Grime - An introduction

  

Grime is a genre of music that has developed from UK Garage music and Bashment in the late 1990's and early 2000's. it was originally made up of many Groups of Rappers who would collaborate on each others albums as they were all unsigned or independent artists who were not signed to a major record label such as Sony. This meant that the genre remained relatively small with a few artists or groups like BBK (Boy Better Know), Dizzee Rascal,  Kano, Newham Generals and Roll Deep gathering any real mainstream attention during this time period.

In the latter part of the 200's artist such as Tempa T, Chip, Tinchy Stryder and Devlin were begining to emerge. These artists were not part of any of the major groups and were garnering much more mainstream attention. Radio stations such as 1xtra and Capital Xtra were beginning to emerge which were primarily for the UK scene. This meant that many artists were begining to get mainstream attention and in particular artists such as Chip and Dizzee began to collaborate with pop artists such as Chris Brown and Robbie Williams.

Into the 2010's the genre was becoming a mainstream genre with artist like Stormzy now coming through many of the original artists are now collaborating with the young artists and platforms such as Fire in the Booth and TimWestwoodTV were allowing young talented artists show off their skill and 'spit some bars'.

The middle image is a poster for the 2015 Grime Proms which is when one of the most modern forms of music, Grime, and arguably the oldest forms of music, Classical music, merge together. As you can see from the poster Grime is a predominantly black genre with only a few high profile examples such as Gecko, Devlin and Aaron Unknown, who has only recently garnered the attention of the mass Grime audience. Image therefore is an important part of a Grime artists look as they prefer to appear menacing in their music videos. Many do this through the use of their physique, artists such as Tempa T or Lethal Bizzle. Through their harsh lyrics, artists renowned for their harsh lyrics include Stormzy and Devlin. Or finally through their clothing this may be by wearing clothes that cover their face or may just be wearing clothing which is linked to negative stereotypes such as tracksuits.

Genre Analysis

I have decided to undertake the print media brief and therefore my genre analysis will be on music magazines.  To do an accurate analysis of music magazines you must also understand the genres within music whether that be Rap, Hip Hop, Dance, Rock, Rave and R&B. not only this but you will also have to understand the sub genres within the main genres for example within Rap there is Crunk, Grime, mainstream, Heavy and Independent. Within Rock there is Folk rock, Heavy Metal, Screamo, Alternative Rock, Indie Rock and Lovers Rock. There is also a hybrid Genre which is when you combine two or more genres of music together an example of this would be a American Rap group known as Fort Minor who have fused Rock and Rap together within much of their music.

Different magazines will stick to different genres within the music industry for example Kerrang one of the most popular music magazines in the UK; it has a very specific audience of 16+ male audience that are interested in Rock music.  It has a very unique house style which allows the reader to automatically notice that the genre that the magazine represents is Rock. 

Flavour Mag

This is a magazine with a different ethos, instead of focussing on one genre or sub-genre of music it instead focusses on what is 'fresh’ and ‘hot’ within the UK, this means that the house style is fairly plain so that it can be vastly edited to accommodate whatever genre of music it is focusing on within the issue. For example the two different front covers on show here are two very different genres the image of Alexandra Burke is the genre of Pop whereas the image the right is of the artist Chip who is one of the leading artist or Front men of the genre Grime.

In conclusion a lot can be gathered from the style and layout of a magazine as to which genre or what its main aim within the industry is to achieve and when I come to deciding which genre of music or what the aim of my magazine will be.

Action Plan

Week 1 Create  the blog, Start rationale, Create Action plan.
Week 2 Finish rationale, Analysis of existing media texts, Historical background of music magazine industry.
Week 3 Quantative audience research, Qualitative audience research.
Week 4 Creating a profile for magazine Original draft of mock up
Week 5 Finalising draft Research into Artist and groups within genre
Week 6 Final mock up Detail summary of idea

Rationale

I have chosen to tackle the print brief because I wish to play to my strengths, I enjoyed the preliminary task as I felt that I achieved a good foundation of which I could progress and draw inspiration from during my coursework. I enjoyed using Adobe In design and feel that it will enable me to layout my magazine so that I am able to use different generic conventions to attract my target audience.  This will test me in a way that I feel the film briefing could not. I enjoy photography and therefore felt that this would be a better briefing for me, also the fact that I do English literature for A-Level meant that the writing that I would have to do within this brief appealed to me .

I have chosen the print/magazine industry because I feel that it is a very highly competitive industry with gaps within the industry which is how I came up with the initial idea for my coursework. I originally thought that a 100% UK grime idea as I felt that this would allow me to use a genre of music that I not only am familiar with but I also felt that there was a gap in the market to use this.

Print media allows me to also use photography which again is something that I enjoy doing; although Photoshop is one of my weaker areas it also gives me a chance to improve my skill level within the programme.

The music magazine industry is a very broad spectrum and can be broken down into many sub genres, I think that I will tackle the grime genre but I am also looking into the ska and reggae genre as again it is a genre that I enjoy and feel that I will be able to add more detail to one of these genres than if I were to do chart or drum and bass music for example.