95
liamentary committee called grime “one
of the U.K.’s most exciting musical ex-
ports.” Storm zy’s success signifies Brit-
ain welcoming the genre with open arms,
something crystallized by his joining the
ranks of Adele, Radiohead and Coldplay
as a headliner of Glastonbury. His set
transported the dense streets of South
London to a field in agrarian southwest
England. He took to the stage adorned in
a stab-proof vest decorated with a black-
and-white Union Jack, designed by the
anonymous street artist Banksy.
Stormzy was the first black British
solo artist to headline the festival. He
says he drew inspiration from Beyoncé’s
Homecoming headlining set at Coachella
in 2018. “Not in terms of anything to do
with how it sounded or looked,” he says.
“Trying to imitate Beyoncé, that’s a
fool’s game. Just in terms of quality, and
impact.” For those familiar with both
black British and African- American im-
agery, the similarities between the two
performances were clear. Each felt like a
celebration of rich aspects of the culture
that haven’t always found a way into
the spotlight. At Coachella, Beyoncé
brought with her the marching bands of
historically black universities and col-
leges. At Glastonbury, Stormzy brought
with him black gospel singers and bal-
let dancers, and snippets of speeches
from a black British politician and black
British author.
“I wanted it to be the pinnacle of my
career, my defining moment,” Stormzy
says. The set lived up to that. In the New
Yorker, author Zadie Smith wrote, “For
this was about arrival: of a king and his
court and the many, many people who
have hoped for this day, when the hy-
phenated ‘Black- British’ would appear, to
the English ear, as permanent and central
a condition as ‘African- American.’ ”
During his time onstage, he took the
unusual step of creating an interlude
in which he mentioned all of the major
grime artists who had paved the way for
his success, as well as his lesser- known
contemporaries. “I proper felt like I
needed to do that,” he explains. “There’s
been this historical thing of letting one
black person in at a time.”stormzy’s commItment to collec-
tivism goes beyond shouting out his fel-
low grime artists on Glastonbury’s mainSo I love and respect all those people, for
all their decisions.”
For the most part, grime has yet to
break into the U.S. mainstream, though
rapper Tinie Tempah made a shot with
his debut U.S. single, “Written in the
Stars,” which peaked at No. 12 on the
Billboard Hot 100 in 2010. Meanwhile,
Drake’s 2017 album More Life featured
several grime artists, giving Skepta and
Giggs a major boost among North Amer-
ican audiences.
But grime is already finding its place
outside the U.K.—and the U.S. could be
next. “Wherever there’s underground cul-
ture or music, grime has a place,” Storm zy
says, referring to grime scenes bubbling
up in Denmark, Sweden and Australia.
The British government seems to
agree. In 2019, a report from a U.K. par-audience’s ethnicity. Until it was lifted
in 2017, Form 696 effectively muted the
British grime scene. Gigs were pulled at
short notice, and performers struggled to
make a living.
“I know I’m the product of bare in-
justice,” Storm zy says of his predeces-
sors who struggled through the genre’s
leaner times. “There are so many iconic,
legendary, more influential grime songs
that are never going to sell as much re-
cords as I’ve sold.” He is sensitive to the
issues faced by those who came before
him. “This is why I’m always so thankful
for being in the position I am. I feel like
all those artists or public figures or ce-
lebrities who went through that, had to
go through that... they didn’t have the
luxury of being free with their music,
and they had to bite that bullet for me.