You almost certainly know the story, so I’ll keep this brief.

Just over a week ago, MTV Base UK aired a show about the UK’s top ten MCs, a list picked by a panel of industry heads including Logan Sama, Ras Kwame, Charlie Sloth and Stanza.

Here’s the list:

1. Tinie Tempah
2. Dizzee Rascal
3. Skepta
4. Pro Green
5. Wiley
6. Giggs
7. Devlin
8. P Money
9. D Double E
10. Chipmunk & Lowkey

A fairly predictable list, given that it’s focused at the more commercial end of the ‘urban’ market. A couple of things that were unexpected:

a) Lowkey is included, in spite of being an unsigned and outspoken hip-hop artist, and in spite of having received zero support so far from the ‘industry’.

b) Ghetts isn’t included, in spite of being widely recognised as one of the best (and maybe *the* best) lyricists in the scene.

Anyway, it’s just MTV, so who cares, right?

Well… Ghetts cared. He took the thing personally, and maybe, just maybe, saw the opportunity for a bit of free promotion. In a world where internet hype is everything, why not put out a new track about how pissed off you are, shoot a video, upload it to Grime Daily, and release the single on iTunes?

In case you didn’t already hear Ghetts’s complaint:

Ghetts turns his rage towards a few people:

• P Money: “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t know who P Money was.” [Kinda true, although P has got skills]
• D Double E: “As for D Double E, he ain’t done shit but light up a set” [Streetfighter was big still, although not very original for those of us that grew up listening to Skibadee lyrics]
• Professor Green: “I like Pro Green, but when I paid for his album, two words: daylight robbery” [I agree]
• Lowkey: “Lowkey must have had someone on the inside. Yeah that’s it, obviously.” [Umm… not really]

Personally I think the line about Lowkey is just a throwaway comment; Ghetts was probably just genuinely surprised to see Lowkey on the list and probably didn’t know much about him. I’m guessing the lyric had more to do with the fact that ‘obviously’ rhymes with ‘robbery’ than any real disdain Ghetts has for Lowkey (and by no stretch of the imagination is it a ‘send’). But anyway, Lowkey clearly took offence. A week later, after a good deal of egging on from his fans on Facebook, he releases this:

It’s an interesting track. Using Ghetts’s classic ‘Top 3 Selected’ beat, Lowkey keeps focused mainly on his own role within the music industry and the fact that he has earned wide popularity with no support whatsoever from MTV, BBC, Kiss or any other major media outlet.

Of course there are a few jibes directed at Ghetts:

“Never would I side with Lockheed Martin… I don’t make tracks for David Cameron.” [This is a reference to Ghetts’s ‘Invisible’ track encouraging ethnic minorities to fill in the 2011 census – a big topic for another time]

“Top 3 Selected, yeah you was hot then, but what about now when you can’t make top 10.”

It feels like Lowkey isn’t sure if he’s directing the track at Ghetts or at MTV. He should have just rolled with the MTV option in my opinion, but there you go. Lowkey takes a conciliatory tone towards Ghetts in the outro, and makes his point strongly:

Don’t get it twisted; I didn’t make this track to prove Ghetts wrong, cos he was right – he *is* one of the best MCs that this country has ever seen. But I did this track to prove myself, cos so am I. Understand this: MTV put me tied with Chipmunk in that list for one reason and one reason only: friction. And listen carefully to the next thing I’m about to say. As far as I’m concerned, MTV Base never has to mention my name again. I don’t need your support. Yeah? Recognise. Existence is resistance.

I think Lowkey’s response is decent (and no doubt the flows are sick – if he did it to prove himself as an MC, well, mission accomplished), but a much better response to the whole thing would have been to do a collaboration track with Ghetts about this ridiculous music industry that doesn’t work for any of us. That would have been a much more positive outcome; it would have inspired, motivated and educated people, and would have helped a lot to build unity between different subcultures within our wider youth culture.

Ghetts is a major figurehead of the grime scene, and Lowkey is a massive part of the political hip-hop movement that is a growing force within UK underground music. What better pair to lead the unity?

Although there’s plenty of overlap, these two subcultures have some obvious differences and there is a clear lack of unity as it stands. Grime arose from the estates, from the pirate radio scene, from young working class (and primarily black) teenagers expressing themselves and developing a fresh new culture and the businesses to go with it (labels, gigs, websites etc). The audience for political hip-hop has tended to be a bit more student-y, a bit more white, Arab and Asian, a bit more politicised, and often focused around anti-war sentiment.

