UK Journal of Hip-Hop Studies – Deeper Cuts 2019.

Deeper Cuts 2019 1

What is Deeper Cuts?

Cuts is a short publication that offers a different Deeper perceptive, following the success of the UK Annual of

Postgraduate Hip-Hop studies, which was published earlier in 2019. This collection of writing focuses more on the experiences of performers in the UK, and less on academic analysis of the music itself.

Deeper Cuts includes a conversation with Northern Connection, a duo comprised of producer Noisiboi and rapper XYM, who are both from the North of England. The collection also contains work from Hip-Hop choreographer, theatre maker and dance researcher, Gemma Connell. Finally there is an excerpt Jenna Jarrett’s dissertation studying the effects of form 696 on music in London.

Note please that these articles have only been lightly edited, as we have hoped to retain the voice of the contributors.

We hope this collection will complement the Annual well, and prove a useful artefact for those studying the experience of Hip-Hop artists in the UK in the future.

Thank you for reading.

Jack Baxter and Seamus May, General Editors.

Logo created by Lydia Hunt.

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Table of Contents

What is Deeper Cuts?............................................................... 2 Made in the Manor? Discussing UK Hip-Hop’s North/ South Divide with Northern Connection.............................. 4 Between The Lines by Gemma Connell................................. 7 The Police and Government Vs Grime by Jenna Jarrett.... 17

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Made in the Manor?

Discussing UK Hip-Hop’s North/South Divide with Northern Connection.

How does being from the North affect your music?

XYM: It’s hard to pinpoint as I just try and be myself on the mic and it’s hard to know exactly what parts of myself are down to my northern upbringing. There might be a southern version of me in a parallel universe who is completely different, or the parallel universe XYM might be very similar. I hate it when people talk about themselves in the third person, but I’ve just done it! I would say my lyrics are very blunt and there’s a lot of humour in them too, which almost definitely has something to do with my northernness. Also I think my perspective is shaped by my northern upbringing. Where I’m from you’re made very aware of being a minority and being one of only a handful of black kids at school and even to some extent at the University of Liverpool, I think I probably rap about race more than if I’d have grown up in London for example, but I’ll never know for certain unless you download that parallel universe app.

Noisiboi: The style of Hip Hop I make is very wide in range, I have worked with artists from all over the world and across a wide variety of Hip Hop styles, my sound is affected more by the things I have seen and the places I have been inspired by, more than where I am from.

Do you refrain from writing about the North in your lyrics in order to resonate more with a southern audience?

XYM: Consciously definitely not, but subconsciously maybe sometimes. Although in the past the opposite has also been true. I’m aware that being from the north is somewhat of a USP down in London and my pseudonym is Da Yorkshire Rapper. Early in my career there were a few tracks

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where I hammed my northernness up, but now I have become more comfortable in my own skin, which is that of a northerner with an accent which has somewhat faded. My girlfriend reckons it’s really strong but she hasn’t met a lot of my mates from back home.

“The Beasts of No Nation, cos this Oscars so white This a shout out to Idris, it’s ridiculous right I’m a stingy Yorkshireman, all I written is tight” What has been your reception as being a Northern collective in London? Do you feel Hip-Hop in the UK is too southern and London-centric?

XYM: The reception has been good, but you’re always wary that you don’t want to be seen as a novelty. I just hope the EP is really respected for what it is, which is a dope piece of art. So far so good I think. I think the whole UK is too London-centric never mind just hip-hop. I came down to London to go to drama school and have stayed down ever since. Really for an MC and an actor there’s no other city in the UK to be in. You can get success in other cities, but there’s so many more opportunities in London, although there is more competition too. Whereas in America for example DC is the capital for government, New York for finance, LA for entertainment and San Fran for technology, in the UK London is the capital for everything. It has led to a massive brain drain from the north and I’m aware that I’m part of the problem too. Hopefully one day I can be part of the solution as well though, by creating opportunities for people in the north. Much like how the UK got rich off of other country’s labour and resources, London has got rich off of Welsh coal, Sheffield steel, Pennine cotton and Scottish oil and it’s time for some northern reparations I think, which should not come in the form of a high speed train which enables people to migrate to London faster.

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N: I feel the North has a stronger scene funnily enough, from Flame Griller to Reckless to Shotty, the list goes on.

Do you think there is a difference between northern hip-hop and hip-hop from the south?

XYM: I think because the jungle and garage scenes, from what I can remember, weren’t as big in the north, US golden era hip-hop is still more of our thing. There’s a clear link between garage and grime, but cos we weren’t listening to garage as much in the first place a lot more northern MCs are still doing hip-hop. That’s my own experience anyway.

Finally I’d like to add that with the title we toyed with Caribbean Connection as a homage to the Big Pun and Wyclef song and because we both have Caribbean roots, but we settled on the Northern Connection instead. For me I feel a responsibility to rep where I’m from, but also I want to show the wider world that the north is diverse too, even though I’m a country bumpkin it’s not as white as Emmerdale Farm or Last of the Summer Wine, not quite anyway.

N: yes, I think the North doesn’t carry as much influence from Grime and Trap as London does, our Hip Hop tastes are very mid 90’s underground, we (The UK) make NY Hip Hop better than most NY acts these days!

“I’m the country bumpkin, make nothing something Not just Black History Month when I spud and pumpkin” Our thanks to Noisiboi and XYM. The Northern Connection EP is available here: xymyorkrapper.bandcamp.com/album/northern-connection

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XYM has two EPs, ‘Spaceship’ & ‘No Tears Shed’ on the way & can be found on Twitter: @xymyorkrapper & on Instagram: @xym_the_rapper.

Noisiboi’s album ‘Phases’ will be released soon. Noisiboi can be

found on Twitter: @ItsNOISIBOI & on Instagram: @noisigram.

Questions by Jack Baxter.

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Between The Lines

The Question of Regional and Individual Authenticity in a Post-hip-hop World.

