Woke up this morning

I half think it’s inappropriate to make flippant comments about this topic, but you know me. (You actually don’t, but ..)

I woke up this morning old. An old person. Well, that’s been happening a lot lately. I’m that judge who didn’t know what the Beatles were. Also, I didn’t know exactly what Grime is. (I do now because I’ve looked it up.)  

Grime is a genre of electronic music that emerged in London in the early 2000s. It developed out of earlier UK dance style UK garage, and draws influences from jungle, dancehall, and hip hop. Typically characterized by a minimal, prominent rhythm, a very low-pitched bassline, and vocals by an MC.

 

To be pernickety, I don’t know what garage, jungle etc are either, in terms of ‘dance’ but I do know what the words mean in their non-dance usage, of course. 

The word Grime = dirt ingrained on the surface of something."the windows were thick with grime” see also: dross, pollution, muck, gunge, yuck, crud, goo, grot.

….and it’s also a verb. 

Example: blacken or make dirty with grime."the windows were grimed like a coal miner's goggles” 

(What’s a coal miner’s goggles, mummy?)

Anyway, I assume whoever decides these brand-names had something ‘rude’ and edgy in mind when they chose ‘grime’, but (being so old) it reminds me of 'rebels', like Rik in the Young Ones or, say, Kevin the teenager. ”I’m bad, me” 

Of course, you’d be too young to know what I’m talking about. All those cultural references from the days before woke stole all the laughs. 

Everyone (especially me) was horrified and outraged at the antisemitic outburst by Wiley the grime artist, exacerbated further by the insult-to-injury salt that was truly rubbed into the wound by Twitter’s tardy indifference to the whole business.

However, there’s a ridiculous side to it which is almost funny. I mean, have you seen the ‘exclusive interview’ that took place on Sky? (Is that Lizo Mzimba in the background?)

Apart from a nasty whiff of ‘Sky exploiting something rotten’, the interview did reveal the absurdity of this 41 year-old-mutton-dressed-as-teenager trying to pronounce ‘antisemitic’ and saying he wasn’t racist and apologising for ‘generalising’. Get it? Generalising is sort of what ‘racist’ IS! 

Okay, the poor chap’s ire is aimed at the Jews in ‘the music industry’. Not every Jew. But, being a little bit thick, (I think that was the problem) he doesn’t appreciate the glaringly obvious - that if it weren’t for that Jews-in-the-music industry no-one would have heard of him. 

Just think. Without them, he could have continued to make his way in the business without any interference from the management he detests. He could have put an imaginary MBE in any frame he likes and stick it wherever he wants and he could have made racist rants to his heart's content and no-one would care; they’d be like a drop in the ocean. Check out the comments below the Sky interview on YouTube.

(Note to Jews-in-the-music-industry. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer, are you?)

Check your Israel privilege

Brendan O’Neil is on form. Wiley isn’t ill – he’s racist How identity politics helped to resuscitate anti-Semitism. 

I admit I hadn’t heard of Wiley aka Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., MBE (because grime isn’t my thing) until the latest hoo-ha about his racist Tweets. Oh, and by the way, I don’t Tweet myself - although I do spy on other people’s Tweets when my attention is drawn to them.

BON (a common abbreviation) receives some rather hostile comments for his troubles. (Don’t confuse him with Bono. Or Bonio.) He points out that many people are eager to excuse the poor chap - “he’s suffering from a mental illness” 

Then he gets to a broader issue and one I’m very familiar with.

“The NME even referred to Wiley’s tweets as his ‘Israel tweets’. ‘Wiley responds to anti-Semitism accusations over his Israel tweets’, a headline said. Israel tweets? His tweets were about Jews, those snakes who dominate everything, hate black people and are a destructive force. Even where he mentioned Israel, he was really talking about Jews, as is often the case, tragically, in certain sections of the ‘Palestine solidarity’ movement these days. For some people, Israel has become a proxy for the Jews. What they might once have said about the Jews – sly, controlling, bloodthirsty – they now say about Israel instead. We know this from the past few years of Corbynism, which attracted numerous anti-Semites masquerading as critics of Israel.”

The BBC has just come up with something rather spooky. 

“After an anti-Semitic tirade that prompted a Twitter boycott, rapper Wiley has written abusive posts aimed at his Jewish critics on Facebook.

“Jewish critics” BBC? a truly bizarre description of people responding to an “anti-Semitic tirade.

“The grime artist posted on his personal Facebook page under his name Richard Kylea Cowie, the BBC has discovered.”

Belated discovery, but you could plead ‘better a few days late than never’.

“He specifically named Jewish celebrities - including Lord Alan Sugar, comedian David Baddiel and BBC presenter Emma Barnett.”

Mr Willy’s ’s not keen on Emma Barnett then and I daresay it’s mutual.

A good speech from Barnett. But all this wondering where people like Willy-Kylie-Cowie get their memes from does 'take one aback'. Part of it is down to the organisation that you work for Emma. Look - it’s behind you!