In many ways, the brilliant PSYCHODRAMA, of which “Black” is the centerpiece, feels like the start of a post-grime era, with Dave setting down a marker that will hopefully push his UK peers to speak from the heart and not just for the charts.įueled by the concept of Dave speaking to a psychiatrist and trying to move past glaring signs of PTSD, PSYCHODRAMA is a raw account of what it feels like to be black at a time where racism has crept back into British culture in a far more obvious way. Dave’s “Black,” built around inspiring lyrics such as “Black ain't just a single fuckin' color/ man there's shades to it,” hammers home the idea that black people are not a monolith, and their art is not something that can easily fit inside a box. Many UK rappers are tiring of being tagged as “grime artists,” feeling like it’s a lazy label that prevents the art form from moving forward. The song feels like a powerful moment for UK rap, which has arguably gotten a little too lost in the jagged electronics of grime and forgotten that it has a responsibility to reflect the issues affecting working class communities and not just make them dance. But this negative reaction must surely have felt like a big victory to the 20-year-old rapper, who successfully held a mirror up to Britain’s middle classes and taunted them with their own ugly reflection, revealing a toxic resistance to celebrating a culture that looks different to their own. The song, which explores the racist undertones of British society and the double standards (at one point, Dave raps: “A kid dies, the blacker the killer, the sweeter the news”) that separate both white and black children, prompted many to accuse Dave of negativity towards white culture, with unsuccessful calls for the song to be banned from the BBC radio station. When Dave dropped recent single "Black," the negative backlash from white BBC Radio 1 listeners was swift.
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