By Gemma Connell

Regional Authenticity.

It’s a topic that intrigues me given than I’m northern and, as usual, very proud of it. But it’s something that I wonder whether is actually possible when it comes to hip hop in 2019. I’m primarily speaking from a hip hop dance perspective, but here’s the thing…

I fall between the lines. That’s something I’ve realised. I’m a choreographer, a dancer, and a teaching artist. I don’t perform my work end-on, but find methods for wrapping the audience around me. I write, I find new ways to speak those words aloud, and it’s spoken words that I focus my choreography on. I’m currently undertaking my PhD in hip hop dance theatre, with aspirations of becoming a hip hop scholar. My work is profoundly influenced by the techniques that brought hip hop into the world, and yet, to the untrained eye, my work doesn’t look like hip hop any more.

2016 marked the beginning of a journey for me; both navigating and researching my place in hip hop. During my time working in the UK dance industry, I’ve noticed two camps emerging the hip hop dance arena; those who believe that hip hop dance education should be limited to the original forms of hip hop dance, such as breaking and house, and those who argue for the evolution of hip hop, in all it’s forms. I sit very much in the evolutionist camp.

Given that hip hop dance evolved from other forms, such as lindy hop and tap, for me it seems a moot point to insist on curbing its evolution now.

I see all of hip hop’s art forms sharing three key ideas; improvisation, remix and call and response. Improvisation

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is rife in cyphers for both rap and dance, call and response can be found in the original cries from the MCs who first accompanied hip hop DJs in The Bronx in the 1970s, through to breaking battles and graffiti writers vying for wall space, and remix… well, I’ll come to that in a moment. I use all of these elements in my work, although it took until 2017 for me to realise it. I’ve been dancing for almost twenty years, predominantly under the commercial hip hop banner, but the unconscious evolution of my work only became apparent to me when I started to dig deeper into the history of hip hop than I ever had before.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew the foundations; I was proud of the bank of knowledge in the form that I’d built up, and I was (and still am) passionate about hip hop education. But, I guess, this is how it goes when you’re an artist; you’re so immersed in the work that you make, so engaged in your craft, that you don’t see those evolutions until you take a step back and look at your own trajectory.

I came from a place of improvisation, having spent a lot of time participating in events at Contact Theatre in Manchester as a dancer. I developed this further in 2011, hearing the spoken word that would be riffed around Contact’s corridors I thought “I could work with that”, and proposed Flow! – an open stage improvisatory event where dancers and spoken word artists who had never met would respond to each other, creating their own call and response live on stage. Flow! began as an experiment, and then it toured, before I found myself using improvisation to words as the main thread of my own choreographic practice. These largely unplanned experiences shaped the artist that I am today.

It was in late 2016 that I came across the term “Posthip-hop” for the first time. M.K. Asante’s book It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation was a breakthrough. In it, he defines Post-hip-hop:

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Post-hip-hop is an assertion of agency that encapsulates this generation’s broad range of abilities, ideals, and ideas, as well as incorporates recent social advances and movements (i.e. the women’s movement, the antiwar movement, gay rights, antiglobalization) that hip hop has either failed or refused to prioritize (Asante, 2008).

He goes on to say: Although post-hip-hop is not about music, per se, the music that is and will be created is critical as it is the soul of a new movement, functioning as a soundtrack to a fresh set of attitudes, ideas, and perspectives. All forms of art are fundamental to the post-hip-hop generation, as art possesses the remarkable ability to change not only what we see, but how we see.

(Asante, 2008).

I interpret post-hip-hop as a movement which uses the original hip hop art forms and their techniques to address the issues that Asante mentions, although his list is certainly not exhaustive. I can’t tell you how many times I nodded my head ferociously as I read that book. At the time, I was creating a work called Somewhere North of Here, which is a solo dance performance with a soundtrack of only words.

It looks at the issues and propaganda surrounding the UK’s EU referendum and the Brexit decision, and aims to have audiences question authority once they’ve left the performance space. It uses spoken word, remix techniques as a hip hop DJ would, (I promise I’ll get to that in a minute) choreography influenced by commercial hip hop and developed solely through improvisation. To me, it’s post-hiphop. My head kept nodding.

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The subject matters that both I and Asante refer to are social issues, just as the first wave of hip hop was responding to the social issues of police brutality against black youths. With Post-hip-hop, they have now become global issues, and so the question follows: How do you achieve regional authenticity in a global posthip-hop world?

Fault Lines I promised I’d get to the remix. “The Remix” is a concept that I have been exploring over the past couple of years through my work in dance education, choreography and research. Through “The Remix” I invite audiences, workshop participants and fellow artists (who may have roots in hip hop, or may not) to rearrange the words and movements of an existing work of mine, in order to create an entirely new work. For me, this channels the primary tools of the hip hop DJ who takes elements of different musical (or non-musical) tracks and manipulates them to create something fresh.

I started exploring this as a simple way for those who wouldn’t usually engage with hip hop, to begin to understand the culture a little more. With workshops in particular, it’s an approach that’s gone down really well, as it’s a light touch way of giving the power over to people who may not be familiar with dance and spoken word; their decisions create the work, without them feeling like they should know more about either art form before being given that power.

I really pushed the limits of “The Remix” whilst I was creating another solo dance work, Lies My Parents Told Me, which consists of movement and spoken word performed live by myself at the same time. Created as a response to the growing generation gaps which mean the gender politics of the old and the young are now experiencing a sharp

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disconnect, I generated words for the script of this piece through my own writing and interviews with others of my generation. Those words were then given to another artist who was asked to re-order the words, delete anything they felt was unnecessary and then add some words of their own. This new version of the script was passed to another artist to undergo the same process, and so on. The result was a 23 minute script which I hope represented the views of a cross section of my generation.

