Pop Culture and Politics

Stormzy, a grime rapper in the UK has had an interesting career and has often shared his career defining moments with making statements and calling out his government. As a grime rapper he often in his music involves the struggles he had growing up with poverty and also knife crime in the UK, which is something he has carried on through his career. 

Stormzy’s first spike was in June 2017, gaining 121,405 followers after the incident at Grenfell Tower. This lead Stormzy to making a tribute to everyone affected by the fire and taking part in many campaigns to help spread awareness with victims, such as short films and join other UK artists in a song to raise money. After this he had a milestone performance at the Brit awards in 2018, which in a freestyle on stage called out Prime Minister the time Theresa May asking “Wheres that money for Grenfell”. This has started a trend among UK rappers who preform at the Brit awards to name and shame Politicians about empty promises, such as AJ Tracey and Dave who followed Stormzy’s approach in years to come. 

Theres a jump in Stormzy’s account as he deactivated his account from April 2018 till May 2019. The reason for his deactivation is unknown but I can assume it is because at the time he was getting a lot of bad press after his brit performance from tabloid papers stereotyping his as a dangerous black man.

In June Stormzy has another spike of 23,580 followers after being the first black male solo artist from the UK to headline Glastonbury. This career defining moment for Stormzy was already special, but another element made this showing one of the biggest art performances in the UK. When Stormzy appeared on stage in a stab proof vest with a black and white Union Jack painted across, a symbol of a divided United Kingdom and the knife crime problem. What made this vest even more important is that is was designed by Banksy, a word renowned artist who’s identity is hidden as he uses his art to comment on the state of the world.

More recently Stormzy has had a spike of 29,151 followers in November 2019, after endorsing Jeremy Corbyn the leader of the Labour Party in England, encouraging young people to vote for him. This might sound like an odd pairing but Jeremy Corbyn often gains friendship with major rappers in the UK to try gain the younger vote in elections. This is not the first time Jeremy Corbyn has tried to make alliances with rappers to gain votes.