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Graduation

Just graduated, on Monday actually. Feeling was nothing short of a massive anti-climax; and definitely not in the sense that I'm going to have a massive crisis whilst working in a bar through Winter yearning for a shit night out and some laughing gas. I guess I just kind of want to get on with things now, partly fueled by a burning innate desire to make fast money.

Anyway, talking of fast money, I've seen a couple of interesting things recently. First of all is 4od's feature documentary 'The Crack House.'




I don't know if normal people have been going on about it as much as students but it was a fascinating insight into an environment that, although many claim to know a lot about, it is largely unknown to those with no direct involvement in it. Centred on hidden surveillance cameras in a crack den in Rockford Illinois, the film chronicles a group of young men from Chicago's infamous South Side and their journey toward monopolisation of the drug trade there. Told through the eyes of the families of those responsible for the crime itself, it is a powerful yet realistically fair account of what is happening all over American neighborhoods everyday.

Unfortunately I can't embed it, but you can watch all of the documentary here on Youtube.

Billionaire Boys Club Camouflage T Shirt

As much as I hate posting about clothes that I like (Bip Ling!), this is too good to be missed. Courtesy of Oki-ni, if I had a spare £115 this would be a forgone conclusion.

#Butterz June Zip

Glad to see that the front runners of my primary musical passion in life are now starting to get the recognition that they deserve. After entering 'Phase 2' as label owner Elijah has called it, the East London duo have finally put out their first vocal release; entitled 'Boo You,' featuring P Money and Blacks on Royal T's remix of TRC's 'Oo Aa Ee'.



Released on May 16, anyone who had ever bought something from Butterz was sent an exclusive mix CD, stickers, and the famous monthly zip file. The June zip was packed full of tunes as well as some cool photographs of the past few months at Butterz Records. Here are most of them.

Generation X

If one is to regard the last week or so as an epitome for the state of wider society, and at that humankind as a whole, it has been a rather morbid and haunting few days, especially with the critical rupturing of the second reactor at the Fukushima power plant.

Moreover, last Thursday, less than 24 hours before swathes of protestors took to the square mile once again to physically exert their disgust at public spending cuts on the window displays of Topshop and Fortnum and Masons, a 16 year old boy was stabbed 20 times in broad daylight by a group of over 10 youths in Brixton, South London. Thankfully, he was wearing a stab vest.

It is argued that Black gang violence has been brewing in the most diversely populated areas of London since the 1960s, when African and Afro-Caribbean émigrés, along with other minority constituents of the then migrant population were re-housed into the varying sarcophagi of concrete and steel that now haunt our city's skyline.

As an aficionado for all things Grime/other variants of the UK 'urban' music scene, over the last 3 years or so I have only been able to watch the extremity and, quite frankly, the brutality of gang violence permeate into the capital's urban music scene, with various factions of gangs uploading 'hood videos' onto Youtube, which, in reality, are showcases of how much credibility they think their gang deserves.



One of the major rules of the Grime scene by which all respected emcees managed to adhere by was that, it is important not to discuss explicit behaviour relating to guns/knives/drugs/violence if you were not hard enough to back it up. Nowadays, it seems that, through music, young men are doing quite the opposite. One of my most chilling discoveries was GAS Gang (an abbreviation for Grind and Stack) member John Wayne's 'Fresh Home'.

A showcase of how willing he is to use firearms against potential aggressors/assailants over a US-style hip-hop beat littered with reverberating gunshot sounds and samples of air raid sirens, and a sinister montage of council estate gun-toting.



As a natural ramification of my position as a student in Brighton, I had always naively presumed that the effigy of large groups of males cycling through London with blacked out clothes, masks and gloves was something that was purely confined to the realms of the Youtube accounts of immature gang members.



However, after 3 youths aged between just 14 and 17 jumped off of their mountain bikes to open fire on a Stockwell off licence where two rival gang members were believed to be taking refuge last week, this proved not to be the case. The first victim, a 34 year old man of Sri Lankan origin living above the shop was shot in the face.

Downstairs, London's escalating gang violence took it's youngest victim, a 5 year old girl also of Sri Lankan origin who was in the shop visiting relatives. Both are in critical condition.

Growing up in the UK's more deprived and over-populated areas therefore appears to be getting no easier. Moreover, with an increasingly marginalised and alienated younger generation faced with quickly evaporating prospects due to the forthcoming hike in tuition fees, it comes as no surprise that there were over 149 charges and over 200 arrests following the protest on Friday.

