The mutual relationship between the genres of Grime and Punk: How subcultures are about both belonging and exclusion at the same time
Subcultures offer a sense of belonging to those within them while often defining themselves in opposition to mainstream norms. They create strong internal communities with shared tastes, values, and aesthetics, but this cohesion frequently comes with an implicit, or explicit, boundary that marks who is "in" and who is "out." In the late 1970s, punk broke onto the British music scene and quickly emerged as an extremely influential subculture. Tapping into youth's discontent and rebellion with its loud, anti-establishment attitude at a time of recession, high unemployment and widespread antipathy towards the British government. The principles that had long governed music and defined society were forcefully and crudely rejected, which in turn created significant social polarisation as well as simultaneous social convergence within the emerging subculture.
Grime, the UK’s homegrown answer to hip-hop, has had a comparable effect forty years later. The East London-based subculture was created by young people who were inspired by the expressive swagger of hip-hop and the hyperactivity of London's “garage” music, synthesising the two into music that sounded contemporary and raw, much like punk. Grime has been described as “the most disruptive cultural transformation of the British music industry since punk” (Riley, 2017, pg.9). Much the same as the emerging punk scene, the grime subculture endured exclusion and otherness in a time of unprecedented violence and profound social change in Britain while maintaining a sense of subcultural belonging and eventual popular culture appeal. It is the most prevalent modern example of punk-esque angst, dealing with issues of class-based oppression and social and political upheaval, impacting and involving themselves in a society that neglected them.
In this essay, I will be comparatively examining the early forms of British punk and Grime, two Subcultures resisting against authority; I will explore their sociological divergence and convergence in relation to politics, public image, non-conformity and their paradoxical rise to mainstream success.
Grime and conventional punk both maintain subcultural relevance by sharing a politically driven, anti-establishment agenda. Punk originated as a rejection of 1970s mainstream rock, with bands like the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Damned eventually evolving into a new cultural and political phenomenon. Punk music, which arose from working-class angst, inspired a whole generation to challenge mainstream ideals and fight back in the face of war, racism, and sexism. Similarly, the government's disregard for the working class fueled a generation of young grime artists who were frustrated with authoritarian power systems that never benefited them. They created social discourse through the exposure of their subculture, spouting messages of anti-war, anti-establishment and even anarchism. Much like the early days of punk in England, these political messages were seen as abrasive and would sometimes be met with opposition and the subsequent alienation of such subcultures.
The political relationship between Punk and Anarchism is complexly interwoven and is an ideology that was frequently represented in the British punk scene of the mid to late 70s. Sometimes termed "anarcho-punks", well-known punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and The Exploited were an integral part of the anarchy movement with such Notable songs as Pistols’ "Anarchy in the UK" and “Do They Owe Us A Living?” by Crass (Dunn, 2012, pg.201). This relationship is vastly explored in a number of scholarly articles; thus, in this chapter, I will solely discuss a similar movement that has been recognised within the grime subculture.
In 2015, during his infamous impromptu Shoreditch car park show, in London, Grime artist, Skepta summoned fans to shout "Fuck the police" whilst donning a coat emblazoned with the term “Anarchy Is The Key”. This influential moment in grime’s history displayed an excellent example of the belonging-within-exclusion concept. A crowd of over 400 grime fans gathered together, belonging to one subcultural common-ground, yet they represent an overarching sense of exclusion by authoritative structures who attempted to “shutdown” the event. This exclusion is a large reason why the grime subculture created a large sense of animosity towards authority.
Another vivid example of grime’s convergence of political impact is represented in the 2017 UK general election. Artists Stormzy, JME, Skepta, Novelist and numerous other big names of grime vocalised their support of the British Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn. In the leadup to the UK general election Grime became a “vanguard of social change” with a simple hashtag, “#grime4corbyn” (Perera, 2018, pg.83). Grime artists and their fans, predominantly young, black working class, came out in support of the Labour Party’s leader admiring his concern for underrepresented segments of society.
A large majority of these young people had never voted before and, notably, an estimated fifty-eight per cent of Grime fans voted for the Labour Party (Perera, 2018, pg.83). Some argue that it is impossible to account for Labour’s success without acknowledging the role Grime played during the summer of 2017 (Charles, 2017, pg.138). These young voters who reside within the Grime subculture had experienced societal exclusion, yet managed to have a significant impact on the outcome of the election, which saw the Conservative Party lose its majority seat. The neo-punk movement of grime subculture is inciting a new form of political awareness in music, illustrating why Subcultures can represent both belonging and exclusion at the same time.
Grime shares with punk an origin within London's housing estates, a value for authenticity excluding pop sensibility and usage of media and material, accessible to the working-class. ‘‘Having adopted a DIY ethos, grime slowly but surely continues to develop its own infrastructure and industry.” (Adams, 2008, pg.481). Punk laid the groundwork for the development of the non-conformative approach to music and the concept of separation from society to find subcultural inclusion. Punk “was a deliberate slap in the face for established pop aesthetics, declaring generational independence through a carnivalesque inversion of musical value’’ (Medhurst, 1999, pg.225).
