The Sun on Grime Music

[The Somalian]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/...icle1519825.ecewhat u think?BACK in the Sixties Diana Ross and The Supremes asked: “Where did our love go?”Last Sunday I struggled to find it after subjecting myself to a diet of nothing but UK grime music for 12 hours solid.It was half a day of the most violent lyrics — written by black men about the pain they wanted to inflict on other black men.After listening to this hybrid of hip-hop and garage music, I wanted to kill someone.I wouldn’t, of course, because I don’t have a violent nature.But if I was an aggressive man the first person to step on my foot would probably have got shanked — knifed — as is happening on the streets.If that’s how it affects a forty-something man like me, what is it doing to your children?So 44 years after The Supremes asked, “Where did our love go?”, the same poser is hanging heavy over the pop industry.Parents worry about the music their kids listen to, particularly the lyrics of rap and grime music.MurderChief superintendent Leroy Logan, one of the most senior black officers in the Met police, reckons there isn’t enough love in music kids listen too and that a constant diet of violent lyrics isn’t healthy.There have been several murder cases here in which violent lyrics have been used “in evidence”.Most notoriously was the case of London rapper Crazy Titch — real name Carl Dobson — who was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years for a shooting over a “diss” (disrespect) in a song lyric in November 2006.Concerned ... Dotun AdebayoConcerned ... Dotun AdebayoBlack music gets the blame — but it wasn’t always like that.The lyrics kids are listening to are a million miles away from the songs their parents remember singing along to when “black” and “music” together weren’t such dirty words.When Caribbean immigrants arrived in Britain on the Empire Windrush in 1948 they brought with them the calypso of their homeland. One of the passengers on the boat was calypso star Lord Kitchener, who immediately sang a tune he had written on the journey: “London is the place for me.”But it was rock ’n’ roll, with its roots in the blues of black America, that first got the blame for turning young white kids in Britain into delinquents in the mid-Fifties.Teddy Boys rioted at cinemas in 1956 when they watched Rock Around The Clock. But the lyrics were like a nursery rhyme.Fats Domino, the biggest-selling black artist of the rocking ’n’ rolling Fifties, was more into finding his thrill on Blueberry Hill than in warning people not to step on his Blue Suede Shoes like Elvis.In the late Fifties a new music was emerging from Jamaica — ska. It came with a ready-made youth cult of delinquent Rudies, as they were known in the Caribbean.When ska came to Britain, the Rudies became the Mods. The music was cleaned up by record companies and sold as pop, with Millie Small’s My Boy Lollipop still the biggest hit in the genre.It was a worldwide hit and gave the impression ska was all about making your heart go “giddy-up”.At the same time a new kind of blues was coming out of the States — they called it soul and a record company called Motown was its home. Groups such as The Supremes, The Temptations and The Jackson 5 created pop for young teens.AdvertisementEven the more sexy Motown records were still acceptable family listening — just about.Bob Marley exploded on to the scene in the late-Seventies and, suddenly, black music meant revolution.“Get up, stand up for your rights,” he wailed. But still there was universal love in his music: “One love, one heart, let’s get together and feel all right.”Being young, black and British in those days meant going to a club in your Sunday best to dance smoochily with your significant other. They called it lovers rocking.After Bob Marley died in 1981, black music started becoming aggressive.Out of the ghettos of New York a new form of music was blowing up — rap.MenaceAlthough the early rappers like The Sugarhill Gang were more about “Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn, if your girl starts acting up then you get her friend”, things got harder when Grandmaster Flash’s album The Message came out in 1982.In 1987 the LA group NWA brought “gangsta rap” to the mainstream. Since then the easiest way to succeed in rap has been to talk about guns and killings.Today, UK rappers such as Dizzee Rascal — who until Sunday was at No1 for four weeks with Dance Wiv Me — are the direct descendants of the musical legacy that started with calypso king Lord Kitchener.But the reason parents are worried is that, lyrically, today’s British rappers owe more to NWA and 50 Cent than they do to all the other great artists in the last 60 years of black music.On Sunday I overdosed on violent lyrics in black music. The state I was in, I was a menace to society.Tonight I’m off to London club night Lovers Rock Lounge — because, like everybody else, I need a good dose of love in my life.

