UK Hip-Hop, Grime and the City

The Aesthetics and Ethics of London's Rap Scenes

Richard Bramwell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781135085971
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Urban Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Young people in London have contributed to the production of a distinctively British rap culture. This book moves beyond accounts of Hip-Hop's marginality and shows, with an examination of the production, dissemination and use of rap in London, how this cultural form plays an important role in the everyday lives of young Londoners and the formation of identities. Through in-depth interviews with a range of leading and emerging rap artists, close analysis of rap music tracks, and over two years of ethnographic research of London's UK Hip-Hop and Grime scenes, Bramwell examines how black and white urban youths use rap to come together to explore their creative abilities. By combining these methodological approaches in the development of a critical participant observation, the book reveals how the collaborative work of these urban youths produced these politically significant subcultures, through which they resist unfair and illegitimate policing practices and attempt to develop their economic autonomy in a city marred by immense social and economic inequalities.

1 ‘Revolution of a Next Kind’

Building Black London from the Bottom

Reain tells me that he spells his stage name a particular way for the purpose of putting two words together, ‘and two meanings together.’ His discussion of this name contrasts with what he refers to as his ‘given name.’ While there is nothing in our conversation to suggest any discomfort with the name given him by his family, ‘… the name of a king, brap!,’ the description he provides of the process of constructing another name, appropriate to himself, reveals a considered approach to the identity that he inhabits as a rapper. ‘You know you’ve got reign sovereign r, e, i, g, n, and you’ve got rain weather, and that’s what, basically, I’m trying to bring across.’ Although he does not make the connection more explicit, his valorisation of an aspect of his given name, related to monarchy, may be associated with his efforts to communicate the idea ‘[not] that I’m better than anyone, but just in a sense that I think … that anyone has a potential to be a king. Within their own right.’ This sense of Reain’s neologism is combined with another, which he considers to be ‘a bit more aggy: “Right I’m pissing down on people”. And that’s a bit more where the battle and rugged element comes into my style.’ By combining these words and meanings Reain fashions a sense of himself that incorporates a street ruggedness with a sense of dignity that the working-class, black Englishman believes is accessible to anyone: ‘whether you’re sweeping the roads or whether you’re sat on a throne.’ He took this name at about 16 or 17 years old, after listening to his elder brother’s rap music as a child, and rapping from the age of 15. As one of many genres of music that were played in his home, rap provided him with valuable cultural resources through which he has constructed his adult identity.

Through participating in rap music cultures young Londoners develop a sense of themselves. This sense includes awareness of their place in the world, the city they inhabit, and the relations with others through which their life experiences are structured. Rapping becomes an important part of the production of particular modes of urban living through various forms of play and the exploration of the relations that are constitutive of this verbal art form. This productive activity occurs in a variety of sites, including the home, school, and youth clubs. The acquisition of the linguistic skills that distinguish one as a rapper enables young people to achieve social recognition, to cultivate forms of self-esteem, and develop the means to attain economic and social aspirations. In the act of rapping they appropriate means to represent themselves and the urban world they inhabit, both to themselves and others. As young rappers develop, their interests and investments in this art form may enlarge to include, not only pleasure and social recognition for their skills, but also concern for the organisation of social life, and the socioeconomic and political forces that structure their lives and the reproduction of their culture.

These interests and concerns are developed through a variety of processes, including copying rappers on the radio, writing lyrics in the bedroom, clashing with other rappers in a circle at school, and practicing what one artist described as the ‘lost art’ of freestyling. Rapping and playing with products made through or with rap contribute to the construction of distinctive forms of intersubjectivity, collective identifications, and social skills. Reain’s combination of the vulgar with the dignified in his identity reveals a concern with self-possession. He refers to a Nas lyric, ‘blood of a slave, heart of a King,’ that he heard some time after giving himself the name ‘Reain.’ In relating this lyric to his name, he indicates how the themes and values that circulate in this culture affirm and express his own sentiments. By explaining this aspect of his identity through another’s lyrics, Reain also demonstrates how one’s sense of self is nurtured and extended through participation in rap cultures. The affirmation of his identity through rap and a reference to slavery is an important consideration in the study of contemporary life in the postcolonial city.

