The only uncomfortable bit of the night was its title: We Are Manchester. I looked around the Arena and saw almost exclusively white faces. You could blame it on the guitar bands, to whose charms the BAME community has largely remained immune. But high up on the bill was Bugzy Malone, a young black grime artist who raps about Manchester’s 0161 dial code, despite almost certainly never using a landline. Thirty-three per cent of the local population is not white. Where were they?
Music bill to appeal to largely white audience has largely white audience.
And don’t you just love the incredibly racist assumption that darker people would all turn up because there’s a darker person on the bill?
You could blame it on the guitar bands, to whose charms the BAME community has largely remained immune.
Robert Johnson, Huddy Leadbetter, Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Albert King, T-Bone Walker, B.B King, Robert Cray, Albert Collins et al. Yeah all members of the so-called BAME and seeming ignorant of their immunity to the guitar.
Oh, it’s a Grauniad writer expressing her own ignorance and prejudices. Pidd off, Helen.
What does the author of ‘Bicycle – The Complete Guide to Everyday Cycling’ know about the music industry?
Of that absent third, how many believe music and mixed assemblies are haram?
Am I imagining it or has there been a marked reduction in the number of Grauniad columns that allow comments?
“Thirty-three per cent of the local population is not white. Where were they?”
Well, the population of Manchester is about 2.5m. I doubt that a third of that would fit in the arena.
“…high up on the bill was Bugzy Malone, a young black grime artist who raps about Manchester’s 0161 dial code, despite almost certainly never using a landline.”
Wow. Just wow.
An almost perfect musical deconstruction, I feel it would be a little pendantic to point out that dialling codes are used in making calls TO a landline but I nevertheless must.
And also that you don’t necessarily have to have personal experience of something in order to sing about it.
And also that must be perhaps the blandest thing anyone has ever said about a singer or a song.
Virtue signal gatekeepers are very irksome. i thought the whole idea was to raise money anyway.
I draw my friend’s attention to the token darkie in every Hollywood movie.
define “local population”. Does that include Oldham?
I worked in Manchester itself and it struck me as very white. But Oldham is not. Maybe people in Oldham are less likely to travel to Manchester to see a gig?
Also: fuck landfill guitar indie.
@ John Square – I don’t think he meant 1/3 of the total 🙂
Huddy Leadbetter, Leadbelly
So good you listed him twice!
Unless those non-whites didn’t have a choice to go then what’s the problem? The alternative would be the State handing out tickets based on colour and then the sex discrimination crowd would want balance then the whole alphabet soup would be up in arms.
I’ll bet if I went to some gigs I’d be the only whitey present.
We need to drum in to these idiots that Equal Opportunity != Equal Outcome, humans make choices.
@The Pedant-General: You aren’t imagining things, they now don’t open comments on anything likely to be ‘controversial’. As defined by them.
Is the population of Greater Manc 33% non-white? 2011 census says no.
Henry Crun
“Oh, it’s a Grauniad writer expressing her own ignorance and prejudices. Pidd off, Helen.”
What would a Guardian writer write about except their own ignorance and prejudice?
What I love about this article is that the writer thinks she’s making a ‘right on’ comment about discrimination and how ‘hideously white’ it all was, when actually she’s making a pretty pointed comment on the local ethnic population’s lack of community and charitable spirit and their lack of desire to integrate with the majority white population.
And don’t you just love the incredibly racist assumption that darker people would all turn up because there’s a darker person on the bill?
Written of course by a pasty-faced white bird.
Perhaps it’s only white people who think ‘We’re Manchester’. Maybe, shock-horror, many of the ‘minorities’ actually believe in the same ideology as the mass murderer?
Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were 50% guitar.
I think Jimi Hendrix qualifies as not white and he knew his way round a guitar.
Naaah, ‘ee were rubbish. ‘Eld it the wrong way ahrahnd fer a start.
White people in England ?!?! That’s crazy talk!
The sight of a crowd of Mancunians (of any colour) cheering on a north African muslim artist, a few months after the stadium was bombed by a north African muslim, would be too surreal.
“Bugzy Malone, a young black grime artist who raps about Manchester’s 0161 dial code, despite almost certainly never using a landLine”
1/ sounds shit
2/ I have a feeling that grime exists solely to give the white middle classes a hip way to simultaneously patronise the young, blacks and anyone who lives in the shit bit of town
3/ is this ‘rapping about the area code’ bit Bugzy’s USP? Cos if so, see 1
4/ Whatever next? Will some folk artist take up warbling about postcodes? A dance act writing opuses about IP addresses? Rock bands balladeering over lat/long coordinates?
I have absolutely no idea what “grime” is and an unshakeable desire to maintain my ignorance in that regard.
“is this ‘rapping about the area code’ bit Bugzy’s USP?”
Hardly original, Ludacris rapped about his hoes in different Area Codes 15 years ago……