Where We Come From by Aniefiok Ekpoudom

Author:Aniefiok Ekpoudom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

NOTES

1 Cadet Interview: In-depth Interview about Relationship with Krept, His Come Up So Far and more!, DJDUBLTV, 22 December 2016.

13 A British Dream

WEST MIDLANDS

When Grime entered its second bloom, in around 2014, inspired by the works and actions of a few men and women out in the West Midlands, the scene found itself ready for renewal. The crews like StayFresh and Invasion and Livewire, which had carried a sound to shore, faded. Ensemble casts fell apart, tugged in different directions by the strong tides of parenthood and work and solo-career pipe dreams. Those who remained, eyes fixed on the goal, determined to stay the course, followed the genre into its new day.

Change for Despa was becoming a dad to a little girl, Ayaana, and realising there can be no excuses when you’re living for your seed. Change was StayFresh growing apart and then breaking up. Some went solo. Some stopped music for a while. Some ended up in prison. One of the members, Raider, would say a few years after the end that, ‘You can have a group of friends in school that you roll with every day and then when you hit a certain age you’ve got other things to do.’

Despa was proud of what they achieved. They left their mark, never forgotten by those who witnessed the climb. In a documentary he said, ‘The legacy of StayFresh was we can be from the Midlands and actually make noise, not just nationally, internationally as well.’1

The crossing of one era into another was archived on his YouTube Channel BE83. In October 2013 he began a long-form interview series titled Meet the Artists. The series was born on the Apple store shop floor in the days when he still had one foot in full-time work. He had moved into a world and an environment far from Walsall and Darlaston, working his shifts with colleagues from a certain class and background, who never knew him before he was Despa. From some of them he began to sense a judgement and stereotyping of those who were like him, those who had come from where he had come from and had lived through what he had lived through.

‘These are my friends,’ he would say, ‘and I know them to be intelligent, caring, loving people that have dreams and aspirations.’

Meet the Artists became a vessel for his friends and wider acquaintances from the scene to share their stories at length. Here they found space to speak about the conditions that had shaped them and their music. Who they were and how they lived was immortalised over a through-line of more than fifty long episodes running between October 2013 and April 2017. There were stories of hope and loss, love and music, MCs who rebuilt their lives after homelessness, mothers grieving for lost sons, ex-gang members who found the straight road. There were painters and clothing-brand owners, DJs and producers. Big Mikee featured in an episode in 2015 that lasted nearly two hours. When the crews

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.