Garage banned

“We don’t promote violence and we don’t accept it, it’s just how the newspapers portray us”. So begins another So Solid Crew defence of their reputation. With shootings, stabbings and crack cocaine filling up many column inches of Britain’s national press, the UK Garage scene is under attack.

MC Harvey is one of the core members of the 30 strong So Solid Crew. We talk about the killing the previous day of a BBC Radio 1 DJ in a bloody gang fight in London. Reggae DJ Horrace Pinnock, who worked under the title DJ Village, died from gunshot wounds after being found at the Plaza Hotel in Wembley at around 2.30am on Tuesday (November 20th). In July 1999 another Radio 1 DJ, Tim Westwood, was shot in a drive-by attack in south London. Pinnock is understood to have worked for Westwood’s production company.

Harvey himself had survived a stabbing last year that nearly took his own life. This was just one in a litany of violent incidents that have plagued the UK Garage scene and in particular the So Solid Crew. At this time the crew have just entered the British Album charts at number six, a considerable achievement in this the season of the ‘greatest hits’. However as Garage replaces the Boybands on the A&R shopping lists, doors are closing on the Crew. With reported difficulties in access to America, constant police observation and a hostile press, the Crew are now considered to represent all that is wrong with the UK Garage scene.

“They don’t like us because me talk about stuff nobody wants to know, we talk about the street,” says Harvey. “We don’t court the press for these stories”. According to Harvey “the press have simply imported the American coverage of the Hip Hop scene there”. Harvey points out that although many of the incidents have been multi-racial (as is the Crew), all the coverage refers to black on black violence. “If you think the problem is 20 or 30 people in the So Solid Crew, then you can deal with it, it’s only 20 or 30 people, but if it’s the way the world is for many people, then that is much more difficult to deal with”.

Crew members Oxide and Neutrino’s current video begins with a bullet-punctured Porsche and continues to illustrate the void that now lies between many young Londoners and the Police. There is no doubting that for many young Londoners the So Solid Crew are heroes. They represent a voice and a culture that they feel they own. “We are the first British rap group, we don’t try to be American.” The reaction to Harvey in his home town is testament to this. “Yeah, we are legends here, we get mobbed, kids look up to us. It’s cool to think you’re important in those lives. We don’t approve of violence, I tell my family and friends to stay away from that”.

Unlike the club scene of the ‘Loved up’ generation, the current garage culture has been inextricably linked with crack and the greater complexities associated with that drug. One club has gained the dubious nick name of Crack Central. In the past the Crew’s Megaman has admitted to dealing marijuana but says it was never heavier than that.

However, with the stabbings in Ayia Napa, the shootings in London’s Ministry of Sound and the attacks on the Crew’s Master Stepz and Neutrino, the police have now targeted the Garage scene as a priority. To this end, they have set up the Trident programme.

A team of more than 160 officers focus solely on targeting the criminals responsible for murders and shootings within black communities. The team carry out ‘proactive’ operations whilst continuing to gather intelligence on the gunmen and develop closer links with other agencies and the community. The silence of the community towards the police has practically neutered all investigations. Through high-profile advertising, Trident has been calling on the public to play its part in assisting police in providing crucial intelligence. Speaking at a press conference at Chimes Night-club, Hackney, DAC Fuller said: “This will be a sustained and unrelenting response by the Metropolitan Police Service. We want to start challenging this gun culture where someone who has a gun is respected and feared by members of the community. We are totally committed to reducing the number of murders and combined with support from the black communities, will use all resources available to us to achieve this aim. “

As one can see from the posters, the Trident programme sees music as the vehicle of much of this ‘gun culture’. Whether it is the imagery of the Oxide and Neutrino video or the difficulty of communication between the police and the black community identified in the Trident posters, there remains the recognition of a sizable gap now lies between Garage culture and the Authorities.

Harvey claims that he is fitness freak. He lists among his friends Les Ferdinand and Clinton Morrison. He himself spent five years at the Chelsea youth academy before signing to Barnett for three years. A broken ankle cut short his professional career. Football and Garage go together like beer and crisps. In August, the drug gang known as The African Crew were imprisoned following a particularly savage turf war. Desmond Black, Richmond Oduku and Edwin Apiah were all former footballers, listing Cole and Beckham among their ‘Christmas card’ list. This particular turf war left four dead and even more injured.

However Harvey is concerned about the over concentration on the violence. “It’s all about the music,” he insists. I’m all about the music.” Harvey says that his proudest moment was performing at the MOBOs (Music Of Black Origin): “I grew up watching them, I could never have dreamt that I would be performing at them, brilliant just brilliant.”

In the same way that many black Irish take pride in the success of Clinton Morrison and previously Paul McGrath, so too the black community in Wales have taken to Harvey. Harvey played for Wales before his ankle break. In a manner that is engagingly naïve, Harvey announces: “I’m a legend in Cardiff. We are playing Cardiff as part of our tour and the night Radio One is there, my Mum is coming up to see us”.

Radio has been very important in the building of So Solid Crew’s legions of fans. Long before they became the soundtrack to clubbing at BBC Radio One, they had their own pirate station. Do they still? “I can’t really be seen coming out of a pirate station these days,” Harvey admits while still accepting that it is this disregard for authority and convention that has made them one of the most popular groups currently recording in Britain.

Harvey is finishing his own solo album at the moment while continuing to write and perform with the Crew, not to mention having more than a professional interest in Mis-Teeq. “We are all in control of our own stuff,” he says. However whether or not the garage scene continues to be in control remains debatable. As many in American hip hop have discovered, bridging the street and the boardroom can prove tricky if not deadly.