dirty city music

briggzy's urban music page.

"Dirty Talk" Video

Briggzy presents his new vid... 30.07.10.

...from the Gingerfication album.  Just press play and watch our hero trying not to look at the well-formed figures beside him. Go Briggzy lad!

 

Rant no.1. Briggzy gives it both barrels. 12.12.09.

Now I've been meaning to do a Blog for a while now, but for some reason never took it any further than just an idea. However, recent events have been sitting on my mind. The idea of Hip-Hop being under appreciated is shared amongst millions of its fans; however I'm not talking about the culture as a whole.

The likes of 50cent, Eminem, Kanye West, Solja Boy and so forth have taken Hip-Hop into the mainstream resulting in the genre of music being one of the highest money generating forms of music. With Eminem's "Relapse" going number one in every country it was released in, is a major achievement, not only for himself, but for every hip-hop fan and artist across the globe.

This isn't my issue. I'm focusing on the Unsigned, struggling hip-hop artists out there. However It's not only hip-hop. I'm also including Grime in my argument as I'm based in the UK and the industry basically categories the two genres as the same which again is wrong. Now it wouldn't be fair for me to say this is a wide spread issue as I’m based in Manchester and haven't ventured further for a long enough time to make the same statements as I’m going to here.

Why is it promoters don't put on urban (I'm going to class this argument as Urban now, since I feel grime gets the same treatment) gigs in the city as much as they do with the likes of indie, rock and pop? Obviously I'm aware of the "reputation" urban music carries with the talk of violence and so forth but if the artist is talented, what right does anybody have to say there not showcasing them because of their chosen genre. Now this might sound like I’m being random but here's why this issue has been picking at my brain for a good 2-3 months now.

Recently I put together an idea and business plan to produce an urban music CD showcasing the best artists in Salford, Manchester. Now Salford has the reputation of gangs, guns and so forth which is the reason why Salford, urban music is unheard of as nobody wants to showcase it. However I’m based in Salford and I know a lot of artists here who are currently struggling to make anything of themselves. Now I was lucky with my own career. When I started getting into music, Salford didn’t have a good scene besides the likes of The Madpack & Red Venom. So I had to branch out and get involved with artists from around Manchester which helped me a lot, the only down side was people thought I was from the likes of Middleton and Ashton as that’s where I had to be based music wise.

Anyway this idea for a CD was similar to the old “City is ours” mixtapes that used to go around Manchester, featuring the artists “considered” the best at that time. My aim wasn’t to feature the best it was simply to feature young artists who had a passion for something and haven’t been able to get it out there. I spoke to A LOT of Salford artists who all agreed this is what the scene needed to build and bring unity to the area regarding music. I had 24 artists willing to put the work in and feature on the CD, the artists ranged from as young as 12 straight through to 26.

I didn’t care how good they we’re if they had a passion and a work rate for something they love, then I’m nobody to stop them from doing so. Now obviously the idea was set in stone. The artists we’re ready, the producer & engineer was ready to produce the whole CD and in the process I managed to arrange a “Ticket only” release party for the parents, newspapers and so forth.

As well as organising another release party for everyone to attend and show support for what we we’re doing. Now this needed money. Our good friends at www.salfordmusic.com got us in touch with The Seedley & Langworthy Trust who helps young people with ideas gain the funding to push it further. After a few meetings with one of their staff members (I won’t mention the name, Just in case you don’t want it) things we’re going smooth, She was interested in the Idea, we went back and forth with ideas making it stronger and she really tried to push it.

Now after a run of great meetings and paper work being filled out and daft hours being spent up all night putting this together we got the stage where the funding application had to be handed in. So after having allot of the artists ready to go and excited about this project, we went down with a completed funding application only to be told on the last day “You won’t get nothing because you’re not CRB checked”. Now to me that just sounds like a huge excuse not to funding something like this project. The woman who was helping us could do nothing about it, she spoke to people to see if they could CRB check it very quickly but nothing come of it. I thank her a lot because she did try to push it. But why did the funding company not let us know 2-3 months before when we started the whole process?

