Posted up last month but in development for some time, though clearly freshly updated, Reynolds on gender and aggression within the nuum. Comes with some interesting re-assessments of grime (read: “REYNOLDS STILL LIKES GRIME SHOCK”), some attractively snark-free analysis of dubstep (if you ignore the comments): THE NUUM AND ITS DISCONTENTS, # 5: MASCULINE PRESSURE: or,(REAP)PRAISING THE “HARD” IN HARDCORE. via Energy Flash.
I think the main point I would make in reflecting on Simon’s piece is that there is perhaps a cycle between the different male archetypes – from gangsta to lover to rebel to mystic etc, and back again. Lots of performers / MCs will cycle through these personae in the course of a set. Or at least, a career. Just look at Wiley, James Brown, Marley etc. Certainly, scenes will cycle through these archetypes. So dubstep majors on the mystic persona, which is a natural evolution from and complementary to grime’s gangsta persona, which is a natural evolution from garage’s lover persona, etc. You can often see reggae performers deliberately take on these different persona in the course of a single performance. And all the different scenes can occupy multiple personae – but one tends to dominate. So garage had gangsta elements, mystic elements, rebel / political elements etc as well as the Lover archetype.
So it’s less a case of these being divergent paths as points on a continuum.
I think I might be about to put different phases of the nuum on different sephiroth of the tree of life, and no good will come of that, so I will stop now!