The circles formed in playgrounds and nightclubs across London can be seen as a refashioning of a vital component of slave culture and the premodern African forms upon which the slaves drew. In this reshaping, advanced technologies are combined with black cultural resources in the development of new aesthetic forms and intersubjective relations. This cultural and technological work contributes to the ongoing reconfiguration of the ‘black public sphere’ in contemporary London (Baker 1996).

This chapter considers the ethical relations and aesthetic forms produced by young people in their development as rap artists and in their construction of the city’s rap scenes. It aims to explore some of the distinctive features that rap contributes to the formation of a black public sphere in contemporary London. My examination of the ethics and aesthetics of rap music cultures begins with a brief outline of the historical development of the city’s rap tradition. I then turn to artists’ recollections of their initial experiences of this cultural form. Through these recollections of cultural acquisition and development, I consider the relationships formed in the production of rap and the shared time and space that rappers inhabit. Following this I analyse how rap’s aesthetic qualities are shaped by the social relations through which it is produced. Through this discussion of the relations between aesthetic and social forms, I aim to highlight how the use of technology in the contemporary, black public sphere distinguishes London’s rap cultures from those produced during slavery and in the post-emancipation Caribbean.

Following these preliminary discussions, I move on to an examination of how rap is appropriated by urban youths in the production of their social identities and how these cultural practitioners contribute to the construction of the UK hip-hop and grime scenes. This analysis attends to the inclination of social subjects towards particular dispositions through participation in rap cultures. It also engages with the collaborative processes through which technology and labour are employed in the construction of London’s black public sphere. Through this engagement I highlight the proximity of those cultural spaces to specific contexts of urban dwelling. I then return to the connection between technology and ethical relations in the black public sphere, in order to examine the convergence of factors that came about in the production of grime music in London. Following this, I discuss the significance of the intergenerational reproduction of the city’s rap cultures both inside and outside of the family structure. The social recognition gained through rapping is an important aspect of young people’s social development, as well as mature artists’ economic aspirations. I therefore conclude with a consideration of the social significance of the adaptation of this cultural practice to the conditions of postcolonial London.

‘I Drop Jewels’: Appropriating a Cultural Inheritance

The participation of youths from a variety of ethnic backgrounds in contemporary London’s rap scenes is testament to the tenacity of this art form. The presence of a culture of rap in this city is, certainly in part, related to the global dominance of American popular culture. However, it is necessary to bring to the fore the significance of alternate routes that have contributed to the production of London’s black music cultures. In particular, I want to highlight the significance of Caribbean migration to the formation of this city’s rap culture. Prince Buster’s work in the Jamaican popular music culture of the 1960s, which built on the practice of DJ toasting (Hebdige 1993), may be seen to anticipate the development of rap. Although hip-hop is considered to have its origins in the South Bronx, Kool DJ Herc is widely recognised as one of the culture’s ‘pioneers’ (Rose 1994; Potter 1995). Herc is credited with importing elements of the sound system culture that hip-hop is built upon from his native Jamaica. The historian Joseph Heathcott argues that ‘ska and reggae provided important groundwork for … rap music, as island peoples brought the Jamaican sound system, the MC … and a vibrant dancehall culture to the immigrant neighborhoods of urban America’ (2003: 185). The migration of large numbers of West Indians to postwar England produced a similar development of black Atlantic culture, laying the ‘groundwork’ for the transnational flow of sound system culture to Britain. In their production of ‘some of the most important British reggae recordings in the late 1970s’ Dennis Bovell and Linton Kwesi Johnson drew upon the same pool of Caribbean cultural resources as Kool Herc (Chambers 1985). Johnson’s (1976) discussion of ‘Jamaican Rebel Music’ refers to the practice of dub-poetry, which forms a key historical link between black London’s culture and its Atlantic routes:

The ‘dub-lyricist’ is the dj turned poet. He intones his lyrics rather than sings them. Dub-lyricism is a new form of (oral) music-poetry, wherein the lyricist overdubs rhythmic phrases on to the rhythm background of a popular song. Dub-lyricists include poets like Big Youth, I Roy, U Roy, Dillinger, Shorty the President, Prince Jazzbo and others.

