DRIPSTAR, drill, and dialogue
On Saturday 22 June 2019, Pie Factory Music’s Young Producers took over Elsewhere, a record shop and music venue in Margate, and ran DRIPSTAR - a hip hop night for young musicians in Thanet as part of the Thanet Emerging Artists Programme (TEAP), funded by Youth Music.
We’ve been running TEAP since September 2018, and it’s given young musicians in Thanet the opportunity to take part in practical music workshops and mini-projects, attend masterclasses led by expert professionals from across the music industry, and produce their own live music events in local music venues. DRIPSTAR was the Young Producers’ third gig, and had been completely designed, programmed and managed by our group of six 15-25 year olds, with the kind and patient support of Sammy Clarke who runs Elsewhere.
One of the things we’ve been pushing this year is for places for young people who are making music that deals with some of the challenging circumstances in their lives to perform and be creative, and local venues Elsewhere and Ramsgate Music Hall have been fantastic champions of this. The music performed at DRIPSTAR was edgy, passionate and also advertised as containing explicit lyrics. While the event was made possible by Pie Factory Music, I was keen for the Young Producers and the performers to have ownership of the event, and this meant agreeing a certain level of expressive freedom. Yes, they could swear, but no to content that could offend.
The night itself ran without incident - bar a few crossed-words between small groups of lads which amounted to nothing - and the performers were overwhelmingly delighted with the success and positive atmosphere of the night. I was asked multiple times that evening by artists and members of the audience “is this a regular thing?” or “when will this be happening again?” - the appetite for a regular performance space dedicated to young rappers expressing themselves is obvious, and warrants a conversation between artists, organisations like Pie Factory Music and music venues as to how to ensure these spaces are not only safe, but profitable (not just monetarily) for all involved.
During the post-event evaluation the Young Producers answered “more security” when I asked them what could have been better about the night. It transpired that the incident between the groups of lads involved a threat of a knife, and this got the Young Producers talking about the link between knife crime and drill music. One Young Producer commented about drill artists, “They’re talking about their area, what they’ve gone through as a child, like, what’s the difference between that and what we’ve gone through?” - making the point that just like the performers on the stage at DRIPSTAR, drill artists are expressing their reality, and using their music as a way to escape the challenging life circumstances they face.
This is an issue that London-based rapper Konan recently articulated in this Guardian article, accompanying a single and short film by rap duo Krept and Konan called “Ban Drill” - a protest against the Met police shutting down urban music events, and YouTube taking down music videos by drill artists. Our Young Producers were expressing the same frustration that Konan voiced in his article: “Expression – even if it is confronting, scary and violent – is important, particularly for a deprived and otherwise voiceless community. If you take that away, you not only take away our voices, but you take away any hope of positivity and change.”
I feel proud that Pie Factory Music gets to play a role in not only helping young people create their music, but also giving them a platform to perform and share it. Thinking about the event in the evaluation session got the Young Producers talking about the importance of these opportunities, but also the links between knife crime and politics. The next step for us is to find a way to bring other artists, venues and organisations into this conversation, and create not only more opportunities for young artists to perform, but also for them to feed into the wider discourse around these issues. After all, it’s them who are directly affected.