Original London Style (UK): Hip Hop, Sound Systems and Black British culture

When on December 6, 1982, the video for Buffalo Gals by Malcolm MacLaren & The World's Supreme Team aired during the Top of the Pops broadcast, English popular culture would never be the same. Suddenly, the indecipherable codes telling the story of the new creative wave coming from the South Bronx seemed to reveal themselves to many. The impact was devastating.

Hip-hop culture integrated into English reality at a time when the nation's soundtrack was undergoing an incredible creative energy phase, in a state of

continuous evolution: punk, new wave, synth-pop, but also reggae, funk, RnB, and rare groove. Moreover, synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, and drum machines were more affordable and accessible, allowing for experimentation with new approaches, in search of an ever-innovative sound.

The sound system culture, deeply rooted in the English Black community, profoundly shaped UK rap from its origins. Not surprisingly, London is the

metropolis that, more than any other, has been able to bring together different forms of expression.

For this reason, hip-hop on English soil has blended Caribbean, African-American, and African influences into a unique and highly original style, thus contributing to the definition of a Black British culture.

u.net has been studying hip hop culture, African American history for years. In addition to the seminal Renegades of funk, he has published Bigger than hip hop, Louder than a Bomb, and Stand 4 What! for Agenzia X. With Paradise the Architect (X Clan) he published No Half Steppin' (Wax Poetics Books, 2016). In 2019 u.net was assigned the prestigious NAS Fellowship at the Harvard Hip Hop Archive & Research Institute.