An Empire Built On Stilts: UK Underground and the Illusion Of Change

Drake and Fakemink at the 2nd day of his 3 day Wireless takeover.

I watched Sinners on the Friday it came out. Just me by myself in the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton, the same cinema I've been going to since I was a child as a lifelong resident of Lambeth. It was a deeply moving experience and instantaneously thrust itself into my mind as a work of art that would live on with me for years to come due to the many threads that were so dextrously woven into the tapestry that I got to enjoy for two hours and some change. Of those many threads, what stuck out to me the most was the importance the Blues was given from the very beginning of the film to the very end, as a genre born from the unique Black American experience of the times of creation yet being able to transcend to being foundational in the creation of genres that have come to dominate the music industry today, namely hip-hop and R&B. 

However, the single most magnetic part of the film for me personally was Delta Slim, an old Blues pianist masterfully portrayed by Delroy Lindo. His character represents many things to me in the grand narrative Ryan Coogler weaves about black culture, gatekeeping and the proverbial vampirisim that invites a new audience, but I think the main thing for me is what I can only describe as the reality of authenticity. That is to say, Delta Slim is not just a Blues player, but unequivocally embodies the experiences that made the genre so singular. This is made no clearer than in the scene where he recounts the harrowing story of his friend being lynched and breaks into humming as the emotion floods back, as well as his first scene where, in conversing with Stack and Sammy, it's made clear that the only compensation he ever expects to get for his art is drink at this point of his life, speak much less of anything financial. Both these things articulate to me the indelible truth of black artistry that at its most potent and moving, there isn't much gain in the sense in which we've come to view it.

Naturally, living in a time nearly a full century after Sinners was set as well as in a different country altogether, it would be very easy for me to say that those times are long gone, and the success of contemporary black genres across the diaspora proves that true. However, when I look at the UK underground scene as a whole as its current iteration picks up more traction than it ever has this year, I don't feel the raging optimism that all those that engage with the music do. In fact, I can't help but be left with a bittersweet taste, due to what I understand to be the reality of being a musician in this climate.

To contextualise the explanation I will give for why I feel this way, I feel it necessary to trace a brief history of the UK underground's history as well as what the phrase really means.

Most people perceive the underground as a scene that starts and stops with Lancey Foux, Len, Fimiguerrero, YT and their peers namely. This is ahistorical.

These figures themselves will tell you that in their formative days of 2015-2019, there was already a scene that existed completely removed from what the mainstream had to offer, with some of the more notable names being acts like House of Pharaohs, kadiata, Oscar #Worldpeace, A2 and so many others that I could dedicate a whole article about if I get ahead of myself.

Even this phase of what is known as the UK underground wasn't the first iteration of it if we allocate underground rap its original meaning of music produced completely outside of corporate and major label influence and economies. With that working definition, there has always been a specific changing of the guards in what the youth consume from a more commercially viable, musically polished and lyrically inoffensive to a comparatively more experimental, raw and controversial (at first anyway) brand of lyricism due to the fact that in every iteration, there is an enhanced clarity and emphasis on life for impoverished inner-city black youth and the violence that is inherent in said life. This is something that can be observed in the change in mode from garage to grime, from grime to road rap, from road rap to drill, and from drill to the pressure point we find ourselves in currently where the industry seems primed for a major shakeup in that manner.

As for why this proverbial changing of the guard happens to begin with, my working theory is that there are many phenomena converging at once when black music crosses over into just popular music. But as far as the perspective I’m attempting to get across right now, I’m choosing to hone in specifically on the consumption of it from non-black consumers due to what it represents to them and the major-label involvement that to me, always marks the beginning of the end. 

It’s been established and rehashed millions of times by writers more articulate than myself that there is a fetishistic nature to the way in which black music is consumed by white people, specifically the special relationship between rap and suburban white teenage boys. It’d be irresponsible to suggest that anyone that’s suburban or white can’t in good faith engage with rap music as people with genuine appreciation for the art and the context it’s made in, but I’d be remiss if I said there wasn’t a correlation between the divorce from the class and culture of the artists who produce said music and this demographic, and the voyeuristic way in which they behave in regards to the music, artists, and ultimately black people themselves. With that being said though, this exact relationship is almost a prerequisite for black music becoming mainstream in this country. It’s something that can be observed with grime, drill, road rap, and now with the advent of social media and its subsequent erasure of barriers to entry into subcultures, the current iteration of the underground. 

And in no small part because of the feverish way that this demographic engages with the underground and how that shows up in social media engagement, it has drummed up interest from major labels who, for all intents and purposes, are the final piece of the puzzle as far as what becomes mainstream and what doesn’t. They put money and connections behind acts who have gained enough of a buzz independently to be seen as safe investments to make back the money they will subsequently sink into national and international distribution, thus catapulting the acts and the genre itself to a commercial platform that it has never had before. 

The logic of capitalism and, by default, most consumers and producers of music is that this is undoubtedly a good thing.  The shine that those at the top of the subgenre get will benefit everyone in the ecosystem from the subsequent attention that comes from something like Drake bringing Fakemink out at Wireless surely? 

In Chapter 1 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed , Paolo Freire refers to acts of philanthropy from the oppressors of society as a form of false generosity (pg.18, 1996). Not because they don’t help anyone or change lives, but because they don’t seek to change the structure that created the conditions for struggle in  the first place, but instead serve to maintain the status quo and affirm that the only way the oppressed can be helped is by becoming generous benefactors as oppressors themselves, thus furthering the belief that things cannot truly be better in any material way for the oppressed group. In this concept, I find the only framework of analysis appropriate for describing the problem with the scene as it exists today. 

The reason I say that is because of the reality that, outside of those who have worked hard enough to find themselves at the upper echelon of the UK underground and therefore on the precipice of commercial success, there is no economy for the art outside of that. So many archivists, documentarians, journalists, producers, engineers, and ultimately artists, are effectively shut out of being given any compensation for their contributions to the entire ecosystem of alternative music, to the point that many find themselves living check to check working two jobs, and in some extreme cases, homeless. Knowing that not only are labels and distributors not interested in music that won’t turn an immediate profit, meaning most underground artists are shut out regardless of talent, but that this system of survival of the most commercially viable will never change as long as we continue to latch on to the idea that if those at the top eat we all eat, it’s hard to say I feel optimistic about the state of the underground. 

Especially given that, as soon as those at the top reap the benefits of their work and major labels decide that the underground is now free game for commercial successes, even in that mad scramble for the next hit, the next signee, the next advance on the part of the artist, nothing will materially change. And moreover, not all of the ones who actually contributed to that being possible will receive compensation, but instead those who are able to dilute the essence of the music enough to where corporations can approve of and justify their place within the mainstream ecosystem based on their new found accessibility. For every 1 rapper brought out at Wireless, there are 100 Delta Slims who won’t make more than two pennies to rub together off their work, so honestly? I can’t say in good faith I’ll be partaking in this circus of discourse because the reality remains that black art and culture in this country is undervalued consistently, by consumers, executives, and in the case of artists buying into the myth of trickle down economics, producers.

References 

Freire, P. (1996). The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin.