1 Rhian E. Jones “STUFF YOU DON’T SEE OR HEAR IN THE NEWS AND TV” How Grime and Corbynism Transformed Politics Can music change the world, or do we just are rapidly appropriated by the mainstream want to believe it can? Although popular music industry. has never by itself brought about social trans- formation, it has a long history of soundtrack- While music has formed an intimate and inte- ing and documenting aspects of social change gral part of social and cultural development, and contributing to attempts to imagine and the growth of popular music into an estab- construct social, cultural and political alter- lished industry has been bound up with tech- natives. Music has the capacity to reflect and nological innovation: from the techniques of amplify existing struggles and to form part amplification which enabled artists to play to of alternative subcultures. However, political mass audiences at festivals or stadium gigs, to expression through music is often confined to the use of turntables and sampling in the de- subcultural niches which define themselves velopment of hip hop, to synthesizers allowing more broadly in opposition to mainstream both the replication of traditional instruments culture and politics, while within the tradition- and the creation of new sounds. For musicians, al music industry, the success and visibility the growing availability of music development of artists has frequently depended on their apps and software has granted individuals the acquiescence with commercial manipulation ability to compose, mix and record music in a and malleability. Music which has gained vis- relatively cost-effective manner. Coupled with ibility or significance as part of rebellious or the access provided by the internet to almost oppositional movements, meanwhile, has been infinite resources of music and culture pres- consistently coopted and recuperated by these ent and past, and the ability to make music same mechanisms. Music or artists may be available through social media and digital given a veneer of pseudo-radicalism in order distribution, these developments have ren- to lend them a commercial edge, and innova- dered producers and record labels increasingly tions developed by marginalized subcultures redundant. Music can now be produced and MAKING & BREAKING ISSUE 01 - 2019 makingandbreaking.org 2 Rhian E. Jones “STUFF YOU DON’T SEE OR HEAR IN THE NEWS AND TV” Screen shot from Wiley Ft Devlin - Bring Them All / Holy Grime VIDEO | http://tiny.cc/qkcd2y disseminated by artists themselves – not, of political concerns more visible in pop culture, course, with the same level of resources and for instance through lyrics referencing racism, reach as a traditional record company, but with including racial elements of police harassment, greater creative independence and often with a and the impact of austerity on the already more direct connection to their audience. disadvantaged. One recent and spectacular ex- ample of how this kind of community-forming The transformative capacity of these new and process of articulation can have politically platforms, channels and networks can depend transformative effects was the intervention of on the uses made of them at any given politi- the UK grime community in the general elec- cal moment. In the past few decades, popular tion of June 2017. music – along with other sectors of the arts and media – has been marked by the narrowing The grime scene had its origins in East of access to ‘traditional’ routes to mainstream London’s council estates in the early 2000s. stardom, as artists increasingly require preex- With its roots in UK garage, drum n’ bass, isting connections and independent wealth to dancehall and ragga as well as hip hop, grime establish themselves in what can be a precar- is characterized by its sparse, off-kilter, yet ious and competitive field.1 However, along- powerful and cathartic sound, and by an side this restriction of access at the top, the often irreverent and confrontational ener- growth of mass internet access in Britain has gy which has seen comparisons drawn with had the effect of democratising the production punk. Initially known by a variety of names and consumption of music, allowing individ- including 8-bar, sublo, and eski, grime gained uals to circumnavigate the requirements for in prominence throughout the 2000s with the industry resources or connections as a means increasing success of Wiley and his protégé of producing and accessing culture. Although Dizzee Rascal, both from Bow in East London constrained and compromised by corporate and drawing on the location in their work. ownership of social media platforms, the in- The emergence of the early grime scene was creased visibility of artists from marginalised driven as much by inner-city boredom, desire demographics or communities has given them for social recognition, and the enthusiasm the ability in turn to make systemic social and for creative and representational possibilities MAKING & BREAKING ISSUE 01 - 2019 makingandbreaking.org 3 Rhian E. Jones “STUFF YOU DON’T SEE OR HEAR IN THE NEWS AND TV” which making music offered, than by the wish which, although black British in its origins and for commercial success. A respondent to a primarily in its audience, can appeal across 2017 survey of grime fans characterized the boundaries of race and ethnicity. The con- genre’s subject matter as “just everyday life”, ception and reception of grime as inherently but a quality of life which seldom received subversive or disruptive, however, is inextri- mainstream expression or representation: cably linked in part with London’s history of “Stuff you don’t see or hear in the news and tension and hostility between police and the TV. A part of the country always sheltered and city’s working-class and BAME communities. hidden away like a bad secret”.2 The Metropolitan Police’s Form 696, which col- lects performers’ names and contact details Grime artists adhered to DIY methods of and which initially attempted to racially profile recording and distribution: freely circulated the likely audience for particular events, was mixtapes, freestyles uploaded to YouTube for widely seen as a targeted attempt to harass or free consumption, the independent DVD show- prevent live grime events and performances. case series Lord of the Mics, and pirate radio This bore comparison with attempts by John stations including Déjà Vu, Raw Mission and Major’s government to use the 1994 Criminal Rinse FM, whose creative freedom and lack Justice Bill to clamp down on public raves and of censorship helped MCs shape the genre’s mass gatherings involving music characterized sound.3 Grime’s focus on representing one’s by “repetitive beats”, and displayed a similar local area or neighbourhood, both in lyrics and though more racially-inflected suspicion of through the formation of local crews, and the counter-cultural music. significance with which individual actions were regarded by the scene as a whole, also gives However, the radical and oppositional presence grime a sense of collectivism and commu- often perceived in grime is also a function of nality. The genre saw a surge in celebrity and its ability to draw together aspects of class, popularity from 2016 – the year of Skepta’s racial and cultural identity and representation. Mercury Prize win and Stormzy’s Gang Signs This broader appeal is rooted in grime’s artic- & Prayer becoming the UK’s first grime album ulation of a particular working-class British to reach number one – with artists moving – particularly London-based – identity and from pirate radio to platforms like Soundcloud, lifestyle, and a consciousness shaped by the and the spread of the genre outside London “ravages and destruction” of the 1980s and the to other urban centres including Birmingham socioeconomic division produced by inner-city and Manchester. Despite this greater atten- neglect and gentrification which followed.5 tion and prominence, much of grime remains Journalist and grime fan Hattie Collins de- independent and outside the music industry’s tects the importance of these tensions in the traditional boundaries. It is arguable that the genre’s emergence from East London’s im- recent wave of UK hip-hop and grime artists poverished council estates, which exist in the have been able to successfully negotiate the shadow of the symbolic wealth, power and conflict between mainstream success and influence of Canary Wharf and the city’s finan- local legitimacy – a disconnect which contrib- cial district.6 Mykaell Riley similarly categoris- uted to the demise of the early UK punk scene es grime as “the sound of social deprivation – through using social media to retain a local emerging from the shadows of re-urbanisation connection, as well as to give the impression and gentrification”, and grime artists and fans of an unmediated personal dynamic with their have linked their scene – often ironically – listeners.4 with the invocation by right-wing media and politicians of a socially dysfunctional “Broken Like jungle and UK garage before it, grime is Britain”.7 Although seldom explicitly political, a distinctly and idiosyncratically British genre and invariably taking an anti-establishment MAKING & BREAKING ISSUE 01 - 2019 makingandbreaking.org 4 Rhian E. Jones “STUFF YOU DON’T SEE OR HEAR IN THE NEWS AND TV” stance which rejected parliamentary politics leader Jeremy Corbyn by UK grime figureheads, wholesale, grime lyrics frequently give ex- and the amplifying of this support online pression to the kind of