But by using these overarching hip hop concepts, such as remix, improvisation and call and response, in my work, is it possible to achieve regional authenticity? Hip hop culture is now global and so there are elements of the culture that appear universal, such as the concept of the remix. Does the question now come down to the content of the work? For example; did I achieve regional authenticity through “The Remix” in Lies My Parents Told Me because the participants added their own slant to my work, bringing their own regional ideas and influences to the script?

Personally, I feel that sections of Lies My Parents Told Me could authentically represent the views of different regions, but given that the participants were from various places across the globe, we come back to a global representation again. It’s a tricky one. Add to this the fact that I’m from Manchester but was living in Scotland when I created the piece, and I cite my main influences as hip hop dance artists from London, and the whole regional authenticity debate finds itself thoroughly remixed.

Through Lines This conundrum has led me to ask what actually constitutes regional authenticity in hip hop. Does hip hop’s regional authenticity lie in the Grime of East London, in the G-funk of West coast rap, in the original breaking cyphers of The Bronx, or in all of the above? Is hip hop only authentic when it fully represents the region in which it was created? As human beings, I like to think we’re more

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interesting than that. I don’t believe that we’re only influenced by what is in our local region; in the global village that we now live in, it’s impossible to switch off influences from elsewhere. Instead, I would argue that hip hop is only authentic when it’s trying to push the movement forward.

Evolution through these global influences is what makes hip hop authentic, and the fact that different places all over the world have taken hip hop and ran with it in their own unique ways is exactly what hip hop is all about. If we follow this line of thought, regional authenticity then comes with a particular area’s unique response to the evolution of hip hop; how one locality can take hip hop and inflict a new twist upon it.

Why do I feel so passionately about evolution being at the heart of hip hop? The drive for individuality in hip hop demands that the next generation learn from the one above and use that knowledge in a different way, and so the form is constantly remixed. This idea was echoed for me when I interviewed Ali Mahboba, known as the breakdancing neuroscientist, in July 2017. He said: In breakdancing there’s a huge philosophy which is “each one, teach one.” For example; if there was somebody within Edinburgh who became phenomenal at breakdancing, you would hope that it would be structured in a way where their expertise is almost disseminated throughout the community to raise everyone else’s level, and then that would hopefully have a chain reaction.

(Connell, 2017) Mahboba’s words begin to demonstrate how the hip hop dance community is one which strives to develop the next generation through a passing on of knowledge. Often, that knowledge is global knowledge; it relates to hip hop’s roots and reminds the student where the form came from. How-

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ever, later in our conversation, Mahboba also talked of the concept of “no biting” or not copying of other people’s moves. He claimed that this “encourages individuality” within the hip hop community (Connell, 2017). If the aim of hip hop education is to both teach the foundations of hip hop and its subsequent evolutions, but then to encourage an emerging artist’s own spin on moves, words, music, visuals and techniques within that history, then authenticity arrives when an artist understands the history of hip hop and its influence upon them, but the individual actively changes things up a bit. As a result of this, I feel that regional authenticity isn’t the question – it’s about individual authenticity instead.

Bass Lines Let me demonstrate this idea a little further. I’ve been dancing since the age of ten, primarily in commercial hip hop. I was taught to dance by listening out for the “booms” and “kas” of the drums in music, and using those as markers for the movement to hang around. But now, instead of dancing to music, I primarily use words instead.

Those words could be spoken or recorded. They could be intentionally rhythmical, or just use the rhythms of normal speech.

I’ve always been taught that the role of the hip hop dancer/choreographer is to find the groove. With my work in spoken word, I’m still finding the groove, but I am doing it in a slightly different way. I find the drum beats described above in the words that I use as a soundtrack. A hard “t” sounds like the “ka” of a high hat, just as a voice that could be characterized as a low rumble resembles the “boom” of the bass drum.

The role of the hip hop artist is to educate and create; making new art works that encompass hip hop’s heritage, but that serve to add something unique to the canon.

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Blurred Lines My choreographic process has evolved over time; at first drawing on improvisation to words, then incorporating a call and response element between movement and words and performer and audience. Its latest development, is that of “The Remix.” Although I can track back the influences that led me to this point, that’s not necessarily obvious to the casual observer. An issue can arise with hip hop artists, however, when the influences are so obvious that a remix of something begins to look like appropriation. For example; Anthea Kraut in her book Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance, comments on Beyoncé’s music video for “Countdown” and its striking resemblance to the choreography of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Although there was a feeling that Beyoncé had simply copied De Keersmaeker’s movements, Kraut reports that Beyoncé felt differently: Beyoncé’s point is that she considered De Keersmaeker not some off-limits realm of high art, but, rather, one of many sources of inspiration, just as available as pop culture icons like Twiggy and Diana Ross. Invoking the freedom contemporary art enjoys to “use different elements and references to produce something unique,” Beyoncé implies that she possesses this same prerogative.

(Kraut, 2016) Beyoncé saw her video as a remix. So, when does a remix, a concept that is central to hip hop, become appropriation? If it does become appropriation, when does ‘regional authenticity’ or an individual’s authenticity become just a particular area or artist’s spin on artworks that already exist?

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Hip hop artists across the globe have been criticised historically for taking the works of others and reworking them into a new work of their own. However, as Tricia Rose has commented, this reworking of art, music and dance is what hip hop is based on: Hip hop replicates and reimagines the experiences of urban life and symbolically appropriates urban space through sampling, attitude, dance, style and sound effects […] Hip hop gives voice to the tensions and contradictions in the public urban landscape during a period of substantial transformation in New York and attempts to seize the shifting urban terrain, to make it work on behalf of the dispossessed.

(Rose, 1994).

It is hip hop’s re-use of other things that give hip hop artists the tools they need to make their audiences see the world differently. By re-contextualising something from another source, hip hop draws attention to it, and passes comment on it. This is what hip hop gives back to the world – a different perspective. By using the concept of “The Remix”, hip hop artists stay true to one of the culture’s central leitmotifs, whilst constantly striving to establish their own take on society.

