How is urban realism represented within Grime music?
The history of a genre called grime that emerged from East London in the 2000s and everything else that came with it.
Grime started in east London in the early 2000s in a block of flats where Mcs were taking turns rapping over new dub plates which were their 30 seconds to shine on pirate radio. Dizzee Rascal, Kano, Tinchy strider and Wiley all come from East London. Other well-known names are from an area called Tottenham in North London for example Skepta, Jme, Wretch 32, Avelino and Chip/Chipmunk. In a documentary, I watched called “once upon a time in north London” Skepta, other artists and locals of Tottenham talk about what a great community Tottenham has. “The community spirit is second to none like we literally go through each other’s pain and each other’s joy” they also mentioned that Tottenham is a very musical environment and many great artists have grown up in Tottenham.
The reason why grime mcs/artists use grimy flats in their music videos is because this is where they grew up and where they come from and they are proud of this. A book that I have read called ‘inner city pressure-The story of grime’ talks a lot about where these grime artists are from and explains why they are proud of where they come from and speaks more about brutalism in grime more than the actual music. “The music being made by these young people is a reflection of ‘what you see when you wake up in the morning’ he continued. ‘Most people that’s what they’re seeing: a lot of grime in the area, a lot of grimy things happening.’”
One thing this book talks about is canary wharf and how the government spent millions on canary wharf while across the street there were council blocks and poverty. These grime mcs felt like all they could do was look up at Canada square one as this was also London’s tallest building at the time and all they could do was dream of what it was like up there. “Unlike the teenagers gazing up at Canary Wharf’s blinking eye” The top Grime boroughs are Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham they were ranked 1,2 and 3 poorest areas in London.
“A medal-winning podium of poverty” . Canary wharf is across the street from the most poverty-ridden areas in London. These wealthy individuals who live in these luxury towers would look down on these council estate towers, while the young kids would look up at canary wharfs skyscrapers and dream of what their life could be like. This would have inspired these now big mcs and rappers to make something out of themselves and that is what Grime is, rapping about the struggles of growing up black and poor in London. Like Avelino has said “Inspiration comes from Struggle”.
Grime is called grime because grime songs are praised as mucky/dutty (dirty)/muddy just like the areas in that grime is created.
“I swear to you it ain’t all tea cups, red telephone boxes and Buckingham palace, I’m gonna show you it’s gritty out here” Dizzee Rascal on Graftin’
this adds to the point that these mcs rap about what they see and what they have been raised around. “Most grime tunes are made in a grimy council estate” . These artists want to ‘rep’ the area they are from, they want to prove the fact that you still can be someone even if you come from a grimmy council estate.
Risky roadz is the name of a freelance production company founded by Rooney Keefe. Rooney helped lots of mcs get their name out there by documenting everything on a Samsung camcorder he was very well respected and people would wait for the next risky roadz tape to drop so they could watch these mcs rap over beats.
Risky roadz has also created lots of documentaries about grime even one about grime in Birmingham and how it is very much still alive in Birmingham I have watched most of these grime documentaries and they are very informative and a good watch if you want to learn more about grime and the mcs who label their music as grime.
Risky roadz recorded most of boy better knows and other grime collectives’ music videos and freestyles. Rooney documented everything these mcs were doing and really helped them get out there by filming everything and and posting it on youtube which was still pretty new around then but allowed your videos to be seen all around the world, and that is how Skepta, Jme and all other mcs started getting recognised by a bigger audience.
It is important to speak about form 696 (now scrapped) as this old form shows how the police targeted these young black mcs all because of where they were from. Form 696 was a risk assessment form used by the metropolitan police from 2008 to 2017, which requested promoters of events to complete and submit 14 days in advance of an event in 21 London boroughs. If the form was not submitted on time, you’re automatically graded higher- so if it was low, it becomes a medium, if it was a medium, it becomes high. This form affected businesses and mcs and although the met police stated multiple times this form does not target anyone specific no one believed that because it was weirdly only grime or rap shows getting shut down with black performers.
“It used to specifically ask for an ethnic breakdown of the people going to be in attendance”.
This goes completely against what the met police kept telling the public because if they were not targeting a certain group of people then why did they need the ethnic breakdown of the people at this show? Why does it matter? The met police liked to say that they were shutting down shows because of violence but why were different genre concerts not being shut down that included white performers? This form highly affected local nightclubs because they would organise these shows, everything would be okay and then with very short notice, the police would bully the event organisers into shutting these grime raves/shows down.