Catch you on the rewind: a white indie kid reviews Dan Hancox's grime book

This is a review I have no right to write. An appreciation from someone who can't genuinely appreciate. Foolhardy, I know, but here goes. So I've just finished Dan Hancox's Inner City Pressure: The Story Of Grime. And here's my not-really-a-review review. First, cards on the table: grime is virtually terra incognita to me. Yeah, though I've lived in east London for nearly 20 years, I've only heard the odd album from Wiley, viewed the occasional Skepta video or Boiler Room footage of Slimzee DJing a few scratchy records ("original dub plates" as a slightly agitated MC keeps saying), and that ... is more or less it. I'm like a blank piece of paper. A silent record. Wiped master tapes! What could possibly go wrong? On the other hand, though I'm almost the archetypal "white indie kid" (the middle-aged variant) who's treated with just a hint of disparagement in Hancox's generally warm and extremely positive book, I'm also a fan of dub, ska, drum and bass, jungle etc. In other words I'm already theoretically well-disposed to grime on some basic music levels - MCing culture, Jamaican tropes, the primacy of bass, beats, echo, space and so on.

On we go then. First off: the book's a bit of a page-turner. Hancox's got a good (but not overdone) story-telling knack, weaving in compelling stuff about Ofcom's ridiculously heavy-handed surveillance of Slimzee and Geeneus to locate and disable Rinse FM's illegal transmitters, or knocking out a quick couple of pages on Skepta's "guerrilla" car-park gig in Shoreditch in 2015. It's full of primary-source stuff from key protagonists (occasionally swerving into slightly trainspotterish territory, with placement remarks about it being the "second" or "fourth" time that he'd interviewed a particular character). But on top of the "story" of grime as woven together via numerous first-hand accounts, the book's also about the dynamics of "turbo-gentrification" in London in the last 20 years. Inner City Pressure is pockmarked by gloomy stats on urban deprivation and social exclusion, reminding you what a deeply messed-up place London is.

 I can remember when all this around here was just pirate radio stations and bedroom MCs

What else? Well, perhaps most of all, Inner City Pressure charts the (relatively complicated) story of a musical genre which has effectively peaked twice - once with the pop star success of Dizzee Rascal in the early/mid-noughties, then with the much bigger 2017 Grime 4 Corbyn era of multiple grime artists having hits and wider success. Hancox's book is a fan's account, essentially championing artists who've usually had underprivileged backgrounds and, in some cases, have demonstrated a lot of tenacity in making music that was non-commercial for much of its history. A hard slog of pirate radio apprenticeships, selling self-pressed vinyl from car boots, doing home DVDs and ... hanging on in there. Fair enough, but I must admit I don't always like the pay-off. Inner City Pressure's chapter on grime's 2016-17 renaissance - Boy Better Know playing festivals, Tinchy Stryder's business empire, all the clothing lines, the sponsorship deals with the likes of Nike - this stuff leaves me cold. Hancox is quite rightly very beady-eyed about the "Silicon Roundabout" hype of Shoreditch (and the wider, post-2012, estate agent-manufactured east London of creative zones and urban villages), but I think he's a little too indulgent of the grime artists whose idea of keeping it "E3 real" is heavily compromised by their trade with the big brands. OK, it's a conundrum. And I admit I'm personally quite heavily steeped in some ancient punk-era nostrums about not "selling out". As readers of this annoying little Niluccio on noise blog will know, I'm boringly antagonistic to all but the smallest, most "DIY" of music scenes, and so-called indie music is usually anathema to me if it's being played in a venue even a tenth of the size of KOKO. The story of grime's big-ticket "breakout" was never going to sit well with me. So sorry, Dan. And sorry all you grime-heads. Inner City Pressure is an excellent book about a music scene that I'm increasingly inclined to properly check out. That doesn't mean I want to go to some heavily-hyped grime extravaganza at Alexandra Palace or the O2 arena though. So yeah, hold tight for Niluccio on noise - the refusenik not-really-indie white-boy Shoreditch/Hackney crew (of one). This reload's for you! Serious!

PS: as I post this apology for a review, I'm listening to the (still-available) stuff in Hancox's A History Of Grime In 10 Tracks, which, I reckon, is as good a way as any to discreetly ease my way toward the exit ...

PPS: not only am I ever so slightly sniffy about Hancox's book (well, sort of), I didn't even buy a copy. No! - I got it out of my local library in Homerton. Old school, indeed. Then again, I see that Hancox himself gives a shout-out to his library in Peckham where he apparently wrote "large sections" of the book. Nice. I reckon he should extend those promo talks he's been doing for the book. Never mind award-winning architectural marvels like Peckham Library, he could take in all the smaller, un-glamorous libraries in London. He could start with Homerton. Hold tight the E9 library cardholders crew ...