In this sense regional authenticity, for me, becomes a point on the scale of authenticity in hip hop. I’m more interested in each either end of the scale; finding different ways to assert the individuality of my practice, whilst aligning myself with the wider culture – just as hip hop always has.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Asante, M. K., 2008. It’s Bigger than Hip Hop: The rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Boakye, J., 2017. Hold Tight: Black Masculinity, Millennials and the Meaning of Grime. London: Influx Press.

Connell, G., 2017. Interview with Ali Mahboba. [informal conversation] (Personal communication, 14 July 2017).

Kraut, A., 2016. Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rose, T., 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.

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The Police and Government VS Grime1

By Jenna Jarrett

As written by the Metropolitan Police on their website, form 696 is only for promoted events using a DJ or MC performing to a recorded background music operating at any time between 10pm and 6am in licensed premises, namely a nightclub. The form is not for live acts, outside events, open spaces or any other type of event which does not meet the stated requirements. Form 696 is a voluntary tool for management of licensed premises to submit to police in assisting the risk assessment process for their promoted event. The form needs to be submitted 14 days prior to the event to the Promotions intelligence Unit and to your local Borough Police Licensing Unit.

What is difficult to understand is that the form is only in London across all the boroughs, yet not outside of London, as stated by unknown (2008) “It applies in 21 London boroughs, but professionals in the music business, fear that if it becomes accepted, it will be copied in other cities.

Martin Rawlings, director of the Pub and Beer Association, said “I know of licensees faced with this saying they are just not going to put live music on. Form 696 is being used only in London so far, but there are similar things going on around the country, where the police are asking publicans to sign various protocols. It has gone too far, frankly.”

As mentioned before, it may have gone too far, in a discussion with So Solid’s Megaman, he makes a very valid point, Dotiwala, J. (2012) “So Solid crew were targeted a decade ago, and to this day, they are stopped by many venues from performing, it was fascinating to hear from 1 What follows is an excerpt from ‘An Analysis of the Metropolitan Police Risk Assessment Form 696 on the Live Urban Music Industry’, a longer dissertation by Jenna Jarrett.

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So Solid’s frontman Megaman, who has experienced this sort of prejudice for many years. “ If you’ve been affiliated with gangs, then the 696 form will prevent you from performing and moving forwards” he says “ that kind of thing leaves many artists disheartened and forces them to return to the negativity they were involved in before.” “I’ve only had to deal with the 595 form since 2006. Before the form came into being, it was unlawful to stop artists performing in a club. I think they [the police] introduced the form so there’d be a legal way to prevent artists from progressing.”

Mega is adamant that more compassion and forgiveness is needed. “I say to the police that we all have children and if your child makes a mistake you don’t turn your back on them. When you’re preventing someone achieving or not giving them that opportunity to excel and make something of themselves, it’s very disappointing.”

As Megaman pointed out, it is almost like a full circle, relating to grime and violence, if they are being cancelled or being prevented by the police to perform, they will go back to the negativity they were doing before, although not every grime MC is involved in violence, many of the lyrics are about violence, as pointed out by Walmsley, D. (2016) “It’s all a playground” grime MC Wiley said to me at the end of an interview once, qualifying the tough talk that came out in our discussion – of rivals he claimed stole his music, or of his use of samples of guns. It was as if he was saying: you know it’s all pretend? Likely it was an aside to me, as an outsider, who might not understand the particular context of references to violence in grime. In any case the reference to the schoolyard is revealing. Violence in grime is simultaneously a matter of fantasy and reality. References to guns, knives, beefs and war are a way of both boosting your own image at the expense of others – all while keeping the tension on a strictly lyrical level – while also reflecting a setting for the music in which the realities of gang life are never entirely absent. A track by The Essentials, “State Your Name Soldier”, took this situation to its logical extreme – it had each MC introduce their location and who they were

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repping before each verse, as if they were addressing a drill sergeant.”

Further to this point Walmsley, D. (2016) looks indepth at other grime lyrics which portray violence in a clever way, such as “Dizzee Rascal’s verse on Roll Deep’s track “Eskimo Vocal”, each line contains a sum, and if you do the math, each of those sums is a reference to a different calibre gun. 3+2+3+1equals a 9mm; 3x10+7+1 equals a .38 calibre; 9+8+3+2 equals a .22 calibre. He drops all of these sums yet the whole thing rhymes. It’s a brilliant piece of lyrical writing – dense, fast, yet subtle.”

Further to the points made in this chapter, Stratton, J. and Zuberi, N. (eds.) (2014:187) MC culture is also embroiled in the history of constructing ‘black youth’ as a problem and policing them. In November 2013 the Equalities and Human Rights Commission reported that ‘if you’re a black person, you are at least six times as likely to be stopped and searched by the police in England and Wales as a white person. If you are Asian, you are around twice as likely to be stopped and searched as a white person’ (2013, p.5). In the same month, newspapers widely reported Ministry of Justice statistics on race and criminal justice system which found that black and Asian defendants are almost 20 percent more likely to be sent to jail than those who are white. At the same time, the average prison sentence given to Caucasian criminals by courts in England and Wales is seven months shorter than those given to afro-Caribbean offenders’ (Wright,2013; see also Ministry of Justice, 2013).

Further to this point Stratton, J. and Zuberi, N. (eds.)

