Grime and the media

C

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Im glad the point was raised that some UK black (by black artists) music is repressed. Grime bad, American rap good, even tho they both often deal with the same subject matter. Why is that ?

Ive never been to a grime night, they are far and few between up here. But out of curiosity what would the demographic of a grime fan ?
 
M

mms

sometimes
Blackdown said:
This is a classic career-music-journalist mistake: "i have not been sent press releases about this artist therefore they are in commercial oblivion".

I've heard the same said about Roni Size. "I mean once he won the Mercury Prize, well, that was it." Yeah except for the hundreds of thousands of record sales and DJing to equally as many worldwide, weekly.
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this guy is obsessed with whether something is essentially commercial and not much more, and judges it quite often by some kind of peer group testing, where are the accolades? where's the pr campaign? all things that are nothing but the apparatus of the music industry.
 
slackk

slackk

-
mos dan said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/08/race
Boys in the corner
The media ghettoises black British artists and leaves them on the sidelines – while their multi-racial fans are colourblind

this is my riposte to that decent - but flawed - piece in guardian film&music last week.
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It's a good article, and I think as Sweet Pea/MedellinMandem (i love internet pseudonyms) said on gf, what Wiley, Dizzee & Skepta are doing are only perpetuating the problem by releasing these watered down pop records into the system. It's all any label will want from them now, get me?
 
mos dan

mos dan

fact music
slackk said:
what Wiley, Dizzee & Skepta are doing are only perpetuating the problem by releasing these watered down pop records into the system. It's all any label will want from them now, get me?
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yeah absolutely. i'll copy and paste what i put on grimeforum too:
what upsets me is it's like

wiley makes ice rink, the world hears pies
wiley makes crash bandicoot, the world hears my mistakes
wiley makes if you're going out i'm going out too, the world hears wearing my rolex
wiley makes where's my brother, the world hears summertime

i mean is the underlying assumption that the world just has BAD taste, that they can't handle the sick tunes he makes? 'they're not ready yet'?
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slackk

slackk

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I don't know, I was vaguely having the same argument with our Alex on Sunday (drunk but still). As much as I don't mind "Wearing My Rolex" or even "Summertime" really, what this is effectively like is watching parts of the Punk scene play Duran Duran 5 years on.

To compare the darkest radio sets or even the likes of Snowman (which I've always preferred to Igloo, Eskimo & Ice Rink) to what's being put out now, it's like another world completely. It's depressing as fuck as well, having watched- albeit from a distance- the scene for fucking years. This isn't what grime is, it isn't even close.
 
fokse vektaire xeven

fokse vektaire xeven

Arab Nazi
Bang Diddley said:
Im glad the point was raised that some UK black (by black artists) music is repressed. Grime bad, American rap good, even tho they both often deal with the same subject matter. Why is that ?
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it's easier for that subject matter to be a supposed fantasy if it's an import. a fair amount of the lyrical content of grime is going to be a hard sell in the UK media at the moment.

also we love doing people down in England, so as soon as anyone has a taste of any kind of success they have that to deal with, in the media and the real world. remember the whole circus around So Solid Crew.

i've never seen discussion of a genre of music revolve so much around both its expectations of commercial crossover, and the authenticity of its participants' street credentials. a tricky balance to strike.
 
slackk

slackk

-
fokse vektaire xeven said:
i've never seen discussion of a genre of music revolve so much around both its expectations of commercial crossover, and the authenticity of its participants' street credentials. a tricky balance to strike.
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Which is probably why the disappearing names are mythologised to such an extent, subconsciously. Speak to anyone who's been "around it" for quite a while and their favourites tend to be the Escos, Castros, Big Hs; the ones who are back on road or whatever.
The less commercial the bigger the appeal. Rings true for me, no doubt.
 
C

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Does it will need to be watered down, no swearing, no voilence and talk about love before
any success ? I hope not. But it bugs me that a rap act can get away with the very things same themes as grime and get airplay. Imported imagary or otherwise.

