“Home sweet home, that’s where I come from, where I got my knowledge of the road and the flow from”: Grime music as an expression of identity in postcolonial London.

Abstract

This paper examines how grime music and the grime scene function as a vehicle for expressions of identity – individual, local, national, and transnational – for some young people growing up in the multicultural, postcolonial context of the UK capital in the twenty-first century. Grime is electronic music, often with rap-style vocals, which emerged from London around the turn of the millennium, and which offers insights into the experiences of a section of, predominantly black, working-class urban youth. The stories grime tells paint a vivid picture, not just of individual lives in particular communities, but also of the larger canvas of a global, multicultural city in perpetual transformation, and the resulting changes in cultural and socio-linguistic practices.