In Da Winning Corner - Dizzee Rascal
Cynics might say that, lately, the Mercury Music Prize has sought to strategically bolster the image of black urban music in the UK. Last year's winner was Miss Dynamite; this year's, announced on Tuesday, was 18-year-old Dizzee Rascal (aka Dylan Mills), for his debut album Boy in Da Corner.
It could be that the Mercury is trying to shed its elitist reputation - it's been likened to a musical twin of the Booker Prize. Or perhaps it's just that record-pushing pundits have recognised a rich seam of talent within inner-city Britain.
Rascal's story is not so much rags to riches as decks to diamonds: a poor east London youth, excluded from lessons at school, finds fame and a future after a teacher spots potential and lets him use the music room. The rest is history, and no doubt many youngsters will try to repeat it for themselves.
For Rascal, however, fame and fortune are less important than recognition. His music - rapid-fire rap set to a garage beat - is zesty, innovative and edgy. Its harsh lyrics describe the darker aspects of city life - drugs, guns, underage pregnancy - providing a 'healthy' alternative to the impoverished pop that pervades the charts.
The Mercury's judges deserve an award for having the prescience to acknowledge this particular Zeitgeist. Dizzee is something of a cultural prophet, uncovering the hypocrisies of a Britain in which high-rise monuments to industry and commerce in the east end cast shadows over places and people most of us would prefer to ignore.
In a film specially prepared for the awards, the camera pans across an imposing office block as Dizzee remarks, 'That is Canary Wharf. It's in your face... There are rich people moving in now, people who work in the city. You can tell they are not living the same way as us.'
There are many Christian communities working in the inner cities, including the '24/7 London City Centre Church' which was dedicated last week. It's a joint venture between Oasis Trust and Christ Church and Upton Chapel, which will run housing and education projects in the heart of the capital.
Yet perhaps it's time for the rest of us to face the music and, like the Mercury judges, reassess our narrow perceptions of what it means to be British, and what it means to have an effective voice in today's world.
Jason Gardner
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