RISKY ROADZ: Pirate Radio Days with Ruff Sqwad, Nasty Documented the Scene As a Whole: the Pro- Crew, Meridian Crew and Roll Deep to Ducers, the Radio and the Battles
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BRICK MAGAZINE EDITION 06 tary-style visuals that possess the ability to “My nan loaned me £300 pounds for my frst enter into grime’s core emotions and visu- camera. I had no practice, no experience. It alise them. His work has always run con- was 2003 and there was no YouTube so I current with grime itself, from its incipient had to buy books to fnd out how to do it. I RISKY ROADZ: pirate radio days with Ruff Sqwad, Nasty documented the scene as a whole: the pro- Crew, Meridian Crew and Roll Deep to ducers, the radio and the battles. I wanted directing visuals to Skepta’s “That’s Not to show everything about the scene. A Plus Me”, “Man” and “It Ain’t Safe” – all in his was doing it, Jammer and Ratty were doing ubiquitous raggo-self-shot-style. He nev- it too. Jammer documented rap battles - we I will start this piece by emphasizing that er writes down his ideas either, refecting ran what was being seen by fans of grime.” grime is not the UK’s version of hip-hop. grime’s abundance of freestyles in his flm- More than that, it’s a complex fusion of the ing methods: “I just have a constant fow multifarious infuences that make up this of ideas and conversations in my head, all EXPLORING small island: reggae, electronica, hip-hop, in various stages of development so I’m al- ska and rocksteady. Its cadences career in ways ready to go. I rely on spontaneity and triplets, bars beyond bars, 140bpm, hearts tap into the same energy as the artist [I’m racing and brains connecting at a speed out- working with.]” The 33-year-old (who still side of intoxication. Grime is the beat be- lives in the Bethnal Green home he grew BIRMINGHAM hind everything - it’s ubiquitous in the DNA up in) was at the epicentre of the subculture of British culture. Something that started in from the start, he “grew up listening to old the bedrooms and pirate radio stations of school garage and pirate radio, jungle and Roony’s descriptions of grime at East London, grime’s vital pulse can still ragga… until Pay As U Go and Nasty Crew its inception are endearing, a nebulous sub- WITH be found in the grimmest, darkest quarters came along and things got darker.” culture – small, secretive and precious. Sit- despite the city largely becoming a homog- ting in his Bethnal Green home he states: enous home-ground for grime’s pioneers “all the scene has been here, in my house, to live in comfortably - its edge has been with my nan. Grime has always been this blunted somewhat. thing we did because we loved it. No re- GRIME’S GREAT Long before anyone else saw wards. We’re just one big dysfunctional grime as a serious art form (let alone one family. I think that comes out in the videos whose cultural signifcance was more of a because we know each other so well.” threat than its Form 696), Roony Samuel Keefe did. Wanting to capture what was He continues: “My frst video was the J2K DOCUMENTER, happening around him, the young Londoner As a young DJ, Roony would buy interview inside Rhythm Division. The took matters into his own hands. Literally. his records at Rhythm Division in Bow, DVD was sold in some stores and news of Armed with a Sony Handycam he docu- a store he says was “the home of grime”, it spread by word of mouth, RWD magazine mented grime’s history in real-time. before earning a Saturday job there. The and Grime Forum. The flm was three hours job not only immersed him in the scene he long, but everyone loved it. That was Risky ROONY loved, but also inspired him to pick up a Roadz #1. They wanted #2, so I used my stu- camera for the frst time: dent loan to fund the production.” “The [grime] artists used to come in [to the Risky Roadz #2 was released in shop] so I got to know people. Pirate ra- 2005, and soon after came both The Move- SAMUEL KEEFE. dio was where we got to feel these voices ment Documentary and the Fuck Radio but couldn’t see what the characters looked DVD in 2006 – a literal fuck you to the like. I got to see them [at work] but other attitude of pirate radio stations at the time: people wanted to see them, too. I wanted to “there was a backlash against pirate radio as You’ll likely know Roony by his showcase our love of this music to the world it didn’t like the rowdy cyphers. They said infamous