Whilst avoiding dissertation research today, I came across this.



Going by the name of Stubborn, clearly no older than 20 years of age, he delivers some poignant content with lyrics mirroring that of pre-Island records Devlin mixtapes (Tales From The Crypt/The Art Of Rolling), and a style that crawls over the beat in the same way as Kyza and a slightly more menacing Skinnyman.

It provides a well presented insight into the various issues, emotions and reflections of a misunderstood and urbanised generation facing an extremely uncertain future; and more importantly something that perhaps those in Westminster should mull over on their lunch breaks.

It's Only A Game

I remember the wry smile that spread itself across my face when reading Paolo Di Canio's autobiography around the age of 12 or 13. Anicdotes of selling his brothers bicycle in order to buy pizza and ice cream for all of the kids on the estate, as well as telling Giovanni Trappatoni, possibly the most prestigious figure in Italian football at the time to go and f*ck himself are just a few of many comically absurd highlights.

The vervacious Italian's honesty about his susceptability to, ahem, 'injury' on the eve of big away trips was however something that managed to offend me rather substantially. It was something that, as a 13 year old aspiring footballer I found rather offensive. Having said that, if there was ever to be one exception, it is without a shadow of a doubt the prospect of the recent away trip that Brazil's former stars had to endure, in order to play a one-off charity match.

In this day and age, when imagining the prospect of 'retirement' for a professional footballer, a series of rather paridisic images tend to engulf the mind's eye. Perhaps a brief spell in Qatar running rings around the standard of the domestic football league whilst getting paid the same wages as Cristiano Ronaldo? Something along those lines anyhow.

I dread to think what went through the minds of Cafu and Roberto Carlos when they were asked to play the charity match in question. Maybe, 'oh well, I guess a TV appearance is a TV appearance, even if Peter Reid and the other B-list celebrities in ITV's "The Match" are going to kick me for 90 minutes'.

It was to be nothing of the sort. Instead, the boys from Brazil were on their way to Chechnya to confront a makeshift national team captained by President and former militia leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Somehow, a team made up of Romario, Dunga, Bebeto and Cafu but to name a few managed to come away with a thumping 6-4 victory somewhat unscathed. Fantastic viewing, but also a true testament to any footballers out there who tend to shy away from the tough away trip.

GRIME IS NOT DEAD

Like any movement starting purely in the underground, the honeymoon period of exclusivity and innovation has to reach a peak before an inevitable dip towards extinction occurs.

Broadsheet journalists and their "Brap Pack" categorisation of former grime stars hitting the mainstream with shoddy euro-house productions and barely intelligible lyrics all but stamp out the last remaining embers of what was once such a raw energy pulsating through our capital's veins.



However, still flying the flag with insurmountable amounts of pride and ambition are East London blogger/DJ/record label CEO duo supreme Elijah and Skilliam, more widely known for their Butterz imprint which recently celebrated its 1st Birthday.

With their distinctive genre-hopping, instrumental take on UK Grime, cheekily loveable artwork and carefully marketed, polished releases, Butterz is heading towards becoming a cult in itself through the re-packaging of the genre into an easily consumerable, collectable product.

In terms of credentials, there is no need to reel off the various accolades to their name thus far: mixes for XLR8R and FACT magazine as well as various mentions in Pitchfork but to name a few.

The reason for this post therefore is to announce my personal excitement for the decision to repress perhaps one of the most renown instrumentals ever to grace the scene.

"Ghetto Kyote", aptly named, a beat produced originally by Treble Clef but released under the collective name of Kamikaze, has been 'blessed' by MC's such as Tinie Tempah, Kano and Devlin.

The eerie synth melodies and classic 4/4 drum loops, punctuated by a menacing sub-low bassline attenuate all of the instrumental qualities that typify the outlandish personality of preeminent Grime music.



It is important to note however that, such a reissue, as monumental as it may be for grime aficionados, is sadly never going to go platinum (as much as I would love to see Treble Clef duppy Justin Bieber).

However, this is not the point.

The fact is that the Butterz movement are taking all that was electrifying about a scene gone by; the energy, the aggression and the veracity of the music, and marketing it into something that is commemoratong an era of urban music in the UK as a whole, whilst rapidly moving it forward at the same time.