Madd Raff was a blast the other night. It was an absolute pleasure to play an eighties revival set with Cool Hand Luke, alongside Benjamin Heatwave on mic duties. The venue was a little basement bar off Great Portland Street, very close to my first ever DJ gigs at the students’ union of the Polytechnic of Central London in the late eighties.

Twenty years later and I’m there playing records to people twenty years younger than me. Which means that some of my tunes came out before they were born. I’ve laid it on a bit thick about being the oldest raver in town this year, but I’m quite relaxed about that. I go to ska and rocksteady nights where music from the early sixties get played, often by people old enough to be my parents.

As Steve Barrow points out in the Dub Echoes DVD – capitalism always promotes the new thing as being the best thing, and tries to divide the young and the old. There’s a resurgence of “generational resentment” at the moment in the UK. One reading of the UK riots was old peoples’ fear of “feral youth”, which is the latest instalment of a long line of subcultural moral panics starting with teddy boys and going right through to hoodies.

I think what’s new is young peoples’ resentment of the old, though. For the first time living memory, this generation of school/college leavers will be significantly worse off than the previous one. Lower incomes, longer working lives, less secure jobs and little prospect of owning property look like being the norm.

Music can’t really patch up these economic differences, but I guess it can show that people have more in common than they thought. Each new generation finds a way to briefly escape hardship in darkened rooms as the bassline drops. Each new wave of dancehall builds on the foundation of the music. But sometimes dancehall mutations become so radioactive that more mature heads find it difficult to recognise them.

I guess it’s obvious that over the last few years I’ve been less and less obsessed by current grime, (post)dubstep and even dancehall. Hence all the reviews on here of weird electronic stuff made by men of a certain age, and the retro mixes.

Unlike some of my contemporaries, I have no vested interest in remaining an “expert” on dance (or any) music - as all this has been a hobby rather than a career. So I can be relaxed about it and enjoy the ride. On Wednesday night Luke and I were followed by Heatwave’s Dan Bean, who flung down some 2011 bashment anthems. At least I assumed they were anthems, as everyone went mental. I had no idea what most of the tunes were, and had a chuckle to myself about my lack of desire to find out. It felt quite liberating just enjoying being a room full of people going mad to JA music without mentally filing every tune away in my Bumper Trainspotter’s Book of Music.

Photo courtesy of The Heatwave

I remember trying to sneak a few current bashment riddims into reggae sets in the early noughties. It never worked - I even managed to clear the floor on a couple of occasions. Now it seems like a corner has been turned – for clubbers, my old man’s music has been restored to its rightful place as a warm up or chill out selection. What people really come out for is the new fangled music, which is how it should be really. I saw a girl running down the stairs at Dancehall Jamboree a few weeks back, so she could get on the floor and skank out to the Liquid riddim.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that there’s a bit of hype about bashment at the moment when you consider the alternatives. JA music has all the colour, character and vibes that are missing from most dance music right now. But it’s also testament to the sheer hard graft put in by people like The Heatwave and newer crews like the bewildering nexus of Hipsters Don’t Dance / Physically Fit / Shimmy Shimmy / Style and Swagger.

All this intrigues me. I like having a broad overview of Jamaican music since the 1950s, although if truth be told you’ll mainly find me listening to stuff from the last century. But unlike some of the old guard, you won’t find me wringing my hands about the terrible state of JA tunes nowadays.

I like Steve Barrow’s ideas about unifying the young and old under one b-line. But I’m also quite pleased that bashment ravers can still annoy the old gits and purists.

‘Agit Disco collects the playlists of its 23 writers to tell the story of how music has politically influenced and inspired them. The book provides a multi-genre survey of political musics, from a wide range of viewpoints, that goes beyond protest songs into the darker hinterlands of musical meaning. Each playlist is annotated and illustrated.

The collection grew organically with an exchange of homemade CDs and images. These images, with their DIY graphics, are used to give the playlists a visual materiality. Almost everyone makes selections of music to play to themselves and friends. Agit Disco intends to show the importance of this creative activity and its place in our formation as political beings. This activity is at odds with to the usual process of selection by the mainstream media – in which the most potent musical agents of change are, whenever possible, erased from the public airwaves. Agit Disco Selectors: Sian Addicott, Louise Carolin, Peter Conlin, Mel Croucher, Martin Dixon, John Eden, Sarah Falloon, Simon Ford, Peter Haining, Stewart Home, Tom Jennings, DJ Krautpleaser, Roger McKinley, Micheline Mason, Tracey Moberly, Luca Paci, Room 13 – Lochyside Scotland, Howard Slater, Johnny Spencer, Stefan Szczelkun, Andy T, Neil Transpontine, Tom Vague’.

