These photos of the grime subculture in East London show youth in revolt—and on the mic

Almost 20 years ago, a new sound began to emanate from London’s East End. A new type of homegrown independent music was reaching the ears of young Brits via pirate radio stations and underground mix tapes. Faster than hip-hop, harder than EDM, grime was a jarring introduction to the state of urban youth disillusionment for mainstream British society. And it was about to blow up.

Like its American hip-hop counterpart, grime music in the U.K. emerged as a youthful response to socioeconomic conditions and entrenched working-class frustrations. East London’s neglected public housing estates were an incubator for the minimalist beats and dark themes of grime—the music’s fast-spit lyrics and pared down production an organic reaction to economic vulnerability and racism. That grime is now a global phenomenon owes much to the genre’s originality and—like rap—its authentic mode of storytelling.

But while Grime was still coming into its own as a genre, the East End communities which inspired it were all but invisible to a deeply xenophobic Britain. While politicians made awkward calls for racial unity, the term “urban” had become a synonym in the media for “black.” It was in this context that photographer Simon Wheatley, intent on pursuing a more truthful portrayal of youth street culture, began work on what would become his 2010 book, Don’t Call Me Urban! The Time of Grime. The book, along with its accompanying films and audio recordings released in 2015, is an attempt to visually reconcile the harshness of life in East London’s council estates with the exotified blackness found in popular media and the culture at large.

“To be ‘urban’ is not a joke,” says Wheatley. “It’s an often harsh reality [which] the mainstream media, and commerce, have tended to gloss over. My book is an attempt to go deeper into complex issues, and particularly beyond the stereotypes of the right wing media.”

Shot over twelve years between 1998 and 2010, Wheatley’s images are intimate, color saturated alternatives to the council housed bleakness we have come to know from more superficial depictions of English despondency. More importantly, they are nuanced in ways that allow for varied interpretations of what it means to grow up poor, black, and talented. Pictures are variously humorous and sober, shocking and banal, but above all they offer a deep take on some of the most misunderstood pockets of the city and a demographic of young people necessarily at odds with the larger society. Wheatley’s is an outsider’s perspective, ultimately. But it’s one hard won through patience, persistence, and, above all, respect for the young Londoners living through the time of grime.

Photographs courtesy Simon Wheatley from Don’t Call Me Urban! The Time of Grime.