[Bardissimo]

yes grime makes me aggressive and yes i have a violent naturebut did society make the music or music the society?

[Axiom]

oh ffs.

[UN.Muzik]

That article was f*ck*ng ridiculousCan't believe I wasted my time reading itThe Sun *SMH*

[Skola]

thats actually a resonable articlemakes a good point at the endand what can you take from it?america is to blame.rap culture, violence etc

[Nemesis Kid]

i hope he gets stabbed

[The Somalian]

i think music usually is the voice of the time of the people and represents what they are surrounded byfrom bob marley to bob dylan people would talk about one love loving life etc but they dont alot of stuff is on some evil tip these days because of the world we live in and the feeling people have at the timeand to tell the truth its the media that is the biggest influence on the people them I love the sun how they get a black man to write the article so it can not be claimed to be racist article when it is same way they had that so called muslim journalist chatting sh*t about muslims all the time the sun is a racist paper but i still buy it for 30p every day

[Nidge Weasle]

taken from grime forum :Having read the entire article I can collect my thoughts and make the following presumptions.a) The person writing this article is not in his 40's but closer to his mid 50's. He didn't sit listening to grime music for 12 hours, but more like 10 minutes.c) Mr Adebayo would rather our youth followed the example of rock stars - afterall, excessive public use of class a drugs is not a major problem for the government.. is it?*pic of amy winehouse*"Where Did Our Love Go?".... Up her nose, mate.This article, and others like it is the exact reason that the UK's youth write songs with such anger and bad energy. As it is people with the mentality of the article's author that are in charge of the biggest record labels in the country.Our airwaves for the last decade have been overrun with manufactured dribble and reality television show rejects, but when something original comes out of the UK for the first time in ages people are quick to judge it based on their own personal musical tastes.Grime is the sound of a new generation of youngsters who have perhaps not been given a chance in schools or at home. They can't afford piano lessons, drum kits or guitars. Instead they get hold of cracked copies of computer music software and go about making music in their own bedrooms.Surely by turning their attention to such an activity would keep them off streets for a few hours? Allow them to socialise and meet other youngsters who share the same interests as them, and share production tips and lyrics? Surely if they're doing all of the above then they wouldn't have time to be out "shanking" people as Dotun Adebayo so cleverly coined it (fantastic bit of research).If these youngsters had anything positive to talk about in their lyrics they would. And artists like Dizzee Rascal, Kano and Mike Skinner have all released tracks with lyrics along the lines of "Dry your eyes mate" and more recently "Dance With Me". Probably down to their recent success after they were given the chance to shine from the belief of A&R scouts at respected independent record labels. It is labels like these who have a belief in pushing boundaries musically that keep the industry from becoming overrun by Pussycat Doll wannabes and Brylcreem wielding boy bands making a living out of covering 80's RnB classics.Instead, grime continues to evolve and blend itself in and around all kinds of musical boundaries. Wiley, one of the genre's most celebrated artists recently had a number 2 in the charts with his electro-grime smash "Wearing My Rolex" - a tune which will hardly leave you wanting to hang your dad's innards out on the washing line. As well as the success of Wiley, another grime star Skepta is gearing up for a chart hit with his Rolex Sweep track - a tune written about a macarena like dance move invented by the man himself. I can't personally remember the last time anyone attempted to hit me with a right hook whilst doing the Macarena, but then again I do not know what kind of clubs Mr Adebayo attends on his weekend off.*picture of old people doing the macarena*Rolex Sweep: Not a shank in sightIts a shame that today's average music buyer thinks as narrow mindedly as Dotun Adebayo does. Clearly influenced by the music they have been spoon-fed by mainstream media all of their lives, they are the sort of people who feel liberated after purchasing an Arctic Monkeys album because they heard that Zane Lowe thought they were cool. And it is articles like this which spur on such negativity from young artists trying to channel their energy into something more positive.OK, so grime music has highly aggressive lyrical content at it's rawest form, but maybe you should take time to listen to JME's latest album "Famous?". JME is a self made grime superstar. If you haven't heard of his music you've probably seen his "Boy Better Know" T Shirts worn by people of all ages from Cornwall to Dundee. JME's music is conscious and clever - I challenge Mr Adebayo to take a listen to Famous? and re-write his absolutely disgraceful article on such an interesting music genre. It is your narrow minded and un-justified opinions which add to the negative feelings of young grime kids all over the country, and the rest of the world.If you wish to talk more with me on this subject I'm all ears, the people at The Sun newspaper have my contact details.Yours Sincerely,Chris ReedP.K.A. Plastician