(2014:187-189) state the careers of some black British MC’s have often been double-edged because of hip hop and grime’s associations with criminality. The voices of politicians and MCs have sparred in different forums. In 2003, when a 19-year old Dizzee Rascal won the Mercury Prize for his debut album Boy in Da Corner, one of its tracks, ‘Hold Your Mouf’, he famously rapped the line ‘I’m a prob-

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lem for Anthony Blair’ (track 8). As Martin Clark pointed out at the time, Dizzee was speaking for himself, but also for Bow, one of east London’s most rundown areas and a centre of grime production. Clark went as far as to advocate that ‘every MP in Westminster should hear it [the album]’ (2003). In 2006 (sounding rather like a second-rate MC) Prime Minister Blair argued for the need to be ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’, while Conservative Party opposition leader David Cameron countered ‘Hug a hoodie, power to the police’ (Assinder, 2006). This call to embrace young people who wore hooded sweatshirts seemed to be contradicted when Cameron gave a speech at a British Society of Magazine Editors event in 2006 and criticised BBC Radio 1 for playing music on Saturday nights that ‘encourages people to carry guns and knives’ (BBC News, 2006). Cameron was targeting Tim Westwood’s long-running and influential hip-hop show without mentioning it directly. MC Lethal Bizzle (Maxwell Ansah) effectively became embroiled in MC ‘beef’ with Cameron when he wrote a comment is free piece for The Guardian called ‘David Cameron is a donut’ in which he retorted that he had signed teenage rappers to his record company, ‘taken them off the streets and given them something positive to look forward to’ and was ‘providing them with an opportunity to make a living out of music ‘(2006). He offered the following assessment of the problem and some sage advice: “music is not to blame: You should look deeper at what’s wrong in society and help to make changes” (Lethal Bizzle, 2006). Cameron rapped back in the Daily Mail with a piece called ‘You’re talking rubbish Lethal Bizzle… lyrics about guns and knives do destroy lives’. He even quoted some of Lethal Bizzle’s gun lyrics back to him, as rappers often do when they are beefing. Cameron did acknowledge that ‘No one is suggesting that there is a simple mechanistic connection between rap and hip-hop music and acts of violence. Ninety-nine percent of people who enjoy listening to it would no more stab or shoot someone than I would’ (2006). But he singled out ‘young and impressionable people’ who might believe that ‘guns, knives and other weap-

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ons are glamourous and make those who carry them and use them strong’ (Cameron, 2006). In 2007 Prime Minister Blair would blame a ‘distinctive black culture’ rather than social deprivation, unequal opportunities and the drug economy for a spate of knife and gun murders in London (Wintour and Dodd, 2007). In 2006 and 2007, MP’s tried to generate political capital by making a connection between violence and black youth culture in which the MC was a significant actor.

Is it coincidental that the government made a connection between violence and back youth culture around the same time that the 696 form came into play, studies show not, when things were getting dangerous, and the riots later followed, it was only legitimate that a form for public safety came into account.

The 696 form The form states it is voluntary but may affect licensing if not filled out, as pointed out by McKenna, G. and Morning, A (2009) according to chief inspector Studd, of the 17,500 licensed premises in London, only 270 filled in form 696. Of those, only 70-100 premises have the use of 696 as a condition on their license. In the other cases, filling in the form is voluntary. In 2008, no premises were closed down as a result of 696.

The form is considerably shorter than it used to be, it used to be eight pages long, focusing on ethnicity and other unreasonable questions, as stated by Hancox, D. (2016) – “Form 696’s ulterior motives have also raise concerns. One question on the eight-paged version suggested it was being used to racially profile audiences: “Is there a particular ethnic group attending? If ‘yes’ please state group”. “I’ve got a nagging suspicion that ‘Irish’ was not the answer they were looking for,” says Feargal Sharkey. The former Undertones frontman is CEO of UK music, the musicians’ rights body, and has been leading the campaign against form 696. Shar-

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key’s suspicion that black music is being targeted by the Met is supported by other leading questions on the form: “Music style to be played/performed (e.g. bashment, R&B, and garage)”, reads one section, while another gives examples of types of musical artists as “DJs, MC’s, etc.”

Further to this point they added “Last month, with the campaign taking shape, the form disappeared from the Met’s website, to be replaced a week later with a version half the length. The ‘which ethnic group’ question was suddenly absent, replaced by one asking: ‘who is the target audience? (Include here if a birthday party)’ this bizarre change seems to suggest you now need a risk assessment to celebrate a birthday. Was this alteration a tacit admission of racial profiling of music fans? Detective Superintendent Richard Martin, of the Met’s clubs and vice unit, says not: “it was removed just because I don’t think it added any value to the form.” So what is the met looking for with this form- what is its value? Martin stresses that crowd safety is the only concern: “we take account of where the event is playing, what other events might be playing nearby, the type of music that’s being played, and whether there have been problems before. We’ve had quite a few of what I consider “higher risk events” where there may be some problems- so we recommend additional searching processes and additional security to help manage the event safely”.

The problem is that the Met are lone arbiters of what kind of music is high risk. Indeed, they are capable of providing a list of “risky” genres, according to David Moynihan, promoter of the club Dirty Canvas: “I was at [a meeting] with council officials and the Met, when I was involved in putting on a community festival on the Hackney/Tower Hamlets border. The police told us categorically that we weren’t allowed to put on music that was ‘grime, garage rap, reggae or R&B”.

Although the form may seem that it is now more legitimate, apart from the one part that still causes confusion “Promoted/advertised to the public at any time before the

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event, and predominantly features DJs or MCs performing to a recorded backing track, and runs any time between the hours 1-pm and 4am and is in a nightclub or a large public house”.

Although it is sometimes in the premises licensing that you need to fill in the 696, it’s not just the venues that are being shut down but it’s mainly the events, Hancox, D. (2016) spoke to DJ Logan Sama where it was said “Kiss FM grime DJ Logan Sama has seen a number of grime and garage nights he was booked for closed down by the Met without any explanation other than references to “intelligence about an incident”. This isn’t good enough, as far as he’s concerned: “closure is not a realistic option – you can’t just stop things happening because there’s an implied threat there. It’s very draconian. I was supposed to be playing in the grime room at the Music for You festival and the police actually said “you can’t have a grime room”.

