Good times for UK and Irish hip-hop
As a teenager I can still remember buying Hip Hop Connection magazine religiously. This UK magazine was like the bible to myself and the other handful of youngsters into rap music here. It was a pre internet era where hip-hop was rarely on TV and almost never on radio, and this was an era in the early ’90s where even pirate radio in Cork wasn’t happening. Hip Hop Connection was one of the few places we could read about rappers, and there was only one shop in Cork that stocked it.
At the time, the editorial debates on the state of UK hip-hop echo what many of us feel in Ireland 30 years on. UK rappers weren’t being taken seriously by the public over there, and there was a sense of imposter syndrome too.
Many cringed when they heard UK accents rapping and others made the rest of us cringe more by trying to sound American. Great groups like London Posse and the Ruthless Rap Assassins made great records, but the general public and the music industry in general wasn’t quite ready.
Lots of the music from the UK that did break through in that era came from a sound system culture that was intrinsically linked to hip-hop, and groups such as Soul 2 Soul, Massive Attack, Portishead, and others all had that hip-hop swagger (and sometimes even rappers, like Tricky, who was a big success too). Related UK music such as drum and bass, garage and even what became known as trip-hop seemed to swallow up most of the attention but all of these underground scenes helped provide the backbone of longer term success with the emergence of grime.
Garage crossover success came from artists such as the Streets while Dizzee Rascal, Ms Dynamite, and others hit the mainstream in a big way with their own cross pollination of styles. Underground stalwarts such as Rodney P, Roots Manuva, and Blak Twang continued to keep the heat up but grime crossed over in a commercial way when the likes of Tinchy Stryder, Tineh Tempah, and even Skepta made more pop orientated bangers for the radio.
It was only in the last decade that UK hip-hop really found its feet though. In reality, all of those artists who went before lay down the groundwork for success. UK hip-hop would succeed on its own terms by not aping the Americans, but instead using British culture as the backbone for original music.
This culture was often created by immigrants from the Carribbean and elsewhere, and it took decades for their children and their children’s children to develop sounds which are being embraced by us all in 2023.
Now we have grime that came out of garage and jungle and drill which was originally developed in Chicago and afro-trap and other genres which were greatly influenced by the large African migrant population there. These styles have all developed from the underground and have gone mainstream. Artists such as Stormzy, Skepta, Dave, Central Cee, Aitch, Little Simz, Giggs and many more have exploded in popularity and are now looked up not only by UK fans but by fans here too. Many Irish rap fans respect the above as much if not more than the Americans and many of them are more relatable too.
In 2023 UK rap sells out arenas and hits the pop charts on the regular, and the days of it being laughed at are well over. In Ireland rap was often laughed at too, but we are following a similar trajectory, though our history of bringing in new styles of music through immigration is far more recent.
The sons and daughters of those that first started arriving little over 20 years ago are now making moves and we have artists of all colours and backgrounds capable of making their mark abroad. Kojaque, Offica, TraviS & Ellzzz, Denise Chaila, Sweetlemondae, Jafaris, Aby Coulibaly or a host of others could be the next one to break abroad; so far we’ve had Rejjie Snow. But the future is looking good for both the UK and Ireland.
