I mean he's got some good tracks but I can't take him seriously. First he's the "wicked skengman" and then all of a sudden he's doing collabs with little mix. He's a sellout as far as I'm concerned. Same goes for Skepta for working with Drake.
Also his bars tend to be quite basic and not really have a lot of meaning behind them, which is why he's become so popular with the mainstream. I prefer to stick to the old school guys like Wiley, dizzee, etc and some new guys who are actually putting meaningful tracks out like Dave.
That's just me though
No I understand what you are getting at. Thing is, when you live somewhere like he does (Thornton Heath just outside of Croydon) and you have any ambition whatsoever you will do whatever you can to get out of there. TBH? I would guess a lot of my old friends would call me a sellout. I've lost my venomous street mouth and according to my old boss "You sound like a posh tit!". My brother has moved out of the area too, he now lives in Caterham (posh).
Thing is, if fate hadn't screwed me I would not have been there either. I come from a very, very tight knit family. My dad was a bricklayer and doing very well, two of my other uncles were brick layers, then another uncle was a painter and decorator etc.
In 1979 my dad decided, with all of my other uncles, that he wanted better for us. Business was booming and we were becoming quite comfortable, so between him and my other uncles they bought a large piece of land about 10 miles outside of Hastings. The idea was to basically sell all of their houses in London ('cause even houses in the craphole part of London could buy you five elsewhere) and then basically build a private development with iron gates etc so we would be safe and grow up as decent human beings.
It was all set, planning permission was granted and then my dad died suddenly playing football in 1981. He was 35, no warnings fit as a fiddle etc.
So yeah, our house was paid for (he bought it off the council cheap) and we were moving forward. Then all of a sudden it comes to a crashing end. The land was sold, and we were stuck there.
And as a kid? I loved it. By ten years old I had seen people being stabbed, shot etc. You quickly become accustomed to violence and that was your way of life. And that's exciting as a kid. Growing up in an area where the police were constantly hovering around and you had to dodge them etc was fun. As you grow older though it starts to weigh you down. And the more life goes on the more you realise it's not right. Then I started on the drugs when I was about 12. Smoking cocaine and cannabis. Then I got hooked, took too much LSD and had a nervous breakdown when I was 18. That is when we knew something was seriously wrong with me.
I could not make any friends. Like, you know? good people who were kind etc. I would bring them to my house and my "mates" would cuss them and rip them apart verbally. They had no wish to return after that.
And that's BS. I did not want my life dictated to me and I didn't want my only friends to be pretty much gangsters who stole from me (they burgled my house three times) and decided who and who not I would be friends with.
I wouldn't have called it an outright gang, but I was a part of the S.V.P (Streatham Vale Posse) which was more of a joke thing but we were known. And as I say, that stuff is exciting when you are a kid. We didn't do anything bad, we just dealt with whatever came to us. I, for example, have never committed a burglary or mugging etc. I just can't, I wasn't raised that way.
Then when I got into my mid 20s and wanted to start slowing down a little bit the *real* gangs moved in. 12-18 year olds, would stab you no sooner look at you.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...teen-gang-1m-crime-spree-jailed-40-years.html
As I said, I've seen people being stabbed and shot etc. But not like this new wave. They will stab and shoot each other over nothing. When some one got stabbed or shot when I was growing up it was for one of three reasons. Drugs, money, some one else's woman. Learn to live by not breaking them three rules and you had nothing major to fear.
And I could sit down and watch movies with rape, violence, etc and laugh at them. And my first wife used to say "How can you watch that?" (Rise Of The Footsoldier, Bonded by Blood, Rolling With The Nines" and I used to say "I guess because I am used to it".
But when I started nearing 40 that changed again. Stuff like that now makes me feel physically sick. And I guess that automatically means that stuff like Grime, when it's about stabbing and robbing etc? yeah, it's just too much for me.
I was recorded at high school when I was 13 years old as having a IQ of 152. People like that do not belong in places like that. And it's kinda like Shawshank Redemption "Some birds just weren't meant to be caged".
I've closed Facebook, kept my addy and phone number private etc. My mother brings me "news" from down that end ('cause she still has friends down there) and that is enough for me.
Apols for the life story, but I felt it just needed explaining properly
Edit. I am just listening to Goodbye (Stormzy and Linkin Park) and he specifically says -
Let me say goodbye to my demons, let me say goodbye to my past life
I can't die for my postcode.
That says it all tbh.