1st draft essay for my CI

An investigation on how UK grime music influences and has an impact on teenagers

Over the years the definition of UK grime music has changed, or in other words different classes now make their own definition based on stereotypical images they see for this music scene. Therefore emerged on what people think about grime music will give different ideas of the impact that this genre will have on teens. UK grime music appeared in the early 2000s with artist such as Wiley, Kano and Skepta and is primarily a development of UK garage and hip hop. This genre is portrayed as being male dominated and people argue this is the main reason why it may affect male teenagers in the wrong way. During all my research I came across the difference between ‘Underground’ and ‘Mainstream’ music. The difference between the two is that ‘Underground’ music is when artist make street videos by themselves with no pay but just to get views whereas ‘Mainstream’ music is more professional since the artist that turn ‘Mainstream’ are signed to a record label and therefore have their support.

UK grime has been seen to have a positive influence upon teenagers. Through my research I have found that even in their own music they try to do something other than just talking about themselves. For example a very recent released song called ‘Teardrop’ by my three main focused artists (Chipmunk, Tinchy and Wretch32), collaborated with other famous artist across different genres to promote ‘Children in need’. “100%, straight A’s, education, university, job prospects and lost objects”. This is one of the artist lyrics from the song showing the expansion of how they are more involved in other things such as ‘Children in need’ because they have become ‘Mainstream’. ‘Children in need’ is an annual British charity appeal organised by the BBC and is one the three high profile British telephons. This music video was uploaded by ‘The Collective’ on YouTube and connotes that ex ‘Underground’ grime artist are now making music to benefit others and giving back rather than just making music about themselves. ‘Children in need and the BBC are targeted at a wide variety of audiences because it appeals to nearly everyone who wants to develop poverty. Therefore these artists getting involved with dealing with poverty make teenagers want to do so as well because they will be able to relate to them. Moreover this links with the point of these artists portraying UK grime music in a positive way because it shows their involvement in “Giving back to your community”

Furthermore, during my research I found that many grime artists do several things apart from just their music, which may have a huge influence on teens. For example famous artist Chipmunk posted his GSCE results on twitter connoting that he himself got really good GCSE’s while doing his music at the same time, and this may affect some teenage fans because they will begin to think that if Chipmunk has an education even though he already has a career, they should most defiantly do the same since education is the way forward. Also since twitter is a social networking site where you can ‘tweet’ literally anyone including celebrities, it enable teenage fans to ask questions etc about his results. Linking in another example from my research where Chipmunk was found on BBC radio 1 where he done an interview giving his very own exam tips. Radio 1 is targeted at 16 – 24 year olds and therefore many teenagers would watch this video or here it on the radio because radio 1 is the only radio show which attracts teens because of their humour during every interview. “Until you have a career set out, don’t stop your education”. This is a quote from Chipmunks interview and it will get teenagers to realise that education is the key to success, and hearing this from someone who they may see as a role model will affect them in a positive way even more. Marxist’s theory links in with my critical investigation on this point because his theory states that society was divided into hierarchy of classes with more power at the top (Middle class) and less power at the bottom (Working class), and that we all want the dominant ideologies that we see in the media. For example all these UK grime artists that I am focussing on have certain things in their video that we would all probably want (Sports cars, expensive jewellery etc), however looking at these artist in a positive way you could say how they are representing the dominant ideology of being successful. Meaning we all want to be successful and these artists are representing success through their videos stating that achievements doesn’t only come from music.

However arguing the Marxism theory about dominant ideology, you could say that UK grime music represent success in the wrong way and this goes to mainly the ‘Mainstream’ industry of this genre. They represent success in the wrong ways because you may see a successful business men that doesn’t wear any rich jewellery, and that doesn’t mean he isn’t successful. Nonetheless these artist show that to be successful you have to wear and have such things but in reality to wear big chains and have sports cars in only conventional for grime artist and not any other successful people like a business person. Moving onto research that I found on how UK grime music has a negative affect and influence on teenagers is mainly based on the theme of ‘Underground’ music  ‘Underground’ music is known to be something