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For a while now, US and UK urban music have been dealing with profoundly different subject matters (“urban music” is a horrible, Operation Trident-kinda term I know, but a bigger umbrella term than “rap” or “R&B” is needed these days). The US new school of A$AP, Kendrick, Schoolboy Q, et al, are a hedonistic bunch to say the least. They’ve eschewed the previously popular themes of Maybachs and Illuminati conspiracies for a good old-fashioned mash-up (as in getting fucked, not the kind you find on MP3 blogs).
Rocky’s got his purple drank, Schoolboy claims to care only about “weed and brews” and Kendrick is into pretty much everything bar huffing on white spirit according to “A.D.H.D”. Action Bronson might look like a Nordic orang-utan, but he’s actually a man who knows his grapes, waxing lyrical about his favourite Shiraz like a Bronx Oz Clarke. The music even sounds three sheets to the wind, full of staggering beats and migraine basslines that are far more evocative of a Thursday night in Maidstone than anything David Guetta has ever done. (Drake and The Weeknd are their Canadian crooning cousins, more partial to a “cup full of Rosé” than a Sprite bottle full of Codeine and Jolly Ranchers.)
It’s indicative of the idea that rap no longer needs to be responsible. It doesn’t even have to be ghetto, in fact; the battles have been won and there’s nothing to prove any more. Jay-Z, a man who once spoke about dumping bodies in Marcy, is now apparently the most powerful person in the world, let alone music. Rap’s back is covered, so why not just hit the sauce? North American hip-hop overall is in the midst of a Mötley Crüe stage, rebelling against itself with hair metal decadence.
Meanwhile, the British equivalent has been stuck in a state of sober denial, the temperate spirit of Cliff Richard looming large over the UK urban scene. The ugly dragon of grime has been shackled and glasses without lenses have replaced rooms without windows. It’s an Apprentice-esque vision of artistic success: Get the mixtape, get the Example collab, get the Euro-crossover hit and get photographed with Richard Branson.
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Not that you’d actually want to see him pissed. He seems like he’d be a terrible drunk, the sort of guy who’d go to house parties as a kid and spend the majority of them crying on the stairs or reeling around in the back garden falling into the patio AGA. You know when people make a point of telling you how drunk they want to get that night? Planned binging is always a bad idea, destined to end with tears, a short trip in the booze bus and an £80 fixed penalty notice.
Gentlemen, you aren’t fooling anybody. Stick to the Rubicon, and let the Americans do the drinking while we figure out what to do with our superior stash of brain cells.
Follow Clive on Twitter: @thugclive