Their first application clearly asked “Are You CRB checked” in-which we ticked no. We heard nothing back telling us that would be a problem. As soon as the application goes through with the title reading “Urban Collaborative CD” we get the first line of communication saying “No CRB”. Now if Salford is continuing to “Crack down” on the street crime and so forth like they continually claim there doing. Then I would like to hear what it is there doing to stop it. Now I’m not saying that I or this CD would have stopped it completely. But I can guarantee it would have had a slight impact. Half the lads who we’re on the CD, again I won’t mention names are involved in a lot of stuff that happens. Why? There’s simply nothing else to do round here. Have any of these people been to one of our youth centres recently? For example I went to the Beacon Centre in Cromwell (Near Broughton) and the majority of the people there were using the DJ decks & Microphones. The equipment was well looked after and everyone forgot who they we’re n where there from and just made music.

Now if I could have took that passion into a studio I was going to use the money for (only a cheap home set up of around £300) This CD would have been something none of them have done before. It’s an Achievement. Most of the lads who we’re doing the music for the CD have never seen a studio before.

Another example, Dirty City Music & Media is the company I put together and was using to promote this CD. We put together a group of 3 people and formed a new urban group which will be released next year in Manchester. We took them out for a day and had a professional photographer capture their image and look. Now this is something small and meaningless to artists who are doing this as a career, but if you’re somebody who’s never had that done, it’s a major thing. It makes you feel special if that’s the right word to use. It gives you the sense that people actually care about your music enough to do this for you. So after the long drawn out time of planning this it was all for nothing. Which is a shame, however we’re still considering putting together the CD it just won’t reach the potential it could have hit due to lack of funding.

 We should have expected this to happen though. Look at Salford & Manchester’s event nights. Manchester has a random few every so often but Salford must have no hip-hop nights at all. Our friends at Salford Records who run weekly nights at The Crescent, is the only place I know of that will showcase the talent and we thank them for it.

Hopefully within the near future we may be able to have a monthly hip-hop show in Salford where the scene can thrive and build bringing in artists from all over. Now I thought maybe I was picking up on small things and blowing it out of context and people do really support our scene. Then a lot of you already know I & Raptor (Out of Order) recently performed at the national competition “Open Mic Uk”. Now when you make it through the rounds of auditions you’re given a press release in which you send to local papers and radio stations to gain promotion for yourself or your band. Now we made it firstly to the Regional Final’s which is the best acts within the Northwest. We completed the press release and sent it around. We EVEN got a feature in the Manchester Evening News and the North East Manchester advertiser placed us in there with a full article. However I contacted Salford’s Advertiser using the email supplied on their website. We heard nothing back.

Now every week I would open the paper and see headlines such as “Singer makes regional Final”, “guitarist Strings his way to the regional’s” for at least 4 weeks straight. So I figured the email didn’t send or they overlooked it accidently. So I emailed it again. AFTER 5 EMAILS, they still didn’t feature us. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it was the email’s subject head which read “Hip-Hop Act makes Open Mic Regional Final”. Now the regional finals had bin we managed to get through and made it into the final 18 acts in the UK. So here you would figure they must do an article on us or even a short promotional add. We’re from Salford; we’re one of only TWO Salford acts left. Guess what? I emailed them 4 times to the correct email address (I ENSURED!! It was the right one) and still no feature. The other artist a singer who is very talented, they placed her in there but not us. Now would it have been so hard to even feature a tiny 10 line column with our names on?

Even our cities own Radio station doesn’t have a solid hip-hop show. I emailed awhile go offering to run a show as I do Media studies in university so radio production and presenting are something I’m familiar with. The reply I got was “Tell us why we would need this show on an application”. That was it! Nice.

But yeah, what started out as a small piece of University course work had now developed into a 2000 word rant about the whole issue. But don’t worry any artist who was involved don’t let it knock you back I will ensure we have a showcase in our area and the CD will go ahead. If any artists from outside of Salford want to come in and help there more than welcome.

Let me know what you think of my rant, any views I’ll take on board and don’t be worried to tell me I’m clueless and this was all pointless :) if you really feel that way. The Out Of Order – Sorry for the Inconvenience Album is out 27th February 2010.

Louis Briggs. 15.09.09:

 

You can listen to an interview with Briggzy about his Dirty City Music project HERE.

Dirty City Music is strictly dedicated to putting Salford's urban music scene on the map. Whether you're a rapper, producer, B-boy and so forth we can help you with promotion. Every so often we'll feature content such as interviews, reviews, CD releases etc. If your interested in being featured or helping out with Dirty City Music, then feel free to email us your information and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks Dirty City Music Contact -

BRIGGZYUK@HOTMAIL.CO.UK