You can now order the book direct from Mute Books.

The audio for my contribution is now available here:

TRACKLIST

1. X/O/Dus – English Black Boys (Factory Records, 1980)
2. Audrey – English Girl (Ariwa, 1982)
3. Lion Youth – Three Million On The Dole (Virgo Stomach, 1982)
4. Steel Pulse – Handsworth Revolution (Island, 1978)
5. Maxi Priest – Love In The Ghetto (Level Vibes, 1984)
6. Papa Levi – In A Mi Yard (Level Vibes, 1984)
7. Papa Benjie – Fare Dodger (Fashion, 1985)
8. Laurel and Hardy – Video Traffickin’ (Upright, 1983)
9. Macka B – Bean and Egg (Ariwa, 1986)
10. Pato Banton – Gwarn (Ariwa, 1985)
11. Leslie Lyrics – Pull Back Your Truncheon (UK Bubblers, 1985)
12. Ranking Ann – Kill The Police Bill (GLC, 1984)
13. Raymond Naptali – On My Way (Fatman)
14. Lorna Gee – Three Week Gone (Ariwa, 1985)
15. Horseman – Horsemove (Raiders, 1985)
16. Daddy Colonel – Take A Tip From Me (UK Bubblers, 1985)
17. Tippa Irie – Complain Neighbour (UK Bubblers, 1985)
18. Demon Rocka – Hard Drugs (Unity, 1988)

Uncle Dugs on Rinse FM with a blazing 1991 selection.

But even better than that, he gets Kool FM founder Eastman in for an extended interview. (interview commences at about 1:37:00)

Some proper history, covering North London reggae soundsystem, early raves, Jungle Fever, and the full story of Kool FM.

An amazing bit of oral history, loads of details and tales of scrapes. If you liked “Tape Crackers”, this is the side of the story told by the station crew rather than the listeners/punters.

Kool FM is about to celebrate 20 years in the business.

Thanks to Mikus for the tip off!

“The STORY OF LOVERS ROCK is a feature length documentary tells the story of an era and a music that defined a generation in the late 70s and 80s. Lovers Rock is romantic reggae that was uniquely British. It developed from a small UK scene to become a global brand through the likes of UB40 and Maxi Priest.

Lover’s Rock is a uniquely black British sound that developed in the late 70s and 80s against a backdrop of riots, racial tension and sound systems. Live performance, comedy sketches, dance, interviews and archive shed light on the music and the generation that embraced it. Lovers Rock allowed young people to experience intimacy and healing through dance- known as ‘scrubbing’- at parties and clubs.

This dance provided a coping mechanism for what was happening on the streets. Lovers Rock developed into a successful sound with national UK hits and was influential to British bands (Police, Culture Club, UB40) These influences underline the impact the music was making in bridging the multi-cultural gap that polarized the times. The film sheds light on a forgotten period of British music, social and political history.”

I saw a rough cut of the film a while back and wrote about it here. I am really looking forward to seeing the finished version at Hackney’s Rio Cinema on Friday.

It is also showing at the Brixton Ritzy and Peckham’s Peckhamplex on the same day, and possibly elsewhere – check your local indy cinema for details.

The official website has exceded its bandwidth, which is annoying but a sign that there is a lot of interest in the film!

A more general release and DVD are planned.

Grievous Angel and I did a Lovers Rock megamix a while back to get you in the mood. A second installment is in the can and will be available in due course.

Plus of course, music is shaped by the society and economics around it. Perhaps Dan Hancox’s excellent article about Grime and the riots marks the beginning of a cultural shift (or perhaps it’s wishful thinking by youthful lefties like Dan, and knackered old ones like me).

Either way, I’ve been looking out for songs about recent events and have collected some of the better efforts below for your delectation. These are mainly thanks to the good people of the Blood and Fire board. I’ve not had much luck looking for things myself, but there do seem to be a bunch of people re-tagging their tunes on Youtube to tie them into the recent disturbances.

(Any further tips on 2011 riots tunes would be much appreciated, especially if they are any good – leave suggestions in the comments box if you find any…)

So here goes, in no particular order:

1. AMPASOUND – RIOT!!! FWD – London Riots!!! (Reggae Mix – Preview)

Click here to view the embedded video.

