The Politics of Sound
Exploring Listening: Navigating Crisis and Resistance Through Music with Cheraine Donalea Scott who takes us through her excellent talk delivered at the FACE X RCA Summit November 2024
Cheraine Donalea Scott has achieved Ph.D. Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University | MPhil Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University | MA Cultural and Critical Studies University of Westminster
She lecturs in Media and Music, Royal Holloway, University London and is a Visiting Lecturer in Postcolonial Visual Culture, NYU London.
“Rather than treating music as simply entertainment or cultural product, social listening interprets music as a lens into public feeling, resistance, and power.”
Social Listening
Social listening is an auditory approach to analysing culture. It focuses on how music helps us perceive the shifting social and political dynamics of a given moment: be it a protest, an election, or everyday life. Rather than treating music as simply entertainment or cultural product, social listening interprets music as a lens into public feeling, resistance, and power.
Grime and the Politics of Sound (Image 1)
Grime emerged in early 2000s East London, shaped by the city’s underground music scene. Its fast 140 BPM rhythm and MC-led delivery marked a return to the energetic days of Jungle and drum & bass. But unlike Garage’s polished optimism or Jungle’s chaotic urgency, Grime brought a darker, more stripped-back sound, echoing the growing frustrations of inner-city youth.
Despite heavy policing, including restrictions like the now-scrapped Form 696, Grime flourished. Artists like Stormzy, Dave, and Little Simz have brought the genre to international prominence, yet many still navigate the industry independently, with limited institutional support. Their hustle reflects broader challenges Black artists face in the British music industry.
“Listening across (these categories) is not just a musical journey, it is a way of hearing how crisis, aspiration, and resistance sound in different times.”
A Sonic Continuum: Jungle, Garage, Grime (Image 2)
Grime sits within a broader lineage of UK underground music that spans Jungle and Garage. These genres form a sonic continuum, each responding to its social moment through rhythm, tone, and texture.
Jungle (early-to-mid 1990s) emerged from a post-Thatcher landscape, marked by frantic breakbeats, deep bass, and a raw, chaotic energy that captured the urgency of working-class life. In tracks like Leviticus – "Burial", long intros build anticipation before explosive beats drop, layering sound to create a sense of tension and release.
Garage (mid-to-late 1990s) arrived with smoother rhythms and soulful textures. It reflected a short-lived moment of optimism under New Labour. On tracks like Phase One – "Nicole’s Groove", you hear swing, warmth, and intimacy—especially in its soft vocals—offering an escape into ease and nightlife euphoria.
Grime (early 2000s) picked up the tempo again, echoing Jungle’s intensity but stripping back the gloss of Garage. It introduced a colder, more minimalistic sound. Musical Mob – "Pulse X", for instance, delivers dark, mechanical rhythms and hypnotic basslines that ground the listener in a harsher, more introspective sonic world.
These shifting textures and tempos mirror social and generational moods: from the chaotic energy of Jungle to Garage’s soft euphoria, to the stark realism of Grime. Listening across them is not just a musical journey, it is a way of hearing how crisis, aspiration, and resistance sound in different times.
“Grime’s impact stretches far beyond the booth or club.”
Grime Beyond Music (image 3)
Grime’s impact stretches far beyond the booth or club. Over the past decade, we have seen its artists and audiences engage directly with politics: #Grime4Corbyn and Fck Govt Fck Boris became rallying cries for youth discontent and political engagement. But Grime is not about party allegiance. It is a channel through which young people voice anger, resilience, and hope. It is anchored in a Black radical tradition that understands cultural expression as political.
Final Thought
Grime, Jungle, and Garage do more than soundtrack a generation; they make audible the crisis, survival, and transformation experienced. Through social listening, we attune ourselves to the deeper stories carried in rhythm, noise, and bass. In doing so, we hear how culture resists, remembers, and reimagines the world.
Further Reading:
Scott, C.D. 2020. ‘Policing Black sound: performing UK Grime and Rap music under routinised surveillance’. Soundings, (74), pp.55–65.
White, J. 2020. Terraformed: Young Black Lives in the Inner City. London: Repeater Books.
Culp, A. 2022. A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Campt, T.M. 2017. Listening to Images. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.