drakemink :/

deep sigh

Wireless was basically a three-day Drake concert, with all the guests centred around the different phases of Drake’s career – the RnB phase, the UK roadman phase, and the Afro-diasporic phase. This didn’t particularly bother me: Drake’s culture vulture-ing is nothing new and he’s just not relevant to the music cultures I actively engage in and care for. Besides, London’s infatuation with him is a chokehold that has been prevalent for over a decade, as we remain cucked by our friends on the other side of the Atlantic. There are plenty of critiques that address why Drake’s involvement in the UK scene is problematic to say the least. I’m not going to go over these here. What, or who, I’m more disappointed in is the active community of consumers and producers in UK music. 

To address the ‘London creative scene is dead/UK is bad vibes’ people: the Saturday Wireless lineup was a monumental moment for the stars of the UK underground, yet my feed was bombarded with complaints of people not knowing who they were and others wishing they could refund or exchange their ticket for another (more American) day. How on Earth are we to cultivate a strong scene when the audience doesn't wish to discover nor support new local artistry? When the audience is so infatuated with what’s happening over there that they’re not paying attention to what’s happening right under their noses? The unwillingness to experience festivals as an opportunity to discover new sounds and artists, especially within the ‘Black British’ scene, feels remiss. Wireless has always been pretty Americentric, so its (albeit limited) attempt to include emerging UK artists should be celebrated. 

Now, I have deeply conflicting feelings about the direction of the underground scene in the UK at the moment, with some sentiments perfectly articulated in Ceebo’s article. In it he expresses concerns for the sustainability of the scene, refusing to celebrate its rise if it continues to replicate cycles of extraction and erasure. He elegantly dismantles this idea that one artist blowing up guarantees the welfare of others coming up underneath, or the health of the scene as a whole. I want to go a little bit further. When I first saw the video of Drake bringing out Fakemink, I was completely taken aback. The first feeling was the shock and excitement of seeing a new gen UK artist on the main stage at one of the biggest festivals on the calendar, which was then followed by an acute rush of dismay at the realisation Drake was the one bringing him out, and what that means. 

To preface, I really don’t want this next segment to feel like a targeted attack or hate train on the artists. This is a critique rooted in a deep love and care for UK music. 

Historically, growing up on UK music has meant watching the artists you love never get the shine they truly deserve. Earlier iterations of the underground scene, with names like Kish!, dxvl, le3 black, House of Pharaohs, Blue Room Mafia, Ammi Boyz, IamDDB, and A2, laid the foundation for the success stories we see today. Some artists from that era have managed to adapt or reinvent themselves, like Kibo, RADA, and Lzee, but they remain under-recognised and undervalued.

We’re finally at a point where people are ready to embrace the underground in all its vibrancy, but it took a long, stubborn push to get here. It meant ignoring the oldheads, the mainstream, the gatekeepers, and the Americans. It emerged post-grime and post-drill, rejecting prescribed ideas of what Black British kids should sound like. It was a determined fight for acknowledgment, built on horizontal collaboration and creative consistency. Close alliances formed the collectivised energy we see in today’s scene. That is why CONGLOMERATE was such a powerful moment. It represented the culmination of years of work to be heard, achieved without a co-sign.

To me, the underground is exciting precisely for that reason. It has been a genuine space for counterculture, even if not everyone involved realised it. So when I saw Drake, arguably the epitome of the music industry and its exploitative tendencies, bring out Fakemink, it felt the same as when Corteiz first partnered with Nike. You didn’t have to. You would have made it anyway.

There is a myth that entities like Nike or Drake are immortal cultural forces that cannot be outgrown or surpassed. In the UK, we are especially prone to this idea, which often leads our stars to sell out and align themselves with corporatised artists/ institutions. But the truth is, these institutions are already in decline. We are more than capable of building our own or at least reshaping what already exists.

In my opinion, legitimising the old guard is more risk than reward. This new generation is already defining what is cool. A moment like Drakemink signals that some new wave artists are willing to risk their cultural capital for institutional approval. I understand the hunger to be seen after so much neglect, but it is crucial to realise that the new wave already holds the power. These moments matter because they shape what future artists think success should look like, and whether independence or institutional approval is the real endgame. By endorsing and engaging with legacy institutions, they reinforce their grip on the scene and limit the growth of new cultural ecosystems. 

It’s also been a lesson to me as a consumer to stop trying to infer meaning where there is none. The underground is special, yes. I love the music, but not much goes beyond that. I’ve realised that myself and others often project our own ideals and politics in hopes of pushing the culture into a self-sustaining space, but we’re doing this onto artists who haven’t actually positioned themselves that way. We mistake mood for message, imagining subversion where there is none. Sometimes we’re so desperate for something to represent us, to articulate our disillusionment or resistance, that we fill in the gaps ourselves.

That kind of projection can be damaging for both the listener and the artist. It creates expectations they never intended to meet and frames their work within discourses they don’t want to enter. It’s one thing to enjoy the music, the styling, the creativity. It’s another to pretend like it’s speaking truth to power. That doesn’t make the art any less enjoyable, but it does mean we need to be honest with ourselves about what it is and what it isn’t. The underground might still be a space for potential, but potential is not the same as praxis.

I’m still baffled by the obsession with co-signs and labels when UK artists have already proven they can build worlds without them. But I think the fallout from Wireless has shown me that, more often than not, we need to take these things at face value. A lot of these artists just want to perform to big crowds and make money. And that’s okay. Not everyone needs to be revolutionary. But as listeners, we should be clear-eyed about where the stakes are, who holds the power, and what we’re really celebrating when moments like this happen.