Austin Daboh, Spotify UK’s new senior editor of content programming has hailed grime as Britain’s “most potent genre since Britpop”, in a conversation with Music Week.
The former BBC Radio 1Xtra music manager hailed 2016 as a big year for grime, with the wider music industry now starting to grasp its growing appeal. So far this year there have been several key grime releases, with the likes of Skepta’s Konnichiwa, Kano’s Made In The Manor and Giggs’ Landlord all hitting the Top 10 of the albums chart. Furthermore, Skepta and Kano’s albums have both been selected in the Hyundai Meciry Music Prize’s 12 albums of the year.
According to Daboh, the high quality of music released this year, combined with the industry’s recognition of the great work being done by grime acts, has played a major role in elevating the status of the genre in 2016.
“You have the perfect storm of artists reaching their creative prime, a fertile audience and gatekeepers who understand millennial youth culture,” he said. “Mix this together with a few other factors and you have the most potent British genre since Britpop.
“The level of business acumen in grime has risen, creating more success stories for the mainstream to buy into. Grime has turned into a self-sufficient industry with its own income streams. Corporations want a piece of whatever pie is hot, and no pie is hotter than grime.”
For more on this story and to find out what other leading industry figures have to say about grime in 2016, click here.
