Inner City Pressure: The Story of Grime

(Paperback)

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A GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, PITCHFORK, NPR, METRO AND HERALD SCOTLAND BEST MUSIC BOOK OF 2018

The definitive grime biography NME

A landmark genre history Pitchfork
Beginning at the start of the new millennium in the council estates of inner London, Inner City Pressure tells the full story of grime, Britains most exciting musical revolution since punk. Against seemingly insurmountable odds, grimes teenage pioneers sent out a signal from the pirate radio aerials and crumbling estates of Londons poorest boroughs that would, 15 years later, resonate as the universal sound of youthful rebellion, as big in the suburbs as in the inner city.

By 2018, the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Skepta have long since become household names. But have the conditions that produced this music now gone forever What happens to those living on the margins when those margins become ever-smaller spaces And what happens to a rebellious, outsider sound when it is fully accepted by the pop cultural mainstream Inner City Pressure tells the astonishing story of a generation dancing, fighting and rioting against the forces gentrifying the capital.

Reviews

Grime is the sound of 21st century protest. Inner City Pressure is essential reading from a superb writer on the political awakening of a generation Owen Jones

Dan Hancox charts a remarkable story from pirate radio to the front pages. This is a story that deserves to be heard David Lammy MP

Unputdownable and bristling with insights about grime and the city it was born in. Anyone with any interest in grime, you need to be reading this, trust me Jeffrey Boakye, author of Hold Tight

'It says something about the last two decades that the first real history of 21st century London comes in the form of a book about grime. Hancox tells the story of a city and a music scene with restraint, humour and anger Owen Hatherley, author of A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain

Riveting Grime, black musics rawest response against social injustice, has the chronicler it deserves. Hancox is a tremendous guide Kitty Empire, Observer

An extraordinary pop music story. Hancoxs deep knowledge of London illuminates the music just as you could tell the story of the US in the Sixties via rock music, Hancox sees 21st Century London through a grime lens, from the 2011 riots to Grenfell Tower Dorian Lynskey, GQ

A vivid and serious study of grime, stretching from its earliest stirrings through to its unexpected love-fest clinch with Corbyn Simon Reynolds

A terrific achievement and an instant London classic Leo Hollis, author of Cities Are Good For You

An absolutely brilliant read Tom Dyckhoff

A must read DJ Slimzee

A dazzling book Ellie Mae OHagan

An excellent, thorough history Wire

An exhaustive, thrilling account of one of UK musics most fascinating and complex musical experiences Clash

Author Bio

Dan Hancox is a native Londoner who writes about music, politics, gentrification, social exclusion, protest and the margins of urban life, chiefly for the Guardian, but also the New York Times, Vice, The Fader, Dazed & Confused and XXL. He is the author of The Village Against the World(Verso).