The most dramatic single of last year – the song voted Guardian critics’ favourite of 2015 – featured Skepta launching a four-line manifesto. “Me and my Gs ain’t scared of police / We don’t listen to no politician,” he spat. “Everybody on the same mission / We don’t care about your isms and schisms.” On the face of it, these lyrics might seem apolitical. Skepta doesn’t care about isms, he doesn’t listen to politicians. But it runs rather deeper than that.
Shutdown isn’t a song that offers solutions. It doesn’t even diagnose any problems. But its tone – bombastic, fearless – is unmistakable. As was its promotion. Shutdown’s video was filmed at the Barbican in London, the place where Skepta’s brother, JME, had been among those artists prevented from appearing when the venue, following advice from City of London police, pulled a show in February 2014. To launch Shutdown, Skepta played an illegal gig in a car park in Shoreditch – the east London area where so many grime nights had been shut down by the authorities for dubious reasons – encouraging 2,000 grime fans to shout “fuck the police” in unison. For Skepta and his fans alike, Shutdown was a triumphant return of the repressed: “They’re going to try and find every way to stop me doing what I’m doing,” he said to me the following day, “but because I come correct every time, they’ve got nothing.”
Continue reading...by Dan Hancox via Electronic music | The Guardian
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