Grime Daily SHUT DOWN – an attack on reality

GrimeDaily, an online channel for mostly young, hip-hop and grime artists, including the likes of Lowkey and Akala has been shut down by Youtube for ‘violating community guidelines,’ an artist called Scorcher’s music video apparently sparked the censorship because somebody was holding a knife in it. This is an attack on poor and working-class youth’s rights to express themselves, and an attempt to increase the power of influential record labels and producers on the internet.

The channel played host to a number of videos uploaded by underground and unsigned MC’s and artists, who decided to promote their music for free on the internet rather than sell it.

Although a lot of the videos seemingly glorified violence and gang culture, often they were a brutal reflection of the society that these young people have grown up in, where poverty is rife and set to only get worse under the Tories, and the lack of money, public services, and decent jobs and housing lead to rising crime rates.

But the subject matter of the videos becomes irrelevant when you consider the amount of commercial rappers that Youtube still proudly hosts and profits from through targeted advertising. People celebrating violence, pimping, gun crime and drug dealing is certainly nothing new to Youtube, it only seems to have become a problem if you’re not able to give them money at the same time. Perhaps even worse, Youtube plays host to a range of videos from IDF bombs being dropped over Gaza, to fascists’ attacks on immigrants, and non-coherent theories which celebrate violence and murder of minority and oppressed groups. None of these videos seem to be a problem for the watchful eyes of the Youtube admin.

The only censorship they seem to approve of is when it benefits someone’s commercial interests. This is something which isn’t new to working-class youth trying to express themselves- for example, while Banksy’s stencils are preserved by local councils due to his reputation and integration within the ‘legitimate’ art world, unknown graffiti artists face the threat of massive fines, prison sentences and the constant vandalism of their work with drab grey paint. (Watch Colourful Barz)

Youtube seems to have stepped in to help out their rich friends in the record labels to shut down their rivals and further monopolise the music scene by destroying underground competitors.