[Mizchif]

Bla bla bla bla bla.I've been involved in Grime since very early, before grime and to this day I listen to gangster rap, I am yet to kill anyone.Is this because I haven't listened to the music or interpreted it in the same way these youths who are killing each other have? No. I was raised like a normal human being and know the difference between fiction and truth.Manson, Hitler, Stallin, Mugabe, Gengis Khan, Saddam Hussain etc probably didn't listen to hip hop or grime but they've commited worse attrocities then anything that relates to whats happening in the UK, and these people were leaders. If you grow up and stab someone in the chest you were probably going to do if you listened to Hip hop, Pop, Rock, Calypso, Dutch drum and bass whatever, don't blame music.

[Lieutenant]

oh ffs.

[Natalie]

Coming from the sun take it with a pinch of salt.

[Thun]

Brainwash

[O.Man]

if they are reflecting what they know into as a form of expression and it disturbs you, maybe you sohuld try to address the issues they bring forward instead of silencing one of the only available form of being able to survive without having to do those thing you dispise hearing aboutthe music is never the problem, its the listeners, and there is a problem with the listeners but thats a whole nother thing

[Trilliam]

lol @ this shitty journalism.

[The Somalian]

plasticman set down the truth

[Uncle Man]

SMFH @ this shitty journalism.

sh*t shud actually be illegal these man are the main problem in societythey all deserve to be stabbed to deathim not saying shud,because i am a normal human beingbut if thers any justice in this world, they wud be stabbed to death,253 timesnow im going to relax and listen to some grime music to unwind from this stressful read

[The Somalian]

^^get me I can listen to some f*cked up bars but to tell the truth it calms man

[Flojo]

SMFH @ this shitty journalism.

sh*t shud actually be illegal these man are the main problem in societythey all deserve to be stabbed to deathim not saying shud,because i am a normal human beingbut if thers any justice in this world, they wud be stabbed to death,253 timesnow im going to relax and listen to some grime music to unwind from this stressful read

:lol: :lol:Sun is full of sh*t.

[Guest WAVESURFER]

Load of shite.

[spiderman]

oh ffs.

exactly wot i thought wen i saw this.the sun are very very ignorant and dont know sh*t yet they speak on things like there experts. why put dizzie rascal on there? so dance with me makes u wanna shank sumone?the fact that they easily switch between callin it grime and (gangsta) rap just shows they dnt av a clue.its bait the angle their tryna get at, but explicit lyrics have been around way before grime and rap for that matter, and not everyone is a sheep who absorbs lyrics so much to actually act them out.the propaganda is crazy, the way they word it makes it sound so bad.the sun are just a massive FAIL at a newspaper, they shud turn into a cheap mans magazine tbh.

[spiderman]

Its a shame that today's average music buyer thinks as narrow mindedly as Dotun Adebayo does. Clearly influenced by the music they have been spoon-fed by mainstream media all of their lives, they are the sort of people who feel liberated after purchasing an Arctic Monkeys album because they heard that Zane Lowe thought they were cool. And it is articles like this which spur on such negativity from young artists trying to channel their energy into something more positive.

lol bars!plastician layed the smackdown.smfh @ this shity biased mainstream journalist, who are so ignorant yet act like they are the complete opposite.in a battle of minds with sumone who is properly articulate they would get eaten up, these type of people wouldnt stand a chance in a proper discussion.the amount of bullshit brainwashing is disgusting.after the burial thing, now this...the sun is pissin me off more than normal. raise ur hand if u wanna petition to bomb there HQ. :!:

[Mr. Martinez]

lol @ this shitty journalism.

[That's That Kid]

Mad Vybez cattin' threads from grime forum smh

[kurious]

lmao @ da chiney yute dat robbed a taxi and jook up da man 10 times cah he wanted to see if it was as easy in real life as it was on GTAlmaof*ck da sun still

[Mr. Martinez]

SeriouslyI can't believe this even made the Sun websiteA grown f*ck*ng man admitting he was brainwashed by fickle 'rap' lyrics, wtf...