El Área de Ciencia y Ambiente en Educación Inicial

In this section, I explore genealogy and its significance in understanding musical genre. Using Grime as an example, I illustrate the significance a longitudinal approach, musicologically and sociologically, has in understanding musical genre in a fuller context. In the context of this research, genealogy is framed by Foucault’s definition outlined in what is critique:

‘…something, that attempts to restore the conditions for the appearance of singularity born out of multiple determining elements of which is not the product, but rather the effect. A process of making it intelligible but with the clear understanding that this does not function according to any principle of closure’(Foucault: 1997:64)

This enables me to explore the multiple elements which resulted in Grime; cultural, social and musical, and can give insight into grounding the genre within a framework that can be used as an analytical tool. It enables connections to be made to the past and present. Both are necessary to interrogate the discourses that run through genre. This genealogical approach to music will make music and genre accessible in new ways and move the debate forward. One of the existing challenges of writing about music is the very nature of capturing sonic properties and articulating them in language.

For example music journalist Reynolds explains how Grime sounds (2007):

‘…this is a totally post-garage genre – what some are already calling ‘Grime’ or ‘Grimy Garage’. It’s a mind boggling and body freaking hybrid that draws on beat science and bass knowledge from dancehall, hardcore, techno, electro, Jungle and Gangsta rap’ (2007:356)

Here he uses elements of pre-existing genres to explain how a new genre sounds. Unfortunately this does not give enough insight about the ‘Grime’ sound. With another genre, Jungle, he attempts to quantify its aurality:

‘…the breaks get sped up, edited, processed, fantastically complex yet jagged yet groovy rhythms – the bass gets more strange and peculiar, molded and gloopy, yet also punishing, and yet also heavy in a rootical sense, the dub reggae sense, there’s a skanking feel in there too.’ (200938₎

Whilst these explanation give an indication of influences and sounds, they refer to genre in signifying terms and would require the reader to have knowledge of all if not the majority of the genres mentioned to have any possibility of understanding/imagining what they sound

like. Terms such a ‘molded and gloopy’ may be jargon, or an onomatopoeic attempt to articulate the sonic characteristics. Irrespective, it is not accessible in layperson’s terms. Whilst the definition refers to antecedental genres, the sonic influences and links are not made explicit in genealogical terms which could aid understanding. For this reason, established quantifiable sound qualities as described in the scientific field of physics (i.e. frequency, pitch, tempo) are used here, alongside texts that explore sonic properties, such as Rose (1994) and Machin (2010) to provide frameworks with which analyse meaning. Their application stabilise the arguments and concepts put forward here and make the concepts of musicological genealogy here explicit.

With regards to music of the African diaspora, it is argued by academics that there are identifiable sound signatures. Research has found a distinct sound and connectedness to music from the African diaspora (Beckford 2004, Eshun 1998, Goodman 2010, DuBois 2007, Rose 1994, Reed 2003, Perkinson 2005). Gilroy suggests that there is ample research identifying markers, cultural, linguistic or religious, even if ‘contemporary political significance remains disputed’ (1993:81) that are signatures of diaspora sounds and connectedness. Goodman (2010) suggests that there is a commonality amongst Black Atlantic sounds that he calls Bass Materialism, comprised of low frequencies and Dub. Rose (1994) agrees, suggesting that whilst there is an overlap in musical traditions, there are in fact signature differences between the sensibilities and priorities of music of African (including the diaspora) and European tradition; each musical tradition is skewed to favour rhythm and polyrhythmic layering or melody and harmony respectively.

As we can see here, in relation to music of the African diaspora, academics have made genealogical links in order to identify African diaspora music as something specific. Rose (1994) uses ethnomusicology concepts to explore more explicitly what sonic properties and cultural practices maintain genealogical links. She finds European tradition is focussed on sensibilities relating to the linear, i.e. progression and regression and the spectacle, whereas African music’s are more cyclical and participatory.

