Don’t Call Me Urban

Remember grime? If you knew your shit then you’d be able to spot that heavy Avirex jacket, Ecko MMA t-shirt, Damani Dada hat, and Akademiks jeans from a mile off and instantly recognize that early 2000s grime style. However, that stuff cost paper, so it wasn’t exactly what the majority of the fans wore. Simon Wheatley, photographer and director, spent seven years shooting photos for his book Don’t Call Me Urban, a visual documentation of London’s grime scene, pretty much from its beginnings. While he did capture plenty of heads rocking that original look, Simon concentrated more on the youngers—the kids just starting out—who obviously couldn’t afford any of the imported American brands or more exclusive streetwear stuff, so just stuck to New Era, Nike, and samurai swords.

VICE: Hey Simon. So, when did you first start taking photos for the book?
Simon Wheatley: The earliest pictures date from 1998, when I wandered on to Lambeth Walk.

How did you get involved in the whole scene, because it must have been quite closed off at the time.
Grime came in to my life when I passed by the old RWD Magazine offices near London Bridge where I was visiting some old friends who had their business in the same building. I had some flyers for an exhibition I was doing and dropped one off with the art director. Soon afterwards he called me and I shot the Fumin’ portrait, which I still believe is the best shot I did for them. Within a month I’d become RWD’s main photographer and was making portraits of the major players on the grime scene. It wasn’t necessarily closed off, other people shot grime, but maybe not with the same commitment to the social issues behind the genre and that’s what really motivated me. Sure, I was having fun too, but I was fundamentally interested in the authentic voice of an urban underclass. It was the youngers who interested me most, those who were really living that life of grime, and the links I’d made with the established crews opened the doors to them.

Was it all in Bow and E3 or did you venture a bit further afield?
Initially, it was mainly Isle Of Dogs, E14. I rolled a bit in Bow at the time, but focused more on that about a year later. The areas were intimately linked, with Roll Deep and Ruff Sqwad as the fulcrums. Then E3 and E14 youngers started to fight and it got very vicious. Most of the people I hung out with on the island are in jail now. I hung out a bit in Stratford with Nasty Crew too, but the pictures from that time aren’t all that good, maybe because I was more focused on the French suburbs after the riots that happened there in 2005. Also, I spent a bit of time in north-west with SLK, then went down south towards the end of the project – Brixton and Elephant – and then tied things up in Lewisham, where grime was really bubbling.

What were kids wearing when you first started shooting?
You can see it in the pictures. The usual sportswear mainly, sometimes with a bling flourish.

Did the looks evolve throughout the time you were shooting? Like, were kids getting into new brands or anything like that?
I didn’t pay that much attention, really. I think you can take Nike and adidas as the fundamental base and it goes from there to smaller brands and then to the rarer ones, which could appear suddenly. I can’t really remember any names, but I know New Era was huge throughout. Everybody had, and has, a New Era.

So there was nothing too notable, then?
No, not really. I’m disappointed with what I saw of grime as fashion, it wasn’t very imaginative. That’s what I’ve always referred to when people compare grime to punk—punk was really something daring, whereas grime was very conformist, really. Not just in the sense of the sports corporations who’d give out their stuff to the main crews, but also most of the ‘designers’ who churn out t-shirts and hoodies with varying slogans or patterns. What about mixing it up a bit, you know? I’d like to see some proper African dress and stuff like that, rather than slavishly following the fashion code that came out of the United States.

Yeah, I’d like to see Footsie in a dashiki. What was an average day like for you while you were shooting?
Sometimes a lot of waiting around. A lot of the kids had no concept of the value of someone else’s time, but when they’d turn up it was just hanging around, really. I don’t like to generalize too much about the lives of others, though, it would be easy to go on about the negative aspects I saw. Some of the youths had really difficult lives and music gave them not only something to occupy themselves with, but also to dream about.

Did they care about clothes and shoes and stuff? Would they talk about them much?
Oh yes, just a bit! And it’s getting even more crazier now. The other day I was walking down Roman Road with some kids and a 15-year-old was talking about buying some £270 trainers.

Yeah, well, I guess grime’s kind of like like hip-hop—everyone’s chatting about how they’re the best and making the most money, etc. Were people splashing out on designer stuff at all?
Oh yeah. As I say, it’s getting silly. My book refers to that absurdity of rampant material aspiration colliding with grim social reality.

Did you notice any gang affiliated colors that people were wearing, or anything like that?
Yeah, of course. All that bandanna stuff. There’s a couple of pictures towards the end of the book in Lewisham, the “blue borough”.

Cool. I love the photo of the kid vaulting the fence next to the policewoman. What’s the story behind that?
Oh, they were riding stolen bikes around a car park on the other side of the building. Someone shouted “feds”, so they dashed the bikes in the bushes and ran up the stairs. I went with the guy in that shot, then he jumped out of a first-floor window to get away, but a police car turned up just as he landed. I went down but he was already being questioned by that point. It was funny, he’d hidden his weed in the bushes and when the police asked him what he was doing, he said he was looking for his keys. Then, she asked why he was wearing a motorcycle helmet and he said that he just liked wearing it around, but she let him go because there wasn’t any immediate evidence of wrongdoing. I was surprised that they didn’t investigate a bit, but those were different times. Notice how the policewoman doesn’t wear a stab vest like they would these days and that’s no fashion statement!

What’s happened to the kids in the book since you were shooting?
Many are still grinding away, of course, and I’ve mentioned jail too, but I’m happy to say, some have done OK.

JAMIE CLIFTON