Month: March 2017

The New Don of the Daily Duppy: An Interview with GRM Daily’s Editor-in-Chief

On By Sam IngramsIn MusicLeave a comment

You may not have heard the name Alex Griffin, but if you’re into Grime music, then you should know about GRM Daily.

It is one of the leading websites in Grime and Hip-Hop in the UK, with over 1 million followers across all of its social media platforms. It is estimated to attract around 15,000 new followers per month on average.

GRM Daily achieves this by regularly featuring interviews with the biggest names in the genre, Big Narstie and Mike Skinner to name a couple.

It is also the home of videos like Daily Duppy– a misleadingly titled series of rap freestyles from top artists such as Stormzy, Giggs, and Scrufizzer.

Alex and Saquib
Left – Alex Griffin

Bristol-born Alex Griffin recently became editor-in-chief of GRM Daily after having started as an unpaid contributor. In April last year, he was given his first paid role as a junior editor, before being promoted to co-editor.

“I just put myself in a position where they needed me,” Alex said, “and I applied myself to what they needed.

“Circumstance meant that the current editor was moving out into a different job, and they were trying to work out the best way to play it- so that’s why I was co-editor for a while.

“Eventually it got to the point where they were like, ‘you’re the only one doing that job, so you’re the editor’, and I was like, great.”

It wasn’t so long ago that Alex was cutting his teeth with a website called Mad Good Music, which expanded into a brand that ran music events in the South West.

Much like GRM Daily, Mad Good Music focussed reporting within the fields of Grime and Hip-Hop, whilst also promoting smaller local artists from around the university.

The website saw a degree of success, especially after a run-in with Example in its infancy:

“The first time I got proper views was when Example cussed me, because I cussed him in an article, saying he had a shit album, because it wasn’t a very good album. He didn’t like it.”

Alex had tweeted his article about the top-10 most disappointing albums in 2013, including an unfavourable write-up of The Evolution of Man, to Example. ‘Hey Example, your album made it onto our top-ten list of most disappointing albums this year’, the tweet read.

Alex remembered. “Yeah, and he said, ‘Well done, you’re on the top ten blogs nobody reads…’

“I mean, it was a fair assessment at the time.”

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At Mad Good’s height in 2015, the website was pulling in up to 1,000 visitors per day. Today, the website is no longer online, as Alex has directed his energies towards his career in GRM Daily.

“I dunno,” Alex said, a little sadly. “I always said it was on hiatus and it’s something that I keep close to me, and I would love to pick it up again one day.

“Just being 100 per cent honest with you, it wasn’t making me money. I had too much work to do, it was like one step forwards and ten steps back.

“I felt like I needed to cement myself as a person in a career, before I could bring up a whole business with me… It was pulling me down a little bit.”

I was also downhearted to see Mad Good Music taken off the internet. I was there for its inception. Back in 2013, Alex and myself were living in a flat together, attending Falmouth University.

I remember very well when Example called Alex out, and ironically ignited Mad Good. I also remember the events that Mad Good Music used to run, including a musical variety night that took place in a hip hairdresser’s in the town centre.

Around that time, in no small part thanks to a strong and vibrant alternative music scene active in Cornwall, we used to party.

A lot.

But while as I struggled to keep a tankful of fish alive in between hangovers and deadlines, Alex managed to pro-actively maintain and cultivate an impressive media following for his website and his projects.

This will be the first year that GRM Daily will be under his steering, so I asked him what the future held for the brand:

“There is loads of stuff…I can’t give you too much details… but there’s loads to look out for, we’re going to be very present this year… it’s going to be a cold summer, boy!”

Alex also pointed me towards his new sub-brand on the website called Go Left. It goes back to his roots in many ways, seeking out and featuring alternative Grime, Hip-Hop and R&B acts and artists and giving them a platform.

“I’m going to be doing a couple radio show takeovers, so all that’s coming soon.”

17273868_1623732944307929_794661781_oI decided to finish on a question I usually reserve for political interviews.

Grime and Hip-Hop are in many ways a voice of protest from disenfranchised masses.

Recently, many people have cynically remarked how recent political upheaval (the rise of the alt-right, Brexit, Trump, etc.) will create a golden age for satirical journalists.

Could it also provide a stimulus for a new wave of politically conscious Grime and Hip-Hop?

“I don’t think [Brexit, Trump, etc. are] going to dramatically affect the content. Everyone’s not just going to go on a rager, they’re still going to make fun music and have a laugh.

