During a year in which ‘British Values’ – Theresa May’s sinister slogan loaded with undertones of race and segregation – have been established as toxic and exclusionary to people of colour and immigrants, Dean Blunt and GAIKA have made music that examines what exactly it means to be a black man in the UK. Hailing from Hackney and Brixton respectively, both artists’ work is steeped in Britishness even as it rejects the concept entirely. GAIKA’s sound is a conduit for the dystopian now, while Dean Blunt’s new output with Babyfather combines London slang with hip-hop, industrial noise, a narrative steeped in national identity and album art that depicts a Union Jack hoverboard. In this unmoderated conversation for Crack Magazine, the two discuss micro-aggressions, hyper-masculinity and resistance in post-Olympics London. GAIKA : I agree with what Lil Yachty says about Biggie or whatever, I get it. I get what he says about Drake, and I see what he says about Biggie. From our side, we definitely see both perspectives. Dean Blunt : Yeah, I do think there should be like a bridge between those generations, or else both never connect. G : If you’re 18 and you’re coming up now, it’s the same way your early Bush era or your Reagan era and post- Reagan era was a bit fucked. But me and you had our formative time during this other period, which is kind of hard to define. So actually there’s a dearth of artists who can even communicate to both generations, who are conscious, or even aware of the cyclical nature of this culture. Do you know what I mean? DB : Yeah exactly. We’ve seen something flop, seen the cycle. It’s hard to articulate it, but we’ve seen it. Or seen nothing. G : And as a result, there is a cynicism there. If you think about it, the Twin Towers got blown up in September 2001, and we lived in the shadows of that.

© Joshua Gordon / Plinth

DB : We’re like numb, like this numb generation, like the numb post-nothing [generation]. Post-conspiracy. But the trauma’s all still there. G : Like when the [financial] crash happened, who was surprised? We weren’t surprised. Even though we had just got the end of free education – or not free education but, like, free loans and all of that before the crash. We were still living in the shadow, in the long arm of some terrible shit that’s going on in the world. But now, I don’t know, what do you think is next? Donald Trump is fucking president bro. DB : I mean… the Trump ting, I think that once again, just like Brexit – America is just showing itself for what it is. America has always ‘been’ Donald Trump. Donald Trump is just an American without the fourth wall. And I think that’s tight, it’s great. I think it’s heavy man, there’s no fallacies, so people can progress, we’re not living in this charade. G : This fake shit.

© Joshua Gordon

DB : Yeah, it is what it is. America’s been like this, so it’s boring to hear people to talk about it now, or even when he was running like ‘Ahh I can’t believe what he’s saying!’ Like, bruv, these other fuckers are saying this shit anyway. Like in America, everyone’s crying. Like it’s shit, yeah, but people should have been had a survival kit years ago, you know what I mean? Now, I think shit’s actually going to progress, like in real time. G : When I said Donald Trump could win, they were like ‘no he could never win’ and I’m like ‘yeah people are gonna go that crazy’. There’s no point in lying anymore, there’s no more faking. They went out and voted for someone who’s gonna slap everybody in the fucking face. DB : I was like ‘this is deep, the fourth wall has proper peeled back.’ Like if there’s any kind of conspiracy theory or whatever, them man are on some next level novelist shit!



© Joshua Gordon

© Joshua Gordon