UK Hip-Hop, Grime and the City : The Aesthetics and Ethics of London's Rap Scenes

Rap is arguably the most popular poetic form in the world today, yet many studies approach it purely as an art form. This book fills a large hole in the literature, looking at UK hip-hop culture and the social and economic relations that have produced it. Richard Bramwell demonstrates how working class youths aesthetically represent their conditions of urban dwelling, and how they adapt this culture to contribute to inter-racial collaboration. Drawing on original fieldwork, this book examines the role that rap plays in everyday life within the city, and how the form allows young people to negotiate their way through Britain’s social and economic tensions.

Young people in London have contributed to the production of a distinctively British rap culture. This book moves beyond accounts of Hip-Hop’s marginality and shows, with an examination of the production, dissemination and use of rap in London, how this cultural form plays an important role in the everyday lives of young Londoners and the formation of identities. Through in-depth interviews with a range of leading and emerging rap artists, close analysis of rap music tracks, and over two years of ethnographic research of London’s UK Hip-Hop and Grime scenes, Bramwell examines how black and white urban youths use rap to come together to explore their creative abilities. By combining these methodological approaches in the development of a critical participant observation, the book reveals how the collaborative work of these urban youths produced these politically significant subcultures, through which they resist unfair and illegitimate policing practices and attempt to develop their economic autonomy in a city marred by immense social and economic inequalities.