Dan Hancox Presents: Music, Sound and Cities - Inner City Pressue

Checking the pulse of urban life, as author Dan Hancox (Guardian, New York Times, FT) explores the relationships between music and the heartbeat of the city.

Opening at the start of the new millennium in the tower blocks of east London, Dan Hancox's acclaimed 2018 book Inner City Pressure: The Story of Grime tells not just the story of Britain's most thrilling and explosive 21st century sound, but the city that produced it. As New Labour's Urban Renaissance plan to transform the inner cities took hold in the early 2000s, against seemingly insurmountable odds, grime’s teenage pioneers navigated their way through racist police shutdowns, ASBOs and tabloid hysteria about delinquent 'hoodies' to change UK music forever. They documented protests and riots, joy and pain, and sent out a signal from the pirate radio aerials and neglected estates of London’s poorest boroughs that would eventually resonate as the universal sound of youthful rebellion, take over Glastonbury and the charts, and become leading voices advocating for Jeremy Corbyn and the victims of the Grenfell fire.

By the time the book was published in 2018, the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, Skepta and Stormzy had become household names. But what has happened to the estates and neighbourhoods since grime hit its 2010s peak? Drill blew up and burned out, and no major underground scene has arrived to replace it. With the inner city transformed beyond recognition by gentrification, have the conditions that produced grime now gone forever?

Join Dan and the team at the Centre for Urban and Community Research for the first in a series of public summer lectures and discussions.

Dates & times

Accessibility

If you are attending an event and need the College to help with any mobility requirements you may have, please contact the event organiser in advance to ensure we can accommodate your needs.