The perceived threat that punk posed to society was coincidentally framed by a release that would later become a nonconformist anthem. Although the band denied that the record's release date was planned, the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen was released on the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977. Seen as an assault on the royal family and its values, the song sparked moral panic, illustrating punks as a serious threat to public order.
The authorities considered punks to be a danger to the social fabric in a socio-political era where conformism was considered critical. “God Save the Queen'' was outlawed by the BBC, but found a strong subcultural following in its non-conformist message. “No subculture has sought with more grim determination than the punks to detach itself from the taken-for-granted landscape of normalised forms, nor to bring down upon itself such vehement disapproval.” (Hedbidge, 1981, pg.19). Despite a reputation for unruliness, the punk subculture became a target of exclusion and animosity from much of society, further polarising the relationship between the mainstream and unified members of the punk subculture.
Comparably, Grime experienced the same general condemnation. In 2005, London’s Metropolitan police created a risk-assessment document titled “Form 696” to “identify and minimise any risk of most serious violent crime happening at proposed events” (MPA, 2009, pg.1). It required the city’s nightclub promoters to give details of the events they planned to host, including a description of the style of music that would be played, and the target audience it would be played to, including their ethnicity.
It drew heavy criticism for its racist tone and was seen as discriminatory against grime and other underground black genres. (Fatsis, 2018, pg.449-450). The form was banished in 2017 by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, but institutional racism still prevailed. Form 696 exemplifies the criminalisation and exclusion the Grime subculture became familiar with (Perera, 2018, pg.87). Due to grimes inability to function legally under the institution's regimes, artists sought out ways to perform and distribute their music via underground, non-confirmative and illegal network of raves, pirate radio stations, and home-made mixtapes. Their public image was illustrated as violent and aggressive in the media. These racially motivated misrepresentations lead grime to become stigmatised and underlines their separation and exclusion from society. However, this subculture managed to counteract this exclusion and solidify itself as a growing underground infrastructure despite its misrepresentation.
At the height of these subcultures’ emerging popularity, there was a feeling of hostility in the media. With both grime and punk being misrepresented, societal and cultural rifts began to develop. The initial abrasiveness of the punk subculture in Britain was used to set it apart from other forms of normalised society. Interestingly, the middle class gradually adopted this subculture, which transformed punk media coverage to become more mainstream and accessible. “The otherness in punk was then used to reinforce a myth of sameness between punk artists and the white middle class… In the same manner, White middle-class individuals are denying their class privilege and race in order to relate to Grime music.” (Katsha, 2017) Punk was appropriated because the middle class renounced its privilege in order to relate to the lower classes. The overarching exclusion and oppression of Grime in society was also ignored to reinforce the myth of inclusion, which can also be seen as the “colorblind ideology” (Katsha, 2017). This chapter examines the appropriation of grime by comparing it to the appropriation of punk.
Despite grime's visibly negative representation among its growing audience, this subculture managed to find commercial success and evolved to become mainstream, contradicting ideals the subculture was founded on. Grime underwent a significant transformation from being seen as a catalyst for crime and black delinquency to the mainstream voice of the British youth. Grime reached a turning point around 2015-16, where it was suddenly welcomed into popular culture. Grime became transcendent worldwide with hip-hop juggernauts such as Drake and Kanye West expressing their love for the subculture and even appearing on stage with grime artists.
Growing up on a British council estate became an attractive way of life for white middle-class youth. “It could be argued that white appropriation of grime music has led to its commercial success” (Katsha, 2017). The newfound audience of grime took a liking to the style of the music; however, they didn’t bother to understand or address the bigger problems these subcultures had faced. Grime became mainstream, yet its use as a tool for expression of the black British working class was not acknowledged. When White people appropriate Black music, it “historically prefigures the mainstreaming of the form” (Green, 1999, pg.371). This has shown true for the Grime genre. The appropriation of grime has led to a larger white audience, which has inspired the positive portrayal of Grime in the media, but further excluded and displaced the authentic grime subculture.
Punk historically underwent a subcultural appropriation of its own. The subculture of punk, including its music and aesthetics, has gained notoriety as one of the most appropriated musical subcultures, which reveals a paradoxical quality considering its anti-establishment, anti-capitalist stance. “In any case, beyond the emergence of punk, many middle-class youth have appropriated its musical styles and even philosophies” (Bennet & Waksman, 2015, pg.281). Much like grime, the middle-class appropriated punk subcultures by reinforcing the myth of sameness. The subculture of punk that was being appropriated, unlike grime, was not related to race; instead, it was represented as an appropriation of social class and aesthetic.
Punks found an unexpected inclusion into mainstream society after years of opposition and media stigmatisation, however, this inclusion disregarded and misunderstood the ideologies that the punk movement was founded on and eventually forced the subculture to essentially abandon, branching off into other subordinates such as post-punk and anti-rock. Bands like the sex pistols disbanded with lead singer, John Lydon, attempting to separate himself from the mainstream, forming Public Image Ltd., which became one of the most influential names in post-punk. This paradoxical rise to commercial success represented the myth of inclusion between punk subculture and the middle class, and how, once normalised society integrated into the subculture, original punk was once again separate from the mainstream.
In this essay, I have recognised the relationship between external and internal subcultural relations and their inclusion and exclusion in society through politics, non-conformity and appropriation.
Reference List
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