Music
Increasingly insightful and political, short films soundtracked by rap and drill are shining a light at a side of young peoples' lives often ignored by TV.
The opening scenes of The Essence show a familial scene – a group of friends play cards on the floor to a soundtrack of Giggs' music, one guy holding a beatific, chubby baby with a pacifier in its mouth. Suddenly, the mood changes as the room is rushed by two masked figures. A gun is fired, shots ring out and the sound of the baby’s cries fade out. The film – a beautifully-shot, 28-minute project inspired by Giggs’ mixtape Wamp 2 Dem and released earlier this year – follows themes of black masculinity and generational anxieties thorough Isaac, freshly released from prison. We, the viewers, are with him, caught between trying to maintain a ‘righteous ting’ and the reality of life with his so-called friends Ava and Marcus.
“We just listened to Giggs' music and what we felt from it," explains Michael ‘Buck’ Maris, the film’s writer, of his process. "We wanted to tell a story and a journey ... just a journey of a character without judgement. The scene that Giggs is in was actually the first scene we had when we started writing it so it was the core of the film.” He laughs, “Yeah, he loved it!”
The film is one of a growing breed inspired by and pushing the boundaries of work by UK rap artists. The precarious world that The Essence presents isn’t too far flung from the musical content that Krept & Konan or Giggs might rap about, but the visual storytelling in a longer medium than a five-minute music video takes the narratives to new heights. The physical jolt of violence that might be the reality for huge swathes of the population (particularly, but not limited to, inner city black communities) might not be palatable enough for a prime time TV spot, but online such narratives can flourish. The music has finally penetrated huge audiences, and now might be the right time to show the breadth of the scene at large – writers, actors, directors, DOPs, photographers, all born out of a world opened up by artists.
This world is sometimes shown in the mainstream, but the people who show it don't have as much care as we do
As Maris puts it: “This world is sometimes shown in the mainstream, but the people who show it don't have as much care as we do. When we’re writing it we actually care about these characters and the world it’s associated with. We’re not glamourising anything for the sake of glamourising it – it’s what we’ve seen in the past.”
Arguably, it's a wave jump-started by Shiro’s Story, the UK rap drama released back in 2018 by south London’s Rapman, who had been releasing similar projects for some years but was yet to break the mainstream. While he was by no means the first to use film in this way to represent an often underrepresented life experience, his work stood out, receiving millions of views per episode. It told the story of postcode politics, knife crime and family, all in rap form – the whole series features very little actual spoken dialogue that isn’t to a beat – with cameos from the likes of The Chicken Connoisseur, Not3s and Headie One. Rapman is now a star in his own right, visiting Jay-Z’s home and working with Paramount on new projects. It’s perhaps proof of his demand that he’s unable to be locked down for an interview for this piece, but he succinctly explained the secret to his success to the BBC last year: "If you can get one million views in five hours on a show on YouTube, that means there is obviously a demand for it”.
Shiro’s Story also opened doors for new talent, including Joivan Wade, who went on to direct the short film Amani with his friend, first-time producer and filmmaker Amani Simpson. The short film released earlier this year depicts the inner reflections of a young man battling with his faith after being stabbed seven times – a cinematic reflection of 29-year-old Simpson’s own life. “I wanted to showcase the story behind the headlines”, he tells me. “A lot of time we hear about young boys getting stabbed and the way society is, we automatically assume ‘oh they’re part of a gang or they're this type of person’ and we dehumanise their experience. But a lot of the time they are just children who are caught up in bad situations, and a product of their environment. They say that hurt people hurt people. I wanted to give hope to a young person or parent watching, so they can see someone like myself who has been through that can turn their life around and do something positive."
I wanted to give hope to a young person or parent watching, so they can see someone like myself who has been through that can turn their life around and do something positive
In a political context where news of 78 knife-related deaths in the capital took place this year alone, and right-wing politics urge censorship and zero-tolerance policing as a solution, these films are clearly increasingly political – and controversial. Simpson mentions other shorts like Drawn Out and Chance – black British films that centre on the causes of knife crime, its effects, and human stories. For him, the act of creating films is political, and the music – from gospel rapper Still Shady – reflect the tone of his message.
Using the work as a political tool – to send a message without earnestly smothering you with notions of hope – is an artful and arguably more powerful way to go. When Krept and Konan released Ban Drill (1.4m views and counting), directed by Rapman, back in June, it made the point about the demonisation of black music by contrasting the experiences of its protagonist, Jayden, with those who are against the genre. It was released alongside a petition to 'stop silencing musicians’, in reference to the censorship of drill music and its perceived glamorisation of knife crime. And, during the promo of the film, the duo joined Labour MP Diane Abbott at a parliamentary committee to discuss the issue.
Novelist too, makes the point in No Weapons, a new short directed by Blok, in which we see the south London rapper on a fuzzy TV screen as he raps "I’m not carrying guns/on my ones I’ll make them run’.” The film follows Kasey McKellar (who featured in TV's Top Boy) as Dylan, who meets his end through gun violence.
Whether these films open with a shot of someone nodding along to Krept & Konan's Don’t Waste My Time like in Ban Drill, or, Novelist’s No Weapons, these films present a full-bodied and symbiotic relationship with the music. You’ve heard it: now see where it came from. Commissioned by the community, they're political works, touching on everything from sexual miseducation, austerity, policy and policing, and beyond. They all make the point about what can be achieved when people have their own creative freedom and are allowed to run with it, and who the gatekeepers can be in a digital world. For Maris and his peers, they are filling crucial gaps in their audiences' understanding of the music, with a focus on the art. As he says, “we’ve been making these things on our own for years ... I’m just glad it's finally connecting.”
Kieran Yates is a freelance music and politics writer and the author of Generation Vexed. As part of this year's Red Bull Music Festival London she will host an event, Coded Language, that celebrates Multicultural London English, with input from Wretch 32, Steel Banglez, AM, Bridget Minamore and James Massiah. Buy tickets here.
Check out more great premieres, stories and videos at RedBull.com/Music
Like Red Bull Music on Facebook and follow Red Bull UK on Twitter at @RedBullUK