A skippy upful roots stepper, with suprisingly incisive lyrics (dissing Cameron for being on holiday), some good Darcus Howe samples and pretty great video.

2. Dub Investigation – Fire In The Town

Dub Investigation – Fire in the Town by Dub Investigation

Mournful, and melodic with a nice xylophone thingy. Reminds me a bit of Manasseh’s recent productions, which is a high compliment. Some different Darcus Howe and an articulate member of the public get sampled.

Dub Investigation are from Dublin, incidentally – a city with worries and troubles of its own. Indeed, the fucked up economy of the Republic of Ireland is one of the main reasons for Woofah not coming out and for its esteemed editor having to paddle twice as fast just to keep his head above water.

3. The Blackstones – Heat In The Streets

Click here to view the embedded video.

Languid one drop, in which the youth are instructed in no uncertain terms not to disrespect their culture or skimp on education. I think the Blackstones were a UK group who recorded at Studio One, but not entirely sure. Please note I have avoided googling them to bolster my credibility!

(Apparently this actually came out two weeks before the riots, so cue lots of “prophecy fulfil” type of talk… don’t call it a cash-in!)

4. Big Youth – London’s Burning

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mad Professor production – nice to see some legends stepping up but this isn’t my favourite by any means. Looking forward to checking the dub though!

5. Fresharda – 2011

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some contemporary dancehall, complete with vocoder! I actually quite like this – consciousness wins though I guess.

Dan Hancox linked to this from his ace Guardian piece, but I’ve included it here for completeness. I think Fresharda was probably first out of the blocks in terms of riot songs, but the lyrics are quite general so he may have had it in the can already…

6. King Hammond – Riot In London Town

Click here to view the embedded video.

And finally, the ridiculous King Hammond with a tune recorded in March. A perfect pastiche of 1969 Skinhead Reggae which gets huge points for namechecking Clissold Park, Stamford Hill and Manor House as well as many other London haunts. Well cheeky, this one makes me smile a lot.

Bubbling under

From the not quite as good, to the downright cringeworthy. Includes some jaw-droppingly bad lyrics, but also the occasional genius moment.

Incidentally, that old William Burroughs quote “riot sounds produce riots” – that’s been rendered a bit redundant in the era of 24 hour media overkill, hasn’t it? Old Bill reckoned a group of you could wander about with cassettes of riot noises playing and people would get so agitated that they would actually riot themselves. But everyone in the UK has now heard more riot sounds than they know what to do with on the telly, with mainly zero result.

In the more innocent days of 1989, some courageous souls tried out Burroughs’ idea every day at The Festival of Plagiarism in Glasgow, “with mixed results”.

I was up there, but the experiment was too early in the morning for me, so I missed my opportunity to see it all for myself, as did the wonderful people I was staying with. But this did have the unexpected bonus value of us all being slagged off by Stewart Home for being “bohemians”, the first and I think only time that word has been used in connection with me.

Last May, Richie (Maharishi Hi-Fi / Musical Fever) hosted another one of his excellent nights, this time at the Mascara Bar (previously Panagea Project, opposite Morrisons Supermarket). I’m no die-hard Ska or Rocksteady expert, but Richie’s nights are always excellent (see reviews here and here). I’ll happily leave the selections to Richie and his favoured DJs any time – an amazing night for the old and young is standard.

Riche also has an uncanny habit of organising great events within about 2 minutes of my flat, which is most definitely to his credit. This time one of my favourite reggae writers of all time, Penny Reel, was on the bill – and there was a local history angle. I was sold.

It was an education, musically and socially. I had the pleasure of meeting Nick Kimberley, who published the world’s first reggae fanzine, Pressure Drop, with Penny Reel in 1974. I get very excited about things like that and the connections/differences with Woofah. Before that night I didn’t know anything about the R&B Records operation. Naturally there were tunes aplenty and further help was on hand in the form of a text produced especially for the night by Malcolm Imrie, who has kindly allowed me to republish it here:

R&B Records
1959-1984

Bunny Lee: “The main t’ree people was when I come a Englan’ forty odd years ago, right, was who now. . .? Mrs King. . . and. . . husband name Benny. Benny use’ to come a Jamaica too, yunno, an’ put out — a get record. Him use’ to put out anyt’ing wha Ken Lack [Caltone imprint] make, Rita an’ Benny, y’understan…”

Rita and Benny King, R&B Records?

