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It’s Grime Up North review – snide doc reduces regional rap to a punchline

Going against the flow, this new series treats lauded amateur MCs not as struggling artists but as fodder for shameless sneering and mockery

Three years ago, Vice made a documentary called Blackpool: The Controversial Rise of Blackpool Grime, followed a year later by a sequel. Both looked at the enormous popularity of grime music among the young, mostly poor kids in Blackpool who had adopted it, and gave participants in this unlikely scene a human face. What a shame It’s Grime Up North (Channel 4, 2 stars) could not locate the same level of empathy.

This new three-part series follows some of the same people who found fame on the YouTube channel Blackpool Grime Media, and then in the Vice films, but it adds in a few others, too. The first episode homes in on Little T, the best-known face of Blackpool grime, who was a curly-haired, baby-faced, foul-mouthed 11-year-old when he started out. Now, he has millions of views for his tracks, but no obvious way of turning this into a sustainable career. It also looks at a local squad, LOE – LoyaltyOverEverythin – as well as a Midlands MC called KrazyOne Savage who has moved to the Lancashire seaside town to try his luck there.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2BOLvs8
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