The differences between the scenes have led to a quite serious division, which the state and media obviously understand very well and are eager to exploit (this is clear from MTV’s decision to put Lowkey and Chipmunk in joint tenth place). We all have to be careful not to allow ourselves to be manipulated by people whose only interests are to silence positivity, disrupt unity and get rich off the back of other people’s talent.

The lyrical narrative of the two scenes is different, no doubt, but both are putting forward valid ideas that need to be heard. Radical hip-hop pushes important political and social concepts in a very innovative way, and inspires people to reflect deeply on the world they live in and to act to improve it. Grime focuses on the harsh realities of life for people who are constantly trodden on by society but who refuse to be ground down.

Yes, the story grime tells might be ugly at times, and may offend people’s moral frameworks (guerilla capitalism isn’t everyone’s cup of tea!), but nonetheless it’s a representation of real life, and is a form of loud cultural expression for people that the mainstream would absolutely love to ignore. Meanwhile there are issues such as police brutality, government cuts, racism and the exploitative music industry, which are shared ground between the two scenes and which are an important basis for bridging the gap between them.

Are there real problems with some of the lyrical themes in grime? Sure. There is no shortage of misogyny, of glorified black-on-black violence and more. But how can people address those problems except by reaching out and developing a context in which real discussion and progress can take place? A collaboration track would be a great step towards that; a Youtube diss is not.

Young people from working class and non-white backgrounds are rightly very sensitive to criticism, given that the media, the education system and the ‘justice’ system are highly prejudiced against them. P Money says it well: “Now I can blend with the wealthiest guys / My life’s a sin but look what I made of it / See you won’t understand / Only the guys on road can hear what I’m sayin, innit”. His message is clear: don’t judge me, cos you’re not from where I’m from; you don’t know what it feels like to be poor in a world that constantly dehumanises poor people and puts rich people on a pedestal, so don’t hate me for doing whatever I need to do to not be poor any more.

So the barrage of anti-grime criticism that’s been fired off since Ghetts released ‘Who’s on the Panel’ is extremely unhelpful. We need to learn not to judge but to relate to people and to lead by example. The fact is that the mainstream, the government, the corporations hate *all* our culture. If it was up to them, you’d have never heard of Lowkey *or* Ghetts. The two scenes have a lot to gain from each other and a lot to learn from each other.

In terms of creating the unity we need, Lowkey and Ghetts are uniquely well positioned to take the lead and set the right example. The mini-beef between the two has already led to some despicable racist anti-black slurs against Ghetts from some of Lowkey’s ‘supporters’ (and a fair few anti-Arab and anti-Asian retorts). This could easily have been avoided if Lowkey and Ghetts had just done a track together instead of getting bogged down in childish verbal warfare on the internet.

Hopefully that collaboration can happen soon. Better late than never.

Twitterland seems to be full of people talking about Wiley and Jay Sean’s little online exchange, and a lot of people are accusing Wiley of racism.

I’ve no idea how the beef started, but the “racial banter” (as Wiley called it) started when some Asian Jay Sean fans sent Wiley abusive tweets. “Asian people tried it with me I’m allowed to talk back”.

Wiley’s retort to the Jay Sean fans unfortunately included some pretty silly playground taunts (which, as a half-Asian, I am all too familiar with).

– “i will throw Bombay potatoes on you”

– “your mum makes a dodgy korma”

– “Stop chewing beetle nut on the bus it smells”

Not exactly the kind of brilliant inventiveness that Wiley used to create the grime scene, but there you go. For the record, my house *does* smell of curry right now, cos I just made a very tasty aloo gobi.

In response to accusations that he was racist, Wiley explained that he had love for Asians and was just engaging in a bit of “racial banter”, which, he correctly pointed out, is not uncommon in London.

– “come on you know me i wouldnt wait 32 years to be racist”

– “lol at you idiots getting over excited instead of understanding the meaning of ethnic banter”

– “I love the Asian community minus Jay Sean trust me bug up Preeya she is so special”

Wiley finally pulled the plug on his 24-hour rant this evening, phoning into the Bobby Friction show, and later tweeting: “hold tight the jay sean fans you love me really lets get some unity going on im ready to chill out now its all love and banter racial banter”

It’s important not to blow Wiley’s rant out of proportion. People labelling him as a racist and likening him to the far right is unhelpful and only feeds into the lack of unity in our communities.

Wiley reveals the root of his grudge pretty clearly when he says: “im sorry but your race do act like they are above black people no lie”.

