Let Battle Commence

" A self-fulfilling prophecy is an assumption or prediction that, purely as a result of having been made, cause the expected or predicted event to occur and thus confirms its own 'accuracy.' "

With this in mind, if you're one of the people assuming that Grime acts will attract an 'unsavoury' crowd to Forward's>> dancefloor, then chances are, peaceful people are gonna stay away and thus the prophecy will be fulfilled but not because the crowd really is unsavoury but because everyone's been convinced that it is. You wanna be responsible for that?

It's obvious that Fwd is changing slightly. It seems the management (who to my knowledge have always been interested in grime anyway -Plasticman for example), are finally expanding their grime lineup's in light of the grime artists that have shown interest in Fwd's infamous dubstep sounds , as in seen in this photo of Jammer, Wiley and their crew reacting to this years Mystikz set and the addition of Skepta to the MC line-up.

No one likes change, but I can't help but think there would be less fuss if it were acts from an altogether different genre being introduced to the flyers. What gets me even more is that whilst many of the Grime artists are embracing dubstep, many dubstep heads don't really wanna know about Grime. If you really aint into the sound, fair enough. I myself have never claimed to be a HUGE fan of Grime (I have a tendancy to stick to the Grime artists that I've always liked), but to dislike it on the grounds that it attracts a different kind of crowd is ridiculous. As it stands, last week's Forward had one of the most mixed and most energetic crowds I've ever seen, and I'm yet to witness any sort of trouble within the walls of Plastic People.

Here I feel I ought to point out that the trouble that did occur last week happened outside on the street, and whilst it was between two people that had been at Fwd, it was a personal matter between two grown up's and not some 'young grime ruffian' picking on an innocent passer by. I apologise for failing to mention this and the fact that the tension that I felt was down to the sheer number of people in the club and NOT as a result of the music or the crowd but I avoided the subject cos quite frankly I perceived it as unimportant. Unfortunately, to some supposed music lovers, the trouble is important (even though it had nothing to do with them), and recent forum threads have focused more on this than the actual music that was played, leading me to pose the question, if you love Dubstep so much, why aint you asking about the latest dubs that Hatcha dropped last week?

Sure it's easy to assume that Grime is aggy- the lyrics are often dark but no darker than the environment they've sprung from. There's no getting around it, as wonderful as living in London is, it's hard work sometimes so it's only natural that the tension will come out in the music, just as it comes out every weekend in the form of brawls on the streets of Croydon. Whilst I agree that some Grime lyrics can be monotonous, I also feel that there's just as much monotony within every art form- hence it's important that they are allowed to evolve and morph, something which the inclusion of both Grime and Dubstep on Fwd's line-up will surely promote. No one likes change, and I definitely don't want to see Fwd changing too drastically but with Hatcha, Benga and Skream all present on Oct 6th, I doubt there's much chance of that. Besides, even if it did turn into a mini-Sidewinder- with the bigger weekend raves; namely DMZ, Subloaded and Skull Disco in full momentum, and more on the horizon, we're spoilt for choice. Maybe it's actually the emergence of these already successful nights that have forced the Fwd management to rethink their line ups for fear of losing their crowd.

What’s shocked me most about this whole dubstep-grime Fwd debate is the blatant lack of respect that has been shown in the comments on on this very blog which essentially, was set up to share my thoughts and images of the music that I love. When I posted up the recent Forward>> flyer, I never imagined for one moment that it would incite racist and homophobic remarks, something that has irritated me to the point of sleeplessness.

As cliched as it sounds, haven’t we got enough war in this world without the added weight of being abused for our musical tastes or opinions? I’m all for healthy debate and banter but to personally attack someone on grounds of their concerns for music or the particular scene that they feel passionate to write about is blatantly ludicrous. World is crazy.