Wednesday 4 May 2011

Kids of Grime Exhibition in collaboration with Y'OH, Pure Evil Gallery

Last Sunday I had the pleasure of visiting the Kids of Grime Exhibition in collaboration with Mens street wear label Y'OH at the Pure Evil Gallery in Old Street, East London.  I was excited about the exhibition as this is the first of its kind that I have seen around.  I was also more curious, than anything, to see what and how they would recreate Grime culture in art form.

I entered the neat little gallery filled with street art to find gallery staff members in the background busily discussing art space and clients interested particular pieces.  Not finding what I was looking for I headed on downstairs to the dark basement only to be welcomed by a projection on the blank white canvas wall to the right of me.   The first image to greet me was a projection of Chronik's face on the canvas wall and I thought 'this is it, this is what I came for'.

So what was the exhibition about?  Well, Kids of Grime manages to do do what it does best and gets out there on the streets interviewing some of the most relevant contributors to Grime.  I only managed to catch about 45 minutes - 1 hour of the video footage during which interviews take place with Ruff Sqwad, JME, Chronik, Maxsta and Rival.  Kids of Grime explore open questions such as how did the artists, mentioned above, get into Grime and how they started, what do they think is Grime, the negatives and positives of the Grime scene past and present.

Having personally experienced the UK Garage scene, which was mainly UK wide, give way to the emergence of Grime, a brand new sound which stemmed from within East London post codes, I could naturally relate to the comments within the video.  The Kids of Grime video looked back to the beginning of Grime with views from Ruff Sqwad, JME, Chronik, Maxsta and Rival.  I couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic as Stratford Rex, EQ Club and Palace Pavilion were mentioned as being the go to places for MC's back in the day.  The video simultaneously looks at how Deja Vu FM was a crucial pirate radio station for up and coming East London MC's and DJ's which saw the likes of Wiley and Dizzee Rascal gain ground.  Ruff Sqwad tells how Nasty Crew would blow up the airwaves with their set on Deja Vu, Mondays 8pm - 10pm.  The exhibition also touches upon Tinchy Stryder's journey, as a much respected and successful UK artist.

When the question 'What is Grime?' was posed some of the views were interesting and relevant to Grime today.  Views ranged from the basic mentioning that it is a genre, type of music, a culture to the more technical answer of it is a 135 - 160 bpm (beats per minute) style of music.  Other views elaborated that Grime is a representation of UK Street Culture in music form, it has seen people go from pirate radio to major labels and chart hits which shows that Grime can be a powerful tool to get out of the everyday mundane London struggle.  The major response was that it is a UK sound, home grown deriving from an urban environment/situation.

Kids of Grime also covered the negative and positive aspects associated with Grime.  JME argued that 'it is harder to get love now' than it was before.
The negative argument highlights how the rave scene has died and hunger to MC has disappeared along with the suspense of waiting to hear a brand new track on pirate radio or at a rave.  This has been replaced with mp3's and Youtube's instant access culture but on the flip side it is more professional and established now, we have grime forums such as grimedaily, bloggers, SBTV and twitter to encourage the development of the scene.


Another issue raised was whether postcodes influence the scene.  The ultimate response was yes, mostly back in the day but not really now as Grime has evolved becoming largely digital and online which has caused Grime to create an impact nationwide and maybe even worldwide.

In addition to the video footage a selection of Kids of Grime photographs were displayed within the Pure Evil Gallery.  Photographs by Verena Stefanie (Kids of Grime) have captured the essence of Grime music and culture which I think is a nice touch to the exhibition.  Verena Stefanie's Photos catch MC's in action spitting lyrics mid-flow on the microphone along with shots of crowd reactions.  What I imagine to be East London's youths pose for the camera in their street wear rocking a street style unique to the UK's youths. Stefanie has a playful and attentive eye when capturing the grime lifestyle something which I assume is close to her heart and relevant within her own environment.


Overall, I was impressed with the effort Kids of Grime have gone to, to produce a positive artistic story tale of Grime music and its culture.  The exhibition successfully portrays urban and street culture in a fresh and innovative way via media such as photography and video.  Kids of Grime have effectively taken a scene which is at the moment heavily online and placed it in a quirky, street art and graffiti gallery in what an estate agent would describe as 'a hip and happening part of the East End of London' (not my words) which the majority would agree is the rightful birth place of Grime.

After checking out the exhibition I will finish by saying that at this moment Grime is and will continue to change.  Grime is digital, online, evolving, maturing and inspiring to many.  I will be as bold to say that we in the UK have found our equivalent to the US' Hip-Hop.  The urban environment will continue to change, in time we will have our Grime icons, we already have our pioneers and influences and I think the Grime scene will continue to gain a strong foothold and grow from strength to strength.  It has lasted a while now reaching almost a decade and it doesn't look like the excitement or energy will stop.  In fact I reckon it's only just the beginning...

No comments:

Post a Comment