In a direct interview with John Smith he made some extremely valid points, Smith, J. (2016) “There’s some things that I have an opinion on in the form, they’ve changed it quite a bit, I mean I don’t see what the relevance of predominantly MC’s or DJ’s has, I guess the thing is DJ’s can be anything but I don’t really understand when you have to fill it in and don’t, it seems to me a not very useful thing, the thing is if you look at events where they have DJ’s or MC’s performing to a backing track there’s thousands of them I’d say every week, but I don’t think thousands of 696 forms are filled in so I don’t really understand what fills the criteria to fill it and that’s probably the issue that lots of people may have, people feel rightly or wrongly that the kind of music their playing is targeted more, for example how many disco nights or indie music nights even though there’s DJ’s playing have to fill in 696 and that’s why many people have a feeling on the form, it feels like it’s targeted at certain genres and race, and with those genres probably have a higher working class rate of people, maybe a higher number of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds and

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that’s the problem that a lot of people have with the form is that, like I said, in this day and age say a disco night the people that are going to go to that are more middle upper class and they don’t get 696’s directed at them, it’s a case of people feeling rightly or wrongly that it’s aimed at certain social, economic, racial backgrounds.”

Drawing on that quote, he states that there is a lot of confusion on when to and when not to fill in the form and this is the issue many people seem to have, he also adds that it seems it is aimed at certain social, economic and racial backgrounds and makes a great comparison between disco and indie nights not necessarily needing the form but from what we can tell so far, more urban nights needing the form which can be seen as racially targeting the genre of grime.

The met police use a grading system from low risk to high risk and in January 2015 the statistics were as followed, (Freedom of information request reference no, no date) “ The 2015 risk assessment register shows a total of 143 form 696’s submitted for events due to take place in January. The breakdown of these is as follows: 103 of the total were graded as A – Low Risk (1 event cancelled), 16 of the total were graded as B – Medium Risk (1 event cancelled), 23 of the total were graded as B* Medium Risk (1 event cancelled) and 1 of the total were graded as C – High Risk (also shown as cancelled).

The one thing that the Met police do not explain is the reasoning behind the grading criteria for the events which would be extremely insightful, for promoters themselves to amend changes to make the event less likely to be cancelled. The only statements offering some kind of explanation are as followed, BBC (2009) “Police say evidence shows trouble is most likely at music events when DJ’s or MC’s perform to a live backing track at late – night clubs. ‘ Detailed research identified which events are most like-

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ly to attract crime and disorder’ a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan police told BBC news. ‘At the end of the day, you’ve got to say that certain events attract more trouble than others, were shifting the focus away from live music.

Originally the definition of what Form 696 applied to was extremely broad so by narrowing it down, it’s thought that we can better tailor it to our requirements’.”

But again, this is also very concerning to urban music, BBC (2009) “Club promoter Rod Gilmore, who has put on the Doctors Orders hip-hop night in London for fourand-a-half years, said the new criteria would target urban music. ‘ Reading between the lines, the indie kids are all right but we’ve got to look out for those black boys with microphones in their hands’ he said. ‘Saying its over recorded music with DJs and MCs really narrows it down’. Most promoters, performers and venue owners were responsible, he said, but added that Form 696 was not effective at cracking down on those causing problems. ‘I’m keen for the dodgy promoters who get a bad crowd and therefore create this impression of evil urban music to be found out because that’s the only way were going to clean things up. Unless we keep our own house in order, we’re all going to get tarred with that brush. If form 696 was effectively closing down parties that had trouble then I’d be more supportive of it. I’ll fill it in when asked to but I don’t think it’s doing what it set out to.”

Readers will have noticed that there is a lot of opposition to the form and disagreement and anger at what the Metropolitan police are targeting. When the form was first introduced and it asked what ethnicity was attending, there was uproar and a petition was started by Jon McClure, which was successful and reached over ten thousand signatures.

Bychawski, A. (2009) adds “The form, which police ask some gig promoters to fill out when they are organising live events, used to ask for details of the ethnicity of fans

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attending the event, plus the style of music set to be played.

The ethnicity question was removed in a revision following objections from many promoters, bands and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, now the question about the style of music to be played has been removed.”

Lots of artists themselves disagree with the form too after having their shows cancelled by the police, but it’s not only Metropolitan Police that cancel events, City Police also cancel events due to the form 696.

Case Study – Just Jam

The 696 has affected many live events, some more high profile than others. One such event is Just Jam, where they were meant to put on an event at the Barbican, with various acts, as explained by Smith, J. (2016) “So we started it in 2010 I think and we came up with the idea in 2007, the original idea was going to be from a warehouse over four floors and a stream that lasted over a week, with loads of musicians and with a mobile phone company, we got quite far down the line with the creative plans and then the credit crunch happened and it was around 2008 when we were pitching it to them then the credit crunch happened, and the mobile phone company who I won’t name, slashed all their marketing budgets and canned the project, so we kind of decided we were going to do it ourselves, in 2009 or 10 we started streaming from The Alibi, we did fifteen shows from there, it was amazing, but we wanted to be more creative and do more blue screen stuff and we wanted more control over the creative and doing it in a club was just mad. So we moved it from The Alibi to a studio in Dalston and we’ve been doing it there since and I guess we carried on developing it creatively until 2014 when we decided we wanted to get back out there because we had the creatives, we wanted to engage with audiences again, that’s when we started talking to the Barbican, we were supposed to do our first show there but it got cancelled, did the second show which was a big success and off the back of that we have done shows at Somerset house, The ICA, Outlook, Born

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and Bred festival and this year we have a show coming up at Electric Brixton and a couple of other shows that aren’t announce apart from Outlook festival again.”

