Jammer once told me his biggest flaw is that sometimes he doesn’t know when to shut up. Bar the fact that I earn a living from talking, I completely agree with him. Not that “he doesn’t know when to shut up”, but that talking too much can distract from the intended point and not everyday share your opinion.
I hate to think I’m yet ANOTHER person with ANOTHER opinion typing away on the internet. It annoys me. I prefer to share my feelings with my pals, in a good old round table discussion and more importantly I prefer to action my opinions rather than just type them.
So why am I writing this – I hear you murmur? Because GRM asked me to and I like GRM.
For the past 10 months I have been working on what started out as a monthly online music show and what is now – a monthly online and televised music show. YAY!
For the longest time I’ve created and scrapped and re-created and scrapped countless ideas (some of which weren’t very good tbh) with the aim to support the UK music scene.
For those that don’t know, I’m the 3rd sibling of The Adenuga family. My two older siblings are extremely nang and have dedicated their lives to doing nang stuff like this and this and this. The 4th Adenuga sibling is a genius and my hero. We’ll speak more about him in due time.
To be the sister of such aliens has meant that over the years I’ve seen a lot. The most relevant thing (to this article) I’ve seen is THE STRUGGLE – initially I thought it was just Junior and Jamie going through The Struggle, then I thought it was just Junior, Jamie and Meridian Crew, then I thought it was just Junior, Jamie, Meridian Crew, Wiley, Dizzee and Roll Deep, then I thought it was Grime as a whole. THEN I started to meet people like Shakka, Little Simz, Szjerdene and ShezAr, I realised that the struggle was real for everyone. It may not have manifested within their lives in the way it did with Grime. But it was still there.
I watched these super talented humans, constantly come up against challenges within nonsense parameters and systems that had no relevance to their art & creativity. They were having to deal with Voldemorts who would never be able to relate to their powers because their agendas were only coming from tainted, tarnished and democratised places. YUCK!
I’m not into dissing whole groups of people btw. Everyone is an individual and so should be treated that way, so please note – at all times, I am referring to the majority.
There are people who exist on this planet who I believe are amazing. They stand for things that I think are extremely important and after years of being an ABW (angry black woman) I’ve managed to train my brain to only focus on positives. Which means writing an article slewing the Voldemorts of this world is NOT something I’m going to do. Like Jammer said – know when to shut up, don’t be the guy that’s always saying stuff.
‘Play It‘ is my way of celebrating the Kojey Radicals and the Miraa Mays. These people spend the limited time we all have on this planet being amazing and standing for important things. ‘Play It’ is my way of supporting The Struggle. The way in which I have chosen to contribute… positively and do my bit to remind everyone that we will progress and we can be heard in the true un-compromised way in which we deserve to be – as long as we continue to help each other.
And to all the Voldemorts, keep doing what you’re doing – you haven’t got long left. We’re not gonna need you soon. We don’t even really need you now. One day you will be completely irrelevant.
The ‘Play It’ show launched last Sunday on Channel AKA, brand new episodes will be available monthly on TV on the last Sunday of the month. The online version will go live via Daily Motion two weeks later with additional content and footage. Keep a look out!
Words: Julie Adenuga