Frankly, he’s right about this. Many Asians *do* act like they are above people of African origin. I know from personal experience that there is deep-seated prejudice against black people in the Asian community, and this is a very real problem in terms of creating the unity that we need to move forward against oppression.

Wiley brings up another touchy subject when he says: “you all are starting to act blAck talk black fuck off tho cos I am black so I see who tries to be like us and ur haircuts are so swag and they way you wear ya hats deadout”

That is: not only do you look down on us, but you do it at the same time as biting our music and culture (and, in Jay Sean’s case, getting rich in the process).

Without necessarily meaning to do so, Wiley has brought out some very deep issues that need to be addressed. The fact is that the Asian community does pride itself on its economic success and the fact that Asian children tend to thrive in the education system. Many Asians see that African Caribbeans have not had the same economic and educational successes, and put this down to some kind of racial inferiority, without seeing the systematic racism, victimisation, criminalisation and prejudice that is designed to keep the descendants of slaves at the bottom of the heap.

The whole situation is strongly reminiscent of the media storm that happened in the US when legendary rapper Ice Cube (formerly of NWA) made the track ‘Black Korea’, in response to the brutalisation of black customers in Korean groceries.

Every time I want to go get a fucking brew
I gotta go down to the store with the two
Oriental one-penny-counting motherfuckers;
They make a nigger mad enough to cause a little ruckus.
Thinking every brother in the world’s out to take,
So they watch every damn move that I make.
They hope I don’t pull out a Gat, try to rob
Their funky little store but, bitch, I got a job.

So don’t follow me up and down your market
Or your little chop suey ass will be a target
Of a nationwide boycott.
Juice with the people, that’s what the boy got.
So pay respect to the black fist
Or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp.
And then we’ll see ya
‘Cause you can’t turn the ghetto into black Korea.

The lyrics were obviously problematic and divisive; but nonetheless they brought out an issue that actually existed and needed talking about. Meanwhile, the reaction of mainstream US was to label Ice Cube as a murderous racist and to push for a ban of his music (thus conveniently avoiding the issue of racial disunity and how it can be overcome).

The best response to Wiley’s rant is not to chastise or alienate Wiley, or to label him as equivalent to the far right; it is to reflect seriously on the issues that have been raised and to move forward in the spirit of unity. While we fight amongst ourselves, the power structure of this country (which is overwhelmingly rich, white and male) laughs itself silly and enjoys the thought that nobody is going to seriously challenge it any time soon.

Check this phenomenal track from Durrty Goodz (a brilliant and massively underrated rapper) about the trials and tribulations faced by many kids on the estates: friends getting shot, relatives addicted to hard drugs, schools teaching nothing but irrelevant facts, broken families, and lack of opportunities.

The concept is very innovative: you hear Durrty in conversation with various young people from his area, discussing their problems with them. Here’s an excerpt from the first verse (child’s voice is italicised).

So what d’you wanna be?
Mmm, I ain’t sure yet, but trust me you ain’t asking no fool
I just passed my SATs, soon be in the last year of school
Probably go college, go uni, do my masters and all
Gwaan blood, that’s what I like to hear
So what’s your school sayin’, does it teach you about life out here?
Does it teach you when you leave there will be strife out here?
With peeps breeding and conceiving off the white out here?
Ya laughing, but it’s not right out here
Every day’s another struggle and a fight out here
They’d better teach you how to stand up for your rights out here
Cos they don’t teach you how to go to sleep without nightmares
Do they teach you this?
No, they don’t talk about that
Or talk about crack, or talk about black,
Or how we can try and make our way out these flats
They give speeches on the death of Macbeth and that
(Oh my gosh) And I couldn’t care less cos that be wack
I’d rather listen to rap, then teachers should get the sack
Yeah, I feel you blood, but ‘ere wot, don’t get all flared up
I’m a give you a lickle advice to get prepared up
I see you got the hustle but for you to get the bread up
When you see the feds, duck, but walk with your head up

Towards the end of the track, you find out that instead of speaking to other young people, he is in fact speaking to himself, reflecting on his own childhood and how he made something of his life in spite of poverty and prejudice.

They don’t know that mathematics for me is a quick task
But to flow poetry I used to ditch class
But you can make a pretty future out of shit past
Do you believe me, kid? Kid?
Shit, I’ve been talking to myself again
Daydreaming as I been walking by myself again
Thinking what I came to be, cos that kid was me

Don’t give up; rise up!

—
You can download Durrty Goodz’s album ‘Born Blessed’ for free from his website www.therealdurrtygoodz.com.

This is a great example of positive underground London music celebrating youth culture and diversity. Big ups to True Tiger and P Money.