In 2014 Promotion Company Just Jam (as explained above) were due to put on an event at the well-known venue Barbican, as explained by Murray, R. (2015) “ Located in one of London’s true creative corners, the Barbican fuses challenging line ups with a commitment to working with the surrounding community. Just Jam paired up with the Barbican, aiming to throw a party on March 5th. Ticket sales were strong, no doubt in part to a sterling line up which contained everyone from Mount Kimbie to grime kingpin JME, Swamp81 don Loefah to Chunky. Sadly, it seems that co-operation with the City of London police has broken down. In a statement, Just Jam has confirmed the event will now be called off. ‘It’s with great regret that we have to announce that the Just Jam event at the Barbican has been cancelled. We wanted to put on a diverse range of electronic music and art and are very disappointed that concerns raised by the City of London police mean that the event has been called off. We’re struggling to understand why this has happened and will try to start a dialogue with the police so we can discuss whatever issues they have with Just Jam at the Barbican. The workshops we’ve recently ran with the Barbican in Fellows Court in Hackney have shown how the artists we work with can get young people from all backgrounds excited about making art and music, we hope to continue working on this and on other projects, with the Barbican in the future. Sorry to disappoint ticket bookers, we had sold over 1000 tickets to the event and it was widely expected to sell out. All ticket holders will receive a full refund from the Barbican. If you paid by credit or debit card the refund will be automatically credited to your account.

If you paid by any other method you will receive a cheque.

Once again we would like to thank everyone who has been involved in this project. We have some very exciting projects coming up. Watch this space #JustJam.”

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Further to this statement the City of London police issued a statement with their explanation Murray, R. (2015) “City of London police have just issued a statement outlining the reasons behind the cancellation. Whilst emphasising that the final decision remained in the hands of the Barbican. The statement reads: City of London police understands the disappointment that people will have over the late cancellation of the proposed Just Jam event but the force raised concerns regarding the management of the proposed event. Officers expressed concerns based on a number of factors that could compromise the safety of people who planned to attend. These included the fact that alcohol would be on sale at an event which would be allowing entry to anyone aged 16 or over. Additionally, there were worries about the lack of adequate measures in place to address potential issues that might arise, including overcrowding if more people decided to attend than the venue could cater for. Ultimately, after consultation the decision to cancel the event was taken by the Barbican as the venue.”

In a further article Just Jam organisers spoke out on the cancellation, Hall, J. (2014) “John and Ian , meanwhile, seem baffled by the cancellation. ‘ We wanted to put on an evening celebrating a diverse range of electronic music and art’ they said,’ and we are very disappointed that concerns raised by the City of London Police mean that the event has been called off’. Nobody quite seems to know what the reasons for the cancellation are. According to a tweet from JME, the police said: ‘we have intelligence to assume a major incident was planned to take place at the event that was a risk to public safety’. The City of London Police didn’t have anyone available to comment by the time this article was published, and their spokesperson seemed confused as to where that quote might have come from, but they did release a statement in which they cited the fact that ‘alcohol would be on sale at an event which would be allowing entry to anyone aged 16 or over’ along with ‘worries about the lack of adequate measures in place to address potential issues that might arise, including overcrowding if more

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people decide to attend than the venue could cater for’.

Needless to say, the police didn’t seem concerned about these issues at the Barbican on any other night of the year.

There are no age limits on attendance at Fridays show, for example, at which violinist Maxim Vengerov will perform Beethoven- and the bar will presumably be serving alcohol then as it does every other night. Nor are they worried about the hundreds of 16+ gigs that go on across central London every week. As for overcrowding, the Barbican is a well-established venue that deals with sold out crowds on a weekly basis. There were still tickets available for the Just Jam event when it was cancelled. But London authorities have a long history of forcing the cancellation of events featuring grime artists.

Talking on his experience with the cancellation Smith, J. (2016) “I seem to remember that the official reasons were that it was open to under 18 year olds, it was an over 16 event and they were serving alcohol so they raised that as a concern, although to my knowledge that happens at every barbican show, where it’s over 16’s. Another reason was that they were worried about overcrowding; if you search online you can find the press release. (See earlier on in chapter).”

Further to John’s point, and the police saying the Barbican made the decision on cancelling the event, he said “It seemed to me, in my opinion the police made the final decision, it felt like although they didn’t tell them they told them, if that makes sense, they were advised to cancel. I think the fact that the Barbican approached us to do it again shows that they wanted the show to go on, I would say that but it’s very difficult to have an opinion. Not to have an opinion as such but to know for a fact, I only have my opinion, so what I could tell is that the venue wanted to do it, otherwise they would not have approached us again.”

John also spoke on the venues 16+ policy “The reason the event was 16 plus is because that’s the Barbican’s policy, I’ve thought about this a lot and what the concern was, and

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all I can think is that maybe other events that are 16 plus, let me give you an example, if it was the ballet or an opera, if a 16 year old is going to that, I’m generalising here to make an example, but I’d say that that 16 year old would probably be going with their parents, whereas if they’re coming to Just Jam they’d probably be coming with their mates, I can see that that may be a concern to police and it seems a fair enough concern but then you are drawing into question the Barbican’s capability to run an event, they know how to ID, so I don’t see what the issue was, 16 year olds aren’t our target audience, I’d say it’s more 19 – 25 or maybe 18 – 25 it was the Barbican’s standard policy to be over 16.”

When asked on where he sees the future of live events alongside the 696 form, John offered an extremely insightful answer, “ I would like to say that things are going in a positive direction, but in the past few months quite a few venues and nights have been targeted, it’s not as simple as the 696 but licensing comes into it, Dance Tunnel announced it was closing due to licensing constraints and it not being financially viable for them, so it’s not as simple as the 696, licensing plays a big part. I think that people generally over sympathise this subject and in a way that the police are the ‘Baddies’ as they are shutting down stuff for no reason, I don’t think that’s true, I don’t feel that way, they have a job to do and ensure public safety, I completely understand and respect that but however within that you need to be unbiased and a lot of people issue with both licensing issues and the 696 is that these things don’t appear to be unbiased, so I don’t know about the future, I mean over half, I believe, there is half the number of clubs that there were 10 years ago, I don’t think that’s all to do with licensing, at the end of the day festivals play a big part in that too, festivals come along and have a lot of money and say to an artist you can’t play anywhere in London for a month or anywhere at all for a month as they are paying astronomical fees, now that means it’s very difficult for club promoters to put on a viable night and it means less people coming into the clubs as more people are going to festivals.