moniker Risky Roadz. And if so I just thought – why don’t I make a flm? there were too many artists going to sets.” not, you’ll be familiar with his trademark Let me show people who these voices are, All of this output helped to pave Roony’s WORDS: NINA BHADRESHWAR aesthetic: rough-and-ready, DIY, documen- where they’re from, how they live.” inevitable path towards creating music vid- 188 189 BRICK MAGAZINE EDITION 06 eos; something he developed an interest in one spare copy I had of Risky Roadz Lost Risky Roadz style, Roony uses every actu- “while learning “The Knowledge” to be a Tapes.” ality in his world as his material; the dash- black cab driver.” I tell him I think being board mounted camera on his cab forms a a black cab driver must give him a real in- Birmingham is the second largest textured introduction to the world he enters sight into many other facets of London life - city in the UK. It’s a weird amalgam of on arriving in Birmingham. “WE’RE ONE BIG has he had any experience of his two worlds 1980s wastelands: multistoried blocks of The raw footage from this expedi- colliding? fats, disused factories, ugly spaghetti junc- tion, which will become “a flm that’s go- tions sitting against the new digital empires. ing to be called Risky Roadz 0121” fips The Midlands birthed The Specials and between black cabs, dark tales and inter- UB40 in the late 1970s, their infuence still views with those involved in all areas of DYSFUNCTIONAL felt, they produced haunting soundscapes the Midlands grime scene. From artists and of devastation for the U.K. as it rushed to- producers to managers and comedians, they wards American capitalism. And now, in all gathered - regardless of weather and f- the corners and crevasses of the city, cre- nances - to claim their place on flm; shar- ativity has been fourishing through grime. ing consonants, beats and cadences with FAMILY IN GRIME. Stormzy claims Birmingham’s MCs are the their contemporaries, some of whom had real “unsung heroes” of the culture, pushing travelled to Birmingham from Manchester, “The other day I drove Liam Gallagher. I’m the music forwards – declaring Birmingham Derby, Wolverhampton and Bristol – com- actually a big fan of his. He asked me what to be the current epicentre for the sound. ing together where the fre is right now for I do when I’m not driving and I told him I grime. I THINK make videos. He asked me if I meant home At the end of the Risky Roadz videos and I told him no, and mentioned 0121 frst draft footage, there’s a set flmed that I’d done Skepta’s last video. He replied in a freezing cold bunker. A group of MCs like, ‘oh man, I was just watching that yes- are all competing when suddenly, someone terday! Hopefully you won’t be a cabbie for drops “Gangsters” by The Specials and the THAT COMES long.’ - I loved that.” mic is handed to a 13-year-old kid, baseball cap pulled low over his ears. He starts spit- ting at a furious rate of syncopation without After following the Birmingham missing a beat or a breath, relentless and scene for some time, Roony knew (in the fuid as mercury. It’s an iconic moment cap- OUT IN THE same way he felt compelled to tell Lon- tured on flm Risky Roadz style: the young don’s stories all those years ago) that he seizing power and riding over the past. had to let the world know the secrets that Birmingham was keeping. Enlisting sto- VIDEOS BECAUSE ry editor Toby Robson to collaborate with him on the fedgling project, the pair began On the subject of celebrity admir- searching for support to make it a reality. ers, Roony also recalls a morning when he Roony explains how they “went to com- woke to an unprompted infux of Twitter missioning editors but they were stalling,” WE KNOW followers which turned out to be the re- until “fnally, I was like, ‘we should just go sult of a follow from Barack Obama. Roo- and make it.’ Toby wrote the treatment up ny says he “wrote back to thank him and and we interviewed for a sound and camera he said, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing.’” guy, then jumped in my cab one snowy day The young MC is Birming- Soon after came a follow from Drake: “We in February and drove up to Birmingham, ham-born T.Roadz. The son of a producer, EACH OTHER conversed for a year. When I passed the contacting artists on the way.” The aim? his immersion in the grime scene was in- Knowledge, all of us new cabbies went to “To flm sets at Silk City, Birmingham’s pi- evitable.