“But- it would be stupid to think it’s not going to have an effect. Especially in America, with Trump, there’s going to be constant references and stuff.

“Over here? I guess… music always reflects what’s going on in society one way or another… Grime is compared to Punk Rock a lot these days, because it’s got a lot of the same drive behind it.

“MCs are bound to speak out about the referendum… that anti-establishment energy has always been there. This just gives people something to talk about.”

GRM Daily staff photo
GRM Daily

Images courtesy of Alex Griffin 

The Criminalization of Art

On By Sam IngramsIn Art, Photography, UKLeave a comment

Nuneaton-based photographer Connor Richardson talks about art, decay, and the role of graffiti as a creative outlet.

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Pictured: Connor Richardson

From the window, you can see the mouth of an industrial estate backing onto the estate. The houses directly outside are flat terraces with flaking walls. This is Nuneaton, a working-class town in Warwickshire that has fallen on hard times.

Connor has focussed his energies for his new photobook, The Criminalization of Art, on street art and graffiti in and around Nuneaton. From cover to cover, the book is filled with photos of crumbling walls made brighter with huge, garish designs.

Some of them are highly political- a swallow with a bomb for a head dives towards the ground in one – and others are more traditional ‘tags’, highly stylised personal brands and names in enormous colourful fonts.

In 2016, just under 20 per cent of households in Nuneaton and Bedworth were “workless”- with nobody in the household over the age of 16 in employment – compared to the country’s average of just over 15 per cent.

Nuneaton is the barely-beating heart of austerity Britain.

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The Criminalization of Art

I asked Connor how much being brought up in Nuneaton had influenced his decision to capture street art.

 

“A good quote that has always stuck with me,” he said, “which I find relevant to street art in this town, is Ernst Fischer: ‘In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay’

“Having come from this kind of town, [and recognised that] there is a lot of decay here… that has helped me realise the potential in terms of beauty behind such run-down kinds of scenes.”

Connor hasn’t always been a photographer- he started out drawing and painting, but segued into photography when he got bored of other mediums:

“I had been drawing for so long, I just needed another outlet, another way of expressing myself… with photography being completely different to traditional forms of art just… I took to it, really.”

The inspiration for his style is diverse. Connor cites both the gritty, documentary styles of Sally Mann and the surrealist and painting-like works of Ellen Rogers as influences

“[Ellen Rogers] uses a very interesting colour palette… she uses very old format cameras, which bring a very vintage feel to it. I’ve tried achieve this in some of them photos, by using some very lo-fi cameras, low end toy cameras, stuff like that.”

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An example of some of the murals photographed for the book.

His work is in some ways a critical response to the teaching he received in photography from his days at Coventry University:

 

“Having gone college and university, you’re only ever really exposed to the more traditional forms of art: pretty paintings, pretty photos with pretty people in, and pretty landscapes.

“I’ve always had a disconnect from that. There was nothing I could really relate to. Having come from a town like this… I kind of found the beauty in the decay of it all.”

For Connor, it is important that art is truthful; especially concerning his photography. I asked him if he had done any of the street art featured in his photos himself:

“None of them- I wanted to portray other people’s work. I thought it would be a bit more truthful.

“One of the points I make in the book – and one of the main reasons I like street art – is that it’s done without any recognition, or any forms of profitable gains for the artist.

“It is an expression of their work that they are willing to put up for free, for anybody to view. It’s not like you’re putting out work for the sake of recognition.”

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Photos taken from a live street art demonstration at Totum, a Drum and Bass event held at The Railway Tavern, Nuneaton.

The truth in this is undeniable- if street artists owned up to their work, the police would have a field day. It’s easy to forget that the law considers all forms of graffiti and street art as vandalism, and that there are huge costs incurred to local councils in cleaning it up.

 

In 2007 The Chronicle, a daily newspaper from the North East, reported a £1.3m spend over the course of one year of trying to remove graffiti. In Newcastle, anti-graffiti squads were called up to 15 times a day.

“There are some buildings and some locations which I don’t believe should be used as a medium for street art,” Connor said.

“I understand the moral issues around it, but it is going to exist either way… I do think it is important to document them while they last.

“It’s a matter of enjoying it. That’s all street art is. A lot of people will walk past, see a mural, see a piece… and they’re just happy looking at it, walking past it.

“That’s what you need to do with the book as well. Enjoy it.”

You can purchase The Criminalization of Art by contacting Connor through his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/connorrichardsonarts/

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A discussion of graffiti as an art form, in the opening pages of the book.