You really have to admire the brazenness of the UK’s grime artists in their prime, as captured in this expansive new documentary film, shown as part of the BBC’s Storyville strand. We’re shown a letter Lethal Bizzle wrote for this newspaper headlined “David Cameron is a donut”. We’re shown a pirate radio station based directly above Tottenham police’s CID office, run by a man who is captioned as being “Not a drug dealer”. We’re shown Ofcom mercilessly shutting down similar stations playing grime, and yet – within 20 years – BBC Four is broadcasting this tale of the against-all-odds success story of the genre: the faster, harder, sparser form of rap music that emerged from east London in the late 90s.
This 90-minute unnarrated documentary features most (but not all) of the pioneers of the scene, including Kano, Dizzee Rascal, D Double E, Jammer and Skepta. It is directed by the photographer and film-maker Ewen Spencer, who documented music scenes for the Face and Sleazenation in the early 00s. It’s a visual feast and a glorious flick book of British street style and flair dating back to 1990 – the year this story starts. As we’re initially guided through the eras of jungle and garage, the sonic precursors to grime, we’re simultaneously exposed to what ravers really looked like back then. People genuinely used to go to jungle raves in a wacky shirt and tie – and here’s the footage to prove it.
While crew names such as Pay As U Go Cartel or a shot of a Nokia 3210 blowing up with texts date the era perfectly, there is only one bit of tech that matters here: radio transmitters. We see the blood, sweat and asbos involved in simply sharing your music with others, as well as how pivotal this was to making grime unique. As Rinse FM’s founder, Geeneus, walks us through the mind-blowingly disparate parts needed to make a transmitter, you become aware of how the struggle inherent in grime engendered so much love and devotion from artists and fans alike. As Kano states: “That kind of hustle is what separates our genre from other genres.”
Just about any viewer can learn something from the resourcefulness of the original grime artists on display. In an age before social media, MCs had to develop a signature vocal style simply because nobody knew what they looked like – including Dizzee Rascal, who demonstrates the point by trying to slip into his more yelpy teenage mode. DJ Target talks of driving from a vinyl pressing plant in a Fiat Punto so laden with tunes it almost did a wheelie. Appearances on Top of the Pops are meaningful as yardsticks of success (sadly Skepta’s Christmas appearance dressed in a full Royal Mail outfit is cruelly omitted). But, here again, it’s the content from the homespun broadcasting networks that sprang up to document the art form that steals the show. In lieu of any mainstream exposure, it was entrepreneurial DVD documentaries such as the episodic Lord of the Mics series, the MTV-esque Channel U or audio recordings of Sidewinder festival raves that helped spread the gospel. As another chronicler, Troy A Plus Miller, puts it: “Being children of the Windrush generation meant not waiting for someone. You gotta get out there and do it yourself.”
Despite the grimly predictable dead hand of the police, racist promoters and a media wanting to link artists to a rise in knife crime, what we see beyond all this is music that is undeniably on fire. There are incendiary live performances in tiny basement clubs that contain more energy in 10 seconds than 133 hours of Glastonbury coverage. The footage may be grainy but even a drone hovering in the Earth’s ionosphere could pick up the incredible power that comes when an MC connects with a crowd. It captures that rare magic when people striving in challenging circumstances use their youth, their smarts and their anger to create something so powerful and new that the world is changed for ever.
It could have done with a few more distant contributors to reasonably point out the times when the scene became bloated and a bit gross, such as when Skepta made a porn video to promote his 2011 single All Over the House. There’s no Stormzy, but really – who needs Stormzy when you have Slimzee? “Without Slimzee, grime never would have gone forward,” states Wretch 32 of the pioneering DJ, on his grace in giving a platform to MCs instead of making the nascent genre all about the beats. Slimzee shows us the eureka moment when a slowed-down jungle song informs the future murky, bass-drenched sound of grime, but perhaps more impressively, we also see through archive footage a man so physically dedicated that he risks his life climbing through lift shafts on to estate rooftops to set up transmitters for Rinse FM. Slimzee was in fact given the country’s first ever asbo and was banned from ascending beyond the fourth floor of any tower block. It’s yet another incredible detail in one of the most exhilarating stories in music – which, for the most part, this documentary tells excellently.
8 Bar: The Evolution of Grime aired on BBC Four and is available on iPlayer