“Yes, Rita an’ Benny, right. Them did ‘aye a big distributing place from — dem was powerful people inna the business. Mrs King was a force to reckon with. Them use’ to have a place inna Stamford Hill. If she na sell the record is better yu come outta the business.”

Chuckles.

“When she talk everybody jump!”

Interview with Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee by Pete I on www.reggae-vibes.com

******

In 1959, Stamford Hill was a lot livelier than it is today. A good place to be a teenager. Full of cafes, like the popular E&A salt beef bar on the corner of Clapton Common and Stamford Hill or Carmel’s kosher restaurant a few doors further down on the other side of the street (oddly, the newish shop there is still called Carmel). Even Windus Road (just round the corner from the Mascara Bar) had three milk bars — you can still see the sign of one of them outside what is now a Hassidic pizza takeaway.

A lot of people would hang out and play pinball in “the Schtip”, the Yiddish name (I think it means ‘taking money’) everyone used for the amusement arcade almost next door to the E&A (it’s still there, with a different name and no pinball). As well as the grand Regent (where Sainsbury’s now stands), soon to be the Gaumont and finally the Odeon, you could take your pick of around eight other cinemas within half a mile.

Three years earlier, ten-year-old local girl Helen Shapiro was singing in a group called Susie and the Hula Hoops, along with a boy called Markie Feld, later to change his name to Marc Bolan. Two years on, in 1962, she’d have two number one hits. In ’59 she and Markie were both members of Stamford Hill Boys and Girls Club in Montefiore House (now replaced by a block of flats just south of Holmleigh Road), as were Alan Sugar, one day to get knighted for services to himself, and Malcolm Edwards, soon to become Malcolm McLaren.

And in only a few months’ time, they are about to get the first ten-pin bowling alley in Europe (watch its gala opening here or below)

Exciting times.

All that was missing was a good record shop, and in 1959 a Jewish couple called Rita and Benny Isen who had just changed their surname to King decided to open one. Rita and Benny: R&B Records. I read somewhere that earlier they sold records from a stall in Petticoat Lane but have no idea whether it’s true. For the first ‘few years the shop was at 282 Stamford Hill (now a builder’s merchants), and then it moved a few doors up to 260 (now Top Pizza). By about 1963/64 they weren’t just selling records, they were releasing them on their own labels — first the parent label, R&B, and then a whole sprawling family of others, including Giant, King, Ska Beat, Hillcrest, Caltone, Jolly, and Port-O-Jam. Their most bizarre label was surely Prima MagnaGroove, devoted exclusively to the output of the Italo-American swing artist Louis Prima (slogan: Stay on the Move, With Prima MagnaGroove). That’s Louis singing ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ in Jungle Book — the king of the swingers.

At first their catalogue was an odd mixture. Their only big hit in the UK was Irish c&w Larry Cunningham’s ‘Tribute to Jim Reeves’ in 1964. They did a bit of gentle pop, including “His Girl” by the Canadian band The Guess Who? which managed to get to number 45 in 1966:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s been claimed they even released surf music but I haven’t found any trace of it.

But that isn’t why they were so special. What was really important about R&B Records was that Rita and Benny were among the very first to release Jamaican music in Britain. Ska and rock steady. Scores of great records on pretty much all their labels, from 1964 onwards. Artists included: Laurel Aitken, Dandy Livingstone, Jeanette Simpson, Junior Smith, The Itals, The Wailers, The Wrigglers, Jackie Opel, The Maytals, The Skatalites, Lee Perry, The Blue Flames, The Clarendonians, Delroy Wilson, Derrick Morgan, Don Drummond, Stranger Cole… and many, many more. You can find the (incomplete) catalogues of some of their labels on www.discogs.com [and Tapir's site - JE]. While Benny looked after the shop, Rita traveled to Jamaica to meet the musicians and buy the tapes.

Until the late 1960s there were very few places in Britain where you could buy records of Jamaican music, and R&B on Stamford Hill had all the new releases, and not just on their own labels. So their shop became a mecca for young blacks, not just from Hackney but from all over London and well beyond. Barry Service, who worked in the shop from 1970 to 1980, says that when he started there the place was packed on Friday evenings and all day Saturday, with people buying music and listening to music — it seemed like a club as much as a shop. And Rita, with her beehive haircut, presided over it all, like a queen. The shop also became very popular — because they liked ska — with the early Mods. Penny Reel, who grew up here, convincingly claims that Stamford Hill was the birthplace of Mod:

“The grandfathers of these young stylists [Markie Feld and his friends] toiled in the tailoring sweatshops of Fashion Street fifty years earlier and their fathers own small outfitters in Kingsland Waste, so it is not at all surprising that their clothes are at the forefront of fashion and in the most modern Italian and French styles. In fact, this crowd refer to themselves as “modernists” and they are the forerunners of the gentile “mods” who emerge over the next few years with their sharp bri-nylon anoraks, scooters and op art imagery, and cause headlines at the Easter weekend holiday in Clacton in 1964.”

