Abstract
AbstractThe popular electronic music genre known as grime is often referred to as intensely ‘local’, even ‘hyperlocal’. Its ‘postcode scale’ is an example of the political deployment of scale, understood as level of resolution. Examples from Wiley, Roll Deep and Dizzee Rascal demonstrate how the genre’s distinctive repetition, rhythmic intensification and staccato rapping style contribute to a modernist, fine-grained, high-resolution postcode scale. Analysis of Nadia Rose’s 2017 track ‘Skwod’ shows that grime tracks also use musical techniques to build a selective, by-no-means-all-inclusive audience, drawing attention to the boundaries of belonging. Grime has also been involved in struggles over definitions of the local, such as when ‘Skwod’ was used by intersectional feminists in place-specific antifascist protests. Overall, the intensely local or postcode-scale aesthetics of grime music are part of a socio-political strategy that draws attention to mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, potentially remaking the borders of ‘the local’ when the genre’s political potential is heard by particular listeners.
Publisher
Springer Nature Switzerland
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