Johnson’s own practice as a dub-poet signals the presence of this cultural tradition in the UK at least as far back as the period that saw hip-hop’s ‘birth’ in New York during the 1970s. While the London Posse’s recordings in the late 1980s and early 1990s contributed to a significant moment in the development of British hip-hop, by drawing on English, Caribbean, and American styles, Johnson’s dub poetry can be seen as an antecedent to the laid-back flow of MCs such as Roots Manuva and Ghostpoet.

The dub-lyricist’s expression of the memory of suffering during slavery and the continued unfreedoms to which blacks are subject may be usefully compared with Sterling Stuckey’s discussion of slave culture and the ‘ring shout.’ Stuckey (1987) identified that slaves’ lyrics were ‘driven by complex percussive rhythms, and often give way to chants, whose repetition can have a hypnotic effect and contribute to the high religious purpose of possession.’ This religious purpose was associated with the specific social, economic, and political position in which the slaves found themselves. The African rhythms that the slaves drew on were ‘adapted, changed, and intensified by the tragic soul-life of the slaves’ (DuBois 2000). While this culture has undergone considerable modification, many of its formal qualities have also been retained and refined. Stuckey’s description of the slaves’ lyrics bears similarities to what Adam Krims (2000) terms ‘percussion effusive flow’ in contemporary hip-hop culture. In considering the presence of this tradition in contemporary London, it is important to attend to the adaptations and transformations at work in this syncretic culture. Hesmondhalgh and Melville (2001) highlight that in the 1980s ‘the United Kingdom already had an emancipatory black practice, a Caribbean derived cultural formation with music at its epicentre that fostered black expressivity and organised and channelled critiques of institutional racism and neocolonialism.’ It was partly because of the presence of this syncretic youth culture that US hip-hop artists found a sympathetic audience in Britain. Within this distinctly multiethnic context English youths further adapted the materials of these rap cultures to their own purposes. The practice of rapping in London is not the result of a simple handing down of a finished culture, but part of an ongoing process of adapting and reworking cultural resources to the conditions in which practitioners find themselves.

Although the contexts of production may be significantly different, the association that London’s youths have with rap music may indicate one of the key reasons for its historical longevity. Stuckey (1987) notes, in his discussion of the ‘ring shout,’ that ‘Black youngsters were eager to “shout,” forming themselves into a circle, singing and dancing at the slightest suggestion, assuring the perpetuation of important religious and artistic values of their people.’ The appropriation of the ring shout in London may meet very different needs to those expressed in the slaves’ song and dance, but the adaptation of the slave circle into cyphers and clashes by young Londoners suggests that it remains an important social practice through which they craft their adult identities. I argue that MCs and DJs also facilitate a collective experience, a practice that retains important links with the tradition of black expressive culture. For Johnson (1976), the dub-lyricist embodied ‘the historical experience of the Jamaican masses’:

Through music, song and poetry, they give spiritual expression to their own inner beings, to their own experience. But in so doing, they are also giving spiritual expression to the collective experience of sufferation that is shared by all sufferers.

In the study of British rap it is necessary to examine how grime and UK hip-hop MCs employ their cultural resources in the production of alternative, oppositional interpretations of metropolitan life.

Following Houston Baker’s (1996) critical reformulation of Habermas’s public sphere as a plural space, I want to explore how rap culture contributes to the production of a vibrant, black public sphere in London. In contrast to the subjectivity formed through the consumption of the psychological novel from which, Habermas (1989) argues, the rational-critical public debate that characterised the bourgeois public sphere flowed, the antiphonic structure of rap prioritises the value of intersubjectivity. Kamau Brathwaite (1984) contrasts the Jamaican oral tradition with the written tradition of Western poetry, as a form of total expression:

Reading is an isolated, individualistic expression. The oral tradition on the other hand demands not only the griot but the audience to complete the community: The noise and sounds that the maker makes are responded to by the audience and are returned to him. Hence we have the creation of a continuum where meaning truly resides.

