Dean Blunt & World Music Thread | Babyfather - icl EP (Out Now)

starscream

Nov 4, 2024

Black metal 2 my goat

WASHINGTON

Nov 5, 2024

three years and I dont think the world has truly reckoned with the beauty of the rot

trilla

Nov 5, 2024

Dean Blunt and Ali Shaheed Muhammad for NPR Music: Microphone Check, 2016

npr.org/sections/microphonecheck/2016/04/01/472637838/dean-blunt-every-day-is-a-lifetime

Ali Shaheed Muhammad: So you're not forcing anything.

Dean Blunt: Never have. No, I'm not really trying to. I'm just doing my thing, and some people seem to be letting me do whatever I like, whatever idea. So that's me just making stuff that I want to see exist, is all it is about, I guess. Yeah. And that's pretty cool, I guess.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad: Yeah.

Dean Blunt: Yeah. That's about it.

And everything else just kind of happens. Like, you can't control — I know that I meet brothers in the street in my area that say certain things to me, and they're brothers that definitely wouldn’t have been saying that s*** a couple years ago. And that is the only good thing that has come out of this.

That's the only time when it's nice, when I see any brother or sister from my area that was like me, but maybe not quite like me at that time, and just they end up going to art school. And I didn't go to art school. I didn't go to any university. But they end up just having a wider perspective. That's about it. I didn't really expect that to happen. But that's the only good — or like the best or only good thing that's come of it, really.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad: That's a huge reward to inspire people.

Dean Blunt: Yeah, it sounds pretty corny as well and cliché. But it's like, you put work — you do stuff and you do it for long, and it connects. And you don't have to do interviews. You haven't got to do s***. You just do what you're doing, and it does what it has to do. It just does its thing. You just leave it and don't try and control it too much.

So yeah, I think that's it. That stuff I've realized — I've noticed that stuff recently. Just cause I've been in the Ends more in London. And that's been blessed, cause it's definitely hard to make sense of why you're doing this s*** sometimes. So it's definitely not a reason, but it's definitely blessed to have that. Cause I was one of those youths. So maybe it's completely narcissistic or whatever.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad: So do you feel, I guess prior to having that interaction of people who are moved by the gift that you shared —

Dean Blunt: Young, black, inner-city people, specifically.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad: OK.

Dean Blunt: Yeah, yeah.

trilla

Nov 5, 2024

Dean Blunt and GAIKA for Crack Magazine, 2016

crackmagazine.net/article/long-reads/hackney-vs-brixton-conversation-dean-blunt-gaika

Dean Blunt: All I know is that in certain places I’ve played, if I was in attendance, I’d still feel just as off-key as any black person in a white space does. So why would this feeling still exist even when I’m the person on stage? That just shouldn’t be the case at all. And why am I feeling like I’m having to justify the fact that what I’m doing with Babyfather is not a joke? Why is it funny I have a bodyguard? Do you know what I mean?

GAIKA: They can’t understand that, the nuance of it…

Dean Blunt: Why or how the f*** would I make a parody of grime or hip-hop, do you know what I mean? That’s offensive in itself.

GAIKA: It’s such a deep micro-aggression. It’s like, ‘Let me try to explain it, because I get to explain it’. When I watch your show bruv, no part of it is satire, it’s just a sick rave. You understand what I’m saying? That’s what it is to me. Rather than say, ‘I just don’t know what this is’…