Certainly there were a lot of Mods, Jewish and gentile, in and around Stamford Hill. They would go to music venues further up towards Tottenham, like Loyola Hall (now some sort of Christian mission centre) where The Who played early on, and the Club Noreik at Seven Sisters, as you can see at the end of this clip of Unit 4+1 playing there in ’66:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rita and Benny’s shop lasted for 25 years. They finally closed it in 1984, partly, it seems, because of ill-health. Barry Service kept in touch with them for a short while but doesn’t know what became of them. Nor do I. There’s only one photo I’ve found of Rita, thanks to Penny Reel, and one of her and Benny with Larry Cunningham in Billboard magazine’s archives. I’d like to know more. Black music in Britain owes quite a lot to them, and it is about time they were celebrated. Stars of Stamford Hill. One day there should be a Blue Plaque outside Top Pizza…

Malcolm Imrie

In the wake of the riots, British urban music has been accused of promoting a culture of entitlement. Here, Professor Green, Lethal Bizzle and Wiley describe a world that politicians have chosen to ignore – and explain how grime is helping to give it a voice.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sunday

The Hackney One Carnival was due to commence at midday with a parade from Ridley Road Market to Clissold Park. We met some friends en route and saw stewards but no sign of the parade. One of the stewards told us he’d just been informed that the whole thing had been cancelled by the police.

The Hackney Gazette later reported that the police feared “that certain elements were planning on attending the Hackney Carnival intent on a repeat of last night’s violence”. Certainly there seems to have been some noise on facebook about it, but it’s impossible to say whether this was just testosterone fuelled bravado or not.

We went to the park anyway and had our picnic. The tents, stages and stalls for the carnival had clearly all been set up, but were now being dismantled. We sat by the new skateboard park and watched as four or five policemen stopped and searched every male teenager in the vicinity. No arrests were made while we were there, so presumably they found nothing of interest. It started raining, so we headed to the pub.

That night there was some disorder in Dalston, with the Argos being looted. This was generally eclipsed in the media by coverage of events in Enfield.

Monday

Photo by Dave Sfx

Rumours started circulating from around midday that trouble was brewing. Shops closed up all over the borough on police advice and council staff were sent home.

There were reports of young people from the Pembury Estate gathering around Hackney Central, The Narrow Way etc. The Pembury is notorious and was the site of huge dawn raids earlier this month, which I can only assume some people are still pissed off about.

Seems like nothing much happened until about 4pm when a stop and search of two black men aggravated the situation and then damage was done to a police car under the railway bridge at the top of Mare Street:

Click here to view the embedded video.

After this there was some damage to shops, minor looting, stuff chucked at the police etc. This was all clearly visible to me via the helicopter footage live BBC news feed which I watched at work whilst trying to figure out my route home. I took the long way round via Finsbury Park and saw this on the bus shelter:

There’s a lot of coverage of what happened next over at The Guardian. More looting, a few vehicles on fire, people pushed by police away from the top of Mare Street back to the Pembury Estate or down south towards Cambridge Heath.

Photo of burning car on Pembury Estate by Dave Sfx

As night fell, this woman provided a bit of a reality check and became an overnight internet sensation:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But her words fell on deaf ears…

Photo of interior of a looted shop on the Pembury Estate, by Dave Sfx

Then more fires, more looting, more violence. See The Guardian live blog again.

Twitter went mental, suggesting there were gangs and rioters on virtually every inch of the borough. Someone said the off licence at the end of my road was being looted, then said 20 people had rushed it and left without paying, then said the whole thing had been a misunderstanding and in fact they had been tweeting things their friend had been telling them, wrongly.

People love talking these things up. Earlier this year I was outside Hackney Town Hall at a protest against the budget being set. It was a reasonably peaceful protest with a lot of standing around, but some passersby took great pleasure in tweeting that they had “ended up in the middle of a riot in Hackney”. Then it looked silly, but this week these exaggerations became distinctly unhelpful.