In this total expression, voice, body movement, and gesture are combined with the materiality of sound in the production of an interpretative community. The consumption of literary texts emphasises a private subjectivity, and formed an important channel through which the culture of the dominant social group developed. By contrast, the intersubjectivity that structures the use of rap music by initiates of London’s black culture is an essential component in the development of that culture and of its practitioners. The artistic forms and social values that are made and adapted in the subaltern, black public sphere can be seen to affirm important principles of commonality in contemporary London.

A Time to Be Together: The Ethics of Rap

The sense of a common present forms the basis of my link between the aesthetics and ethics of rap music. In his discussion of convivial culture, Bourdieu (1984: 183) opposes the subjectivity that the petit bourgeois constructs by withdrawal into the home, with the ‘being in the present’ that is affirmed in the ‘readiness to take advantage of the good times and take time as it comes.’ He argues that this presence is ‘in itself, an affirmation of solidarity with others.’ I want to invest in the formal features of rap music an ethical value. These qualities may be observed in the forms of spontaneity, improvisation, recognition, and reciprocity that are employed in the city’s black public sphere. They are influenced by historical and technological developments. In order to understand rap’s role in the formation of identity in contemporary London, attention must be directed to how social, economic, technological, and political factors influence this cultural practice. Paul Willis highlights, in his discussion of grounded aesthetics, that ‘there is a dramaturgy and poetics of everyday life, of social presence, encounter and event’ (1990: 22). The ethics of play through which young Londoners signify their lived conditions are of central importance to the grounded aesthetics that I am attempting to outline here. The strategies of play and self-organisation that structure the subaltern public sphere can be usefully related to Bakhtin’s discussion of the carnival grotesque.

The carnivalesque crowd in the marketplace or in the streets is not merely a crowd. It is the people as a whole, but organized in their own way, the way of the people. It is outside and contrary to all existing forms of socio-economic and political organization, which is suspended for the time of the festivity.

(Bakhtin 1984: 255, emphasis in the text)

The structure of contemporary London’s black public sphere is not determined by the responses of slaves and colonised people to their conditions. However, the dispositions that are acquired through the practice of rapping incline subjects towards a particular orientation to the social world. As the challenges posed by that world change, each generation adapts the cultural resources that they inherit to deal with those conditions. Many of the themes employed in clashing are characteristic of the carnival grotesque:

The body that figures in all the expressions of the unofficial speech of the people is the body that fecundates and is fecundated, that gives birth and is born, devours and is devoured, drinks, defecates, is sick and dying. In all languages there is a great number of expressions related to the genital organs, the anus and buttocks, the belly, the mouth and nose.

(Bakhtin 1984: 319)

The use of vulgar language in London’s UK hip-hop and grime scenes emphasises the material and bodily. Susan Buck-Morss reminds us that the ‘original field of aesthetics is not art but reality—corporeal, material nature’ (1992: 6). The grotesque aesthetic is adapted within these scenes to common goals and the present conditions of dwelling. Furthermore, Reain’s reference to slavery suggests a lingering awareness of the value that the memory of racial terror may have in London’s black public sphere. He employs this value in the service of dealing with his own situation as a working-class black man, possessing dignity with common values and interests.

There are a number of different styles of rap with various qualities in which pleasure is found by the young inhabitants of this city. The practice is associated with the development of friendships inside and outside of school. Beginning to rap is regarded as a form of play, frequently compared to foot...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 ‘Revolution of a Next Kind’: Building Black London from the Bottom
• 2 ‘On the Bus My Oyster Card Goes “Ding De Diing De Ding Ding” ’: Transforming the Space of London’s Public Transport
• 3 ‘I See the Glow in You’: Summoning the Aura in London’s Post-Hip-Hop Culture
• 4 ‘That There Kind of Sumthin’ Sounds Strange to Me’: Social Representation and the Recorded Soundscape
• 5 From a ‘Junior Spesh’ to the ‘Keys to the Bentley’: The Routes of Grimey London
• Conclusion: ‘Take Back the Scene’
• Discography
• Bibliography
• Index