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I think that it’s a very complex subject and I have various opinions on it, and I think that there are things that can be done by everyone from DJ’s to promoters to councils and police and festivals that could make things a bit more of an even playing field, it’s quite a scary prospect whether it being any of the things I’ve said. The three major things for me, I think festivals are a bigger problem than licensing or the 696, you know, we are getting to a stage where clubbing may become something quite niche or underground or difficult to do, quite specialist and that’s not good for electronic music, a band can play live whereas electronic music you really need a DJ to communicate that and for scenes to evolve you need ways to communicate to your audience, radio is in a really interesting place with people like Radar and NTS, I think radio is kind of making the scene after the death of pirates, internet radio is now blossoming and impacting on the scene and I’d like to think that whatever is going on with club land at the moment, it will find its own.

These things never die, they just change the way they manifest themselves, I think it’s a sad time that amazing venues like dance tunnel, I’ve never put on a night there but you can always find me there, that’s because they curated really good music and nurturing growing talent and places like that shutting and nights being shut down it’s the job of the council and the police, to strike a balance between creating a safe environment for people and making sure that public safety isn’t compromised, I fully understand and support that, what’s more problematic is when those decisions are made for reasons other than public safety and for reasons on some kind of prejudice.”

Conclusion: The Future for live music alongside the 696 As long as promoters keep putting on urban nights, there is always going to be the 696 form in the background, hopefully the police will start to make it clearer when the form is needed and when it is not needed and give full explana-

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tions on why they cancel the events unlike at the Barbican where it seems they shifted the blame over to the venue and there seemed to be some contradiction but John offered his side of the story to give some transparency on the situation.

But to avoid getting in trouble himself, he seemed nervous to broach some subjects in case the police then targeted him further which is a very sad realisation.

With grime becoming a bigger and bigger genre, it is becoming more widely accepted, with artists such as Skepta reaching out to America and co-signs from US stars Drake and Chris Brown endorsing and collaborating with UK underground artists, it is only going to be a short while before many grime artists are even more in demand with more and more shows, surely it will be harder for the Metropolitan and City police to cancel such events with high demand.

The future of grime is looking more positive than ever as pointed out by Hancox, D. (2015) “The likes of Skepta, JME and Wiley have naturally assumed the role of mentors – so when Kanye texted Skepta on the day of his Brits performance in February and asked him to bring 30 guys to join him onstage, he brought Boy Better Know – but he also brought the next generation (including Stormzy, Novelist and Krept & Konan, all profiled here). It was a performance layered with poignancy – finally, at the UK music industry’s most staid awards ceremony, here was the platform for black British music that had been absent for so long: and it had come not via the industry but an American megastar.

The Brits stage invasion coincided with what feels increasingly like a mass epiphany, imparted from elders like Skepta and resonating ever louder among the youthful energy of the MCs and rappers assembled here. This time it’s the generation that grew up listening to Dizzee Rascal and Wiley in the playground, or seeing So Solid Crew perform at the Brit awards in 2002, which are coming through.

Stormzy says:

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It’s like everyone’s just clocked at once: hang on, fuck that, we’re sick – we are sick. My tracksuit is sick. My grime freestyle is sick. The way I do things is sick.

When you’ve realised that, why would you pander to what anyone else wants?

The future is positive, if only the 696 does not hold back the power of grime, but realistically it can’t, if the public want it and there is a high enough demand, regardless what MC’s may have done in their past that the police may say affect trouble expected at performances, they are trying to better and further their careers and make a positive change, the police should embrace this!

Anyone who says grime is a bad influence on youths of today, needs to take this final quote into account ,Yates, K. and Shukla, N. (2011) “ There are Grime MC’s who don’t realise there are 7-year-old kids who can’t spell their names but know all your bars off by heart – Charlie Dark”.

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Bramwell, R. (2015) UK hip-hop, grime and the city: The aesthetics and ethics of London’s rap scenes. United Kingdom: Routledge.

Bychawski, A. (2009) Metropolitan police form 696 revised following musicians’ pressure. Available at: http://www. nme.com/news/various-artists/47164 (Accessed: 12 May 2016).

Dotiwala, J. (2012) ‘The trouble with 696..’, The Voice Online (March), .

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Hall, J. (2014) Why did the city of London police cancel the just jam event at the Barbican? Available at: http://noisey. vice.com/en_uk/blog/why-did-the-city-of-london-policecan-the-just-jam-event-at-the-barbican (Accessed: 12 May 2016).

Hancox, D. (2015) How British MCs found a voice of their own. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/31/british-mcs-stormzy-jammz-little-simzkrept-konan-novelist (Accessed: 12 May 2016).

Hancox, D. (2016) Public enemy no 696. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/jan/21/police-form-696-garage-music (Accessed: 3 April 2016).

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McKenna, G. and Morning, A (2009) Met police to educate on controversial form 696. Available at: http://www. morningadvertiser.co.uk/Legal/Licensing-law/Met-police-to-educate-on-controversial-form-696 (Accessed: 10 May 2016).

Muir, H. (2016) Rapper who killed producer for ‘disrespect’ gets 30 years. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/ uk/2006/nov/03/ukguns.musicnews (Accessed: 27 April 2016).

Murray, R. (2015) Just jam x Barbican event cancelled. Available at: http://www.clashmusic.com/news/just-jam-xbarbican-event-cancelled (Accessed: 12 May 2016).

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Smith, J. (2016) ‘Cancellation of the Barbican - Just Jam Case Study’. Interview with Jenna Simmons for 26 April, Stratton, J. and Zuberi, N. (eds.) (2014) Black popular music in Britain since 1945. United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing. unknown (2008) How form 696 could pull the plug on the capital’s music scene. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/ how-form-696-could-pull-the-plug-on-the-capitals-musicscene-1028240.html (Accessed: 10 May 2016).

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