“Original London style”: London Posse and the birth of British Hip Hop

Abstract

Hip Hop culture arrived in Britain in the late 1970s from New York. However, by the middle of the 1980s it had established itself as a hugely popular youth cultural form in Britain in the shape of graffiti, break dancing and music. Although largely seen as an African American form, a number of artists began to produce music that drew specifically upon established black British styles, within a Hip Hop framework of beats and rhymes, in order to develop a highly unique version of Hip Hop, one that communicated both the differences and similarities within the US and the UK. This dialogue placed black British music and culture as an equal partner in the black Atlantic triangle, as artists and cultural practitioners drew upon the Caribbean and America while specifically being influenced by and reflecting upon their very unique position in Britain. London Posse, as one of the first groups to specifically draw upon the traditions of black British music and Sound System culture, and combine it with Hip Hop culture, sought to utilize Hip Hop as a form for expressing a particular position as young black Londoners with cultural resources of their own. In so doing, they were drawing upon the music's origins as a hybrid and malleable form rather than as an essentially black American one. This period of intense creativity and innovation has rarely been documented, yet is significant in the continuing ability of black British cultures to position themselves at the centre of black Atlantic debates and creativity, as opposed to simply mimicking or drawing upon American and Caribbean influences. My essay explores this period through a close reading of London Posse's music and lyrics and an examination of their position as a Hip Hop act drawing upon a black British tradition with roots in the Caribbean and US, but which spoke from, and for, a British perspective.