What’s good people? MistaJam holding it down for the first time in print form for a long time. It took years of menacing phone calls; threatening abuse, violence and industrial sabotage but I’ve finally given in and started to write for LeftLion!
So, from now on you can find myself and Joe Buhdha putting the world to rights here but Buhdha’s too busy watching football to join us this time round and who can blame him? Come on you reds! You can usually expect random mumblings about music, culture, football, food, film and basically our slant on everything LeftLion. So this month: Art…
To me, Tracy Emin’s latest shitty drawers piece or Damien Hurst’s pickled dog cock installation are to British art what Goldie Lookin Chain is to British hip hop. It’s all fake pretentious bollocks that someone is doing to make a quick buck and take the piss while people who just don’t understand buy into it, not realising that by buying the fake shit, they are starving a real artist of their support. Come on, if a dirty nappy and an ashtray was really art, then Broxtowe would be full of multi-millionaires.
Whatever happened to pictures? Some of the best and most influential art of recent times has come from the streets, from hip hop culture, namely graffiti. Keeping it contemporary and British, real artists such as my man Temper and keeping it Notts. Small Kid and Dilk have done more for the aesthetics of British art in my world than Tracy Emin and her ilk could ever wish. Will their pieces ever get the millions of pounds like those paid for Hurst’s animals in formaldehyde?
Probably not. Not in our lifetimes at least.
Anyway, enough ranting. If you’re a hip hop head like me, not only do you need to check out the HipHop M1X show with moi on 1Xtra every Thursday night 2-6am (or whenever the hell you feel online) but you also need to keep your ear to the ground as UK Takeover 4 is coming.
Mark the end of May Bank Holiday weekend in your diaries and log on to uktakeover.net.
Until next time, large up Danny Cleary on the cartoon and I’m out like Ashley and Jermaine.
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