But when people are spitting bars like the below it shows the attitude and the reality can be kept and maybe something along these lines will be a breakthrough. Even the likes of Cameron would probably wear a BBK T shirt (which im sure would be a emabarressment for any grime artist). Swings and roundabouts I guess.

'Its like these guys play too much X box
Shooting guys in the head top
You might think I sound like a fed boss
But Im sick of the Gun talk, get lost
Im not telling how to live life tho
Just put down the gun and the knife bro
Taking a next mans life aint bless ??
And 25 year in a cell aint live O ??
I know lifes not easy
So why you making it harder
Once you die there aint no after
Lifes not an ITV drama
You might think I sound like a preacher
Shorties more like a teacher
So rude boy put down the gun
and think with brain and not with your heater'

Shorty
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
good riposte. esp when you even read guys like dizzee falling in line with accepted wisdom that theres not enough of a black population in the uk to support what he does, when its never only been black consumers that send snoop, 50 cent or dr dre to the top of the charts.
 
rockypoppy2

rockypoppy2

wtf?
slackk said:
Which is probably why the disappearing names are mythologised to such an extent, subconsciously. Speak to anyone who's been "around it" for quite a while and their favourites tend to be the Escos, Castros, Big Hs; the ones who are back on road or whatever.
The less commercial the bigger the appeal. Rings true for me, no doubt.
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the realest guys, amazing how authenticity can emanate across the radio. i would also argue that the disappearing sounds are mythologised in this same way - who doesnt listen back to eskimo, ground zero, morgue et al and not think that it all just sounded so gully? even now, though certain sounds and structures have been recycled over and over these tunes still draw the gunfingers.

maybe its just a case of the classics
 
slackk

slackk

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It's true- the 'realness' of the artist is one of the few things that can be quantified by feel alone. Listen to chipmunk and castro side by side (stick with the Cs); it's something you just can't communicate.

God I love grime. Is this how New Yorkers felt in 82?
 
L

Logan

Grime Guru
None of these names who most of you just come youts who weren't really listening regularly back in 2003 idolise weren't even big back then.

Esco used to go radio about as regularly as he does now.
Big H wasn't in anyone's top 10 MCs outside of North and JME had more hype around him after he vocalled Straight than anyone else in the crew.

It's just an amusing sense of elitism for people who want to feel like they have superiority over the post-Pow grime fan. It's something I have only really ever noticed on the internet to be honest. Normal human beings don't really subscribe to those MCs being anything more than decent.
 
slackk

slackk

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Nice to know I'm not normal anyway. And don't start chatting that yout business like you're my actual elder when you know fuck all about me.

Condescension is hardly necessary on a message board of intelligent adults now, is it?
 
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L

Logan

Grime Guru
No you're just weird. I wouldn't know if you were a yout or not.

And condescension is exactly what fuels the need to raise undeserving quote unquote artists to some level of status they never attained during their more productive years just to prove you have seniority over new listeners.
 
slackk

slackk

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I'm younger than you I think but that's got nothing to do with anything really. As for weird, gives a fuck, it's the internet, I'm usually at work and bored.

Logan said:
And condescension is exactly what fuels the need to raise undeserving quote unquote artists to some level of status they never attained during their more productive years just to prove you have seniority over new listeners.
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Are you aiming this at me then or is it a hypothetical collective slur?
Because I don't even really like the people I mentioned to any great degree bar Castro; it was more just an observation as regards the behaviours of other people in that the people who are missing from the scene are revered beyond the people who are active, quite possibly due to their absence. I can't stand Big H.
It's like me rating Dizzman & Rugrat a lot more than most people simply because the only remaining sets I have from them are hype as fuck. If they were around now, I'd think they were shit probably. Dizzman's stuff on his myspace certainly isn't great, and weird plea for models that is his username? Fuck knows.

Oh yeah; While you're here, what's happening with Earth 616?
 
L

Logan

Grime Guru
It was a collective observation of forum users in general.

Maniac & Chipmunk - Mandem should be back from press this week. Nike dealt with the manufacture of that though.

The Earth 616 winter samplers are currently being processed at Music House and should be released starting end of September.
 
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