‘Rhythm and polyrhythmic layering is to African and African-derived musics what harmony and harmonic triad is to Western classical music. Dense configurations of independent, but closely related rhythms, harmonic and nonharmonic percussive sounds, especially drum sounds, are critical priorities in many African and Afro diasporic musical practices. The voice is also an important expressive instrument.’ (Rose 1994:66)

These identifiable characteristics are referred to as signatures that are genealogically linked to particular musicological traditions. Music of the diaspora have signatures of the low frequency drum, polyrhythm, call and response and interactivity (Rose 1994). These are key features, in addition to improvisation and montage in communication (Gilroy 1993). Gilroy (1993) links sound signatures, oral culture and kinesis to the diaspora today. As a result, a proliferation of music emerges out of the ‘long shadow of our enduring traditions – the African ones and the ones forged from the slave experience which the Black vernacular so powerfully and actively remembers’ (Gilroy 1993:101).

I draw upon these to identify signatures that assist in qualifying Grime as a ‘Black’ music and belonging to a specific Afrodiasporic or Black ‘music stream’ (Lena 2012). By making these explicit, I am better able to interpret the content of the data in my research project.

The signifying and ordering principle of genre, as it is currently understood with regard music, creates an issue that is regularly faced when talking about music of Afrodiasporic origin; actually what makes it ‘Black’ music? However, signatures, sensibilities and priorities of music, as highlighted by Rose (1994), the culture of the way it circulates (e.g. participatory, sound system cultures - Henriques 2011) is attributable to tradition or ‘diaspora force’

(Gilroy’s 1993). Although not articulated explicitly in these genealogical terms by all respondents, the ‘Blackness’ of Grime was corroborated by those interviewed. All

culture of the scene and/or the predominance of the Black performers and innovators within the scene.

‘In the music itself, as in the sound, it's a Black thing… I don’t know whether to - know what it is or how to explain it. It's not a Black thing. If you listen to it, it's not like, right, this is Black people music, but musically it's influenced from Black people. That's how it is, it’s a Black people music.’ TerraMontana365

I am presenting Grime as a Black music in agreement with respondents’ data, observation, Musicological Discourse Analysis (MDA) and grounded theoretical work. The consumption of Grime music is diverse and it is not exclusively made by, nor exclusively distributed/disseminated (e.g. DJs) by Black British youth. It is important to stress here that there is a significant difference between:

 Dominant and heavily used sound signatures, sensibilities, properties and cultural aesthetics used in making music that i) prolong ‘musical streams’ (Lena 2012) and genealogical lines, ii) inform genres and iii) infuse ‘diaspora force’ (Gilroy 1993) and

 Consumption and distribution of such music.

Consumption and distribution are influenced by commodifying processes, which are integral to capitalist Western societies. Whilst this is linked to Grime’s trajectory, I argue that it is not intrinsically so. I touch on elements of this aspect in the genre trajectories section (and chapter six) to illustrate how this relationship between a) music genre and genealogy and b) consumption and distribution can be problematic to subculture and subcultural practice when it enters the music industry.

When referring to Grime’s predecessors, such as Jungle music, Hesmondhalgh and Melville (2001), present it as a multi-cultural or British sound, without centring the significant

influence that Black music streams had sonically and culturally on the scene. Historian Bradley’s (2012) work is crucial in the documentation of Black music in London over the last century, as are the contributions of Henriques (2010), Reynolds (2007), Goodman (2010) and Sullivan (2013), who acknowledge crucial and significant African diasporic contributions. Their work highlights that Grime has roots firmly in the Jungle scene, music dominant in Afrodiasporic sonic aesthetics and created within longstanding Afrodiasporic cultural and musical practices, but applied in a London post-industrial context. It is this process that enabled multicultural consumption and reflected class aspirations and woes.

Now that I have illustrated the importance of genealogy in solidly grounding genre, I explore Grime in more depth.