion of us have days where we can't be arsed, too, so i'd be careful before applying that to a whole subculture.
the major issue here is not of grime artists being unwilling to do the work, it's of the scene being chaotic and disorganised, with what are in my experience some of the worst managers in the world involved. this is where established organisations (the arts council etc), labels, booking agents, management companies etc need to step their game up. the talent is there, but it needs nurturing and pushing in the right direction and it needs to learn how to survive outside of its own neigbourhood if it wants success. you're unlikely to get the right doors opened, the right advice as to what to do if they are, how to handle your finances etc if your manager is your best mate from school with no understanding of the industry.
sure, it's a gamble to invest time and money in a scene that has only produced one real album of note in 5 years or so, but it's one worth taking as far as i'm concerned, especially if you can do it with bands hadouken, who are also pretty unproven.
the problem is that hip young white guitar bands are *seen* as being willing to work, where young black and/or working-class MCs/producers from the inner cities working within a certain idiom are *seen* as not.
these misconceptions need to be broken down and proven wrong, and that can happen, but the only way it will is for grime and the wider industry pull together and learn from each other.
