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GRIMEBLOG: COVERING ALL THINGS GRIME

Welcome to the latest installment of #GRIMEBLOG, written by Liam Tootill, for SB.TV

“Popular culture was historically a term applied during the nineteenth century to separate culture of the subordinate classes of the urban and industrial centres. This culture had two main sources: a commercially orientated culture, and a culture of and for the people (often associated with political agitation). While some subsequent usages of popular culture reserve it for the second of these, the term became more generally associated with the commercial media: print, aural, and visual communication on a large scale, including the press, publishing, radio and television, film and video, telecommunications, and the recording industry.”

– Popular Music: The Key Concepts. (R. Shuker)

As grime continues to capture the imagination of the mainstream consciousness I have looked at the impact the genre has been having further-a-field; grime inspired fashion, films, and television shows. It is common knowledge that grime lyrics, like US rap, are littered with references to popular culture through metaphors and similes. As fans, it gives us something to relate to, creating a sense of ‘realness’ to the stories being spat by the artists. On the second track of Devlin’s Art Of Rolling (2008), titled ‘F.U’, which features Ghetto; Devlin spits about them being “two elaborate spitters, that’ll have your best two looking like Burns and Smithers”; a reference to their dominance as grime lyricists but also the hit cartoon The Simpsons. Last year we had Skepta and Giggs teaming up on the track ‘Look Out’, from Skepta’s album Microphone Champion (2009), Skepta dropping the line, “Me and Giggs run up and take all the gold coins like Mario and Luigi” in reference to their growing stature as artists in the music industry and also the world-famous plumbers, Nintendoized, Mario brothers. And it’s not just the emcees at the top of the tree that spit pop-culture references; underground sensation Ikes, featured by SB.TV in the last few days wasn’t one to buck the trend. He came up with some big lines in his jam, not least, “Been on my Denzel, this is just a Training Day”, reference to a big Hollywood film.

GRIME & FASHION

In the first edition of GRIMEBLOG I wrote about Tinchy Stryder’s ‘Star in the Hood’ brand bringing in a similar amount of revenue as his Catch 22 album sales. Many of the top artists have their own clothing line from Boy Better Know clothing to Giggs’ ‘SN1 Wear’; even our very own SB.TV was selling t-shirts last year, with plans already in place for a new line to be released in the coming months. But it’s not only individual artists who are cashing in on the grime fashion, whole businesses are being set up to try and fill a gap in the market caused by the growing reputation of the grime scene as a vibrant youth subculture. Grime Garms is just one of those online outlets, created in 2009 it was the first independent grime fashion website on the net. The two main purposes of Grime Garms is to give exposure to underground grime related fashion brands and help grime fans to find information and links for the latest grime clothing; whilst at the same time doing its bit to help to push the scene forward. The current Grime Garms team is made up of Ben Larcombe and Graeme Day. Another similar project is Sturban Clothing.

Girls, if you are looking for tips on grime fashion then visit here for some tasty ideas.

FILMS

The movie Shank, written by Darren Flaxstone and Christian Martin, due for release on March 26^th 2010, is an action film for the youth generation, set in a decaying future London. A gang set out on a chase to avenge the murder of one of their own. Seemingly inspired by the early grime culture, Ashley ‘Bashy’ Thomas is set to star in the movie. The official trailer can be found here. It is not the first film to be influenced by the grime scene. Noel Clarke’s film Kidulthood (2006) and the sequel Adulthood (2008) are both films that speak to Britain’s youth in words they understand. They both possess urban soundtracks; ‘Stay Positive’ from The Streets’ critically acclaimed debut album Original Pirate Material accompanies one of Kidulthood’s darkest scenes – the suicide of Katie. Grime artist Bashy sampled music from Kidulthood on a mixtape and was then asked to record the theme tune for Adulthood. Adulthood features rapper (check out his current single ‘Stay Too Long’ here) and actor Ben ‘Plan B’ Drew, who also played a leading role in last years UK smash Harry Brown. Another film that was released last year, which seemingly has grime and hip hop fans as its target audience is 1 Day. Set in Birmingham, 1 DAY follows Flash’s race against the clock as he’s pursued by a rival gang, the police, his three irate babymothers and his granny.

Listen to the Kidulthood Opening Theme here, an instrumental piece of energetic electronica (ultra-light DnB) from The Angel.

TELEVISION SHOWS

Smokey Barz has recently been working as an assistant producer for BBC 3’s multiplatform ‘Jail Tales’, the program explores the experience of people in prison, from young British offenders to well-known US rappers, mums and lifers. Last week we were treated to a sneak preview of the show over YouTube, female emcee Lioness goin’ in hard on her freestyle. Even the appearance of female grime emcee Lady Sov on Celebrity Big Brother 2010 is a sign of the times in terms of the grime scene and the commercial mainstream.

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5 Responses to “GRIMEBLOG: COVERING ALL THINGS GRIME”

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