Dine On Grime / Munch on music
All my features, reviews, opinion pieces, and artist profiles in one place (the punctuation isn't perfect but the passion is!)
Diversity is inviting all manner of societal members to come and sit at the desk alongside those society deems as belonging to majority groups. Inclusion is remembering how to pronounce their names properly once they take their rightful place at the desk alongside their colleagues...
Cammy Thomas When Joy White delivered her revered presentation ‘Newham the East London grime site of a place of emancipatory disruption’ for Black history month 2019, detailing the foundations of grime, which sprouted from the roots of reggae after our grandparents migrated to the UK and laid the soil, from which a myriad of black… Continue reading *REVIEWING* Newham Talks: Kano Interviews Dr Joy White
Dr Joy White’s presentation, opened with a video she played to the audience, the video contained interviews conducted with the now revered artists Ghetts, Griminal, Lethal B and Skepta, when they were at the inception of their careers back in 2010. Locally known, but not yet internationally celebrated, Ghetts confidently states he is an artist of many genre’s but he closely relates to and loves Grime so much he...
Newham was historically known as the gateway between London and Essex, the borough also appeared to act as a gateway for ethnic minority communities to converge and coexist, as Newham became the 2nd highest diverse group in the UK in 2001 UK Census, this would have encouraged differing racial and cultural groups to bond together in the comfort of working-class relatability. In conjunction with the ethnic make-up of Newham, the borough also had the 2nd highest...
Ghetts had decided to drag the subject of colourism to the surface, between the cracks appearing within our race and the music industry. It was always going to take a fearless artist to tackle the formerly hidden issue of colourism, someone who was capable of viewing the world from differing perspectives and could deliver the message in a sensitive way. It was going to take someone ahead of his time, who was a “A Shepherd not a sheep” (as Ghetts told us, on the 2014 track ‘Man like me’) ...
It turns out I'd experienced shadeism - (derogatory comments and slurs meant to demean a person based on the shade of their skin complexion, often perpetuated by people belonging to the same racial group as the person on the receiving end) it just didn't have a name back when I got given the moniker ....
Racial prejudice isn’t always the person shouting “F*ck off back home you nig*er” it isn’t always the people chanting “Rubber lips, monkey face, wanna banana” (Yes this too happened to me in primary school) racial bias and racial stereotyping can lurk in the subtext of a conversation or in the refusal to hire someone based on their name, it’s displayed when a white woman hugs her handbag close to her chest when a black man in a hoodie walks by, it’s felt in a system set up to constantly demean and undermine a minority group
The imperialist age from 1870 to 1914 saw the British Empire divide people into the racial groups according to the laws of colonisation. These divisions were also influenced by the class system we know all too well in present day (one glance at the so called royal box at Wimbledon will show you placements in order of ranking and importance.) Today; the countries Britain once reigned are free from our law and orders and Britain stands more or less alone, but we are not completely free of the racial divides which were drawn so long ago and the effects of the past reverberate in these modern times.
Do all lives matter? Yes of course they do. After all we inhabit the same planet breathe the same air and bleed the same colour. Do people within differing minority groups such as race, culture, disabled and LGBT feel that their lives matter as much as the people within majority groups which society deems the social ‘norm’ and readily accepts with open arms? Evidence suggests – not always. The LGBT community have had their struggles throughout history such as homophobic slurs, unwarranted attacks and the denial of their civil rights which are afforded to heterosexual citizens.
Dine On Grime / Munch on music 