The net is littered with people saying there are riots happening all over the UK where there aren’t, saying that shops are closing down on police advice when in fact they are closing because of internet rumours. There is a further rumour that the Tottenham rioters on Saturday were circulating the rumour that Mark Duggan had been executed by the police. I’m not sure what this means.

I’d be pretty surprised if anyone managed to give my local offy a going over. They are great guys in there, but hard as nails also. A few years back some crackhead tried it on with a replica handgun, but it seems they recognised it as being a fake and leapt over the counter for a full and frank discussion before the police turned up. The Turkish community in Dalston were out in force on Monday to defend their shops, apparently telling the police that everything was under control and no assistance was needed:

There seemed to be scattered outbursts of disorder in places like Clapton and other parts of Hackney, but nothing too major. Elsewhere things seemed to be much worse, with shops and flats being burned out in Peckham and footage of a huge fire in Croydon looping endlessly on the TV.

In Clapham, the fancy dress/party supplies shop right next to Dub Vendor went up in flames:

Fortunately their lovely staff are all OK and the shop itself doesn’t seem to have fared too badly either.

Some other accounts from Hackney on Monday:

The Quietus

The Commune

Libcom

If you see others with a focus on Hackney, please leave a link in the comments box below.

Tuesday

More rumours, more boarded up shops, but not much happening. I saw sporadic and unverified reports last night of things being set on fire in Tottenham again. Indeed, a friend who is a fireman reckoned last night was one of the worst times he’s ever seen – lots of relatively small fires to put out, all over the place.

In the evening we dropped off some clothes and other bits at Tottenham Green Leisure Centre, the collection point for donations to people who have been burned out of their homes and lost everything. The guys manning the operation asked where we heard about them and when I replied “on twitter” they remarked that everyone was saying that – and that obviously it wasn’t all about organising riots…

I’ve tried to stick to the basics of what happened and when, there are already far too many people commenting on why it all happened and what should be done about it.

I mentioned the death of Mark Duggan, shot by police in Tottenham, in my last post.

Thursday

There have been mixed reports about the circumstances of his death. Rumours circulated that Duggan was shot whilst on the ground, execution style.

A “non-police issue handgun” was collected from the scene. The media reported that a bullet had lodged itself in a police radio. It now seems that this bullet may have originated in a police handgun. There has been a lot of discussion about how many shots were fired, and by whom.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has been  quick to deny the “execution” allegation. They are promising a ballistics report on the incident very soon.

Saturday

On Saturday afternoon some friends and relatives of Mark staged a protest outside Tottenham Police Station. They wanted answers and didn’t get them. It has been suggested that a sixteen year old girl was batoned by the police and this lead to the subsequent riots.

Stafford Scott, Tottenham resident and community activist gives the background and wider context in this interview:

Click here to view the embedded video.

(transcript here)

Sunday

LONDON — As political and social protests grip the Middle East, are growing in Europe and a riot exploded in north London this weekend, here’s a sad truth, expressed by a Londoner when asked by a television reporter: Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?

“Yes,” said the young man. “You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?”

The TV reporter from Britain’s ITV had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. “Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you.”

Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.

[from NBC News]

I wrote quite a lot about UK policing earlier in the year in relation to the failure of policing (at best) that lead to the death of Smiley Culture. News about that case was always going to ebb and flow, not least because it is now in the bureaucratic hands of the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

But… it was never just about Smiley Culture. Since Smiley’s death a number of other people have died in suspicious circumstances in police custody. Many questions are being asked about heavy handed policing at demonstrations against the austerity measures being introduced by the UK government to pay for the banking crisis. In recent weeks London’s Metropolitan Police have been implicated in the “Hackgate” News International scandal.

Jody McIntyre’s series of films touches on some of the issues, asking the right questions and making the right links. The first episode is above and includes involvement from Benjamin Zephaniah, Merlin Emanuel (both of who have lost family members in police custody) and victims of police crime. The soundtrack includes contributions from grime artists Ghetts, Logic, Mic Righteous and DVS. A future episode will deal with the coalition government’s budget cuts.

The terrible truth is that hard times can bring people together. Four years ago it would have been inconceivable that student protestors and grime artists would find common ground.

Things aren’t about to get any better – an “anarchist threat” is already being talked up by the Met in the run up to the 2012 Olympics, with predictably hilarious consequences.

More seriously, Mark Duggan was fatally shot by the police in Tottenham last night, about a mile away from where I am typing this. Unusually, the IPCC were on the scene within hours – perhaps as a result of the scrutiny they have found themselves under this year?