◄Previous: 4.2 This is Grime

# 4.3 Crazy Titch

## Content warning

Please be aware, this section discusses a murder. If you are likely to find this challenging, please consider carefully how you might want to engage with this section. You can find suggestions in the ‘Your emotional resilience skills: A guide for students studying emotionally challenging content’ guidance. Please also be aware that this section contains strong language.

One notable event that is associated with grime is the murder of Richard Holmes by Carl Dobson. The event and its aftermath have been reported by a variety of news publications, which you will explore here.

In 2006, Carl Dobson was charged with the murder of Richard Holmes. Dobson, more commonly known as Crazy Titch, was a well-known grime MC, while Holmes was the friend of rapper Shaba Shah, performing name Shaba Shak, who had released a recording containing lyrics that were disrespectful to Dobson’s half-brother. The publicity around this incident left an indelible mark on grime, suggesting that the lyrics were the cause of the murder. Activity 7 examines a number of sources that reported the event and its aftermath, each providing information on Crazy Titch and the event from their own standpoint.

## Activity 7 This is Grime?

Timing: Allow around 70 minutes to complete this activity.

The following four articles discuss or reference the murder of Richard Holmes by grime rapper Crazy Titch. Read these articles and consider the way grime is represented. Do the articles give you a particular impression of the musical style? How might they affect grime’s reception?

- Muir, H. (2006) ‘Rapper who killed producer for “disrespect” gets 30 years‘, The Guardian, 3 November.

- Vice (2006) ‘London – Crazy Titch’.

- Parker, C. (2006) ‘“You’re Jailed” Apprentice star’s cousin is murderer serving 30 years for shooting dead music producer‘, The Sun, 16 October.

- BBC News (2006) ‘Two jailed over rap lyrics murder‘, 2 November.

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### Discussion

The articles all provide very different points of view on the subject. There is a focus on crime and violence which detracts from what the songs of the genre actually talk about. It is not possible to describe the stylistic traits of grime or what it sounds like from these articles, but the notion of it having links to violence is one that persists.

The BBC and Guardian articles use ‘rap’ and ‘rapper’, respectively in their headlines, making direct reference to, and a connection between, musical style and a violent crime.

In the Vice article, there was an attempt to contextualise the lyrics that were supposedly the cause of the murder and how comparatively mild they were compared to other examples of grime ‘beefs’. The language used in the article such as ‘a bit of a temper’ and ‘uncalled for’ doesn’t really acknowledge the brutality of the murder.

The Sun article crudely uses the murder to sensationalise the background story of a contestant who appeared on the UK reality tv show The Apprentice.

As someone not intimately involved in grime, reading the articles above makes me question how my reception of grime has been affected by them. Having these associations already planted in my mind, my reception of grime music on a first hearing might be altered. While it shouldn’t be downplayed that someone was murdered and the various participants were active in the grime scene, attempts to read the genre in response to such an event are problematic.

The articles in Activity 7 have a clear focus on violence and grime. After the headline of ‘Rapper who killed producer’, the Guardian article opens with: ‘A rapper outraged because his half-brother was “disrespected” in a song lyric was jailed with a confederate for 30 years yesterday after a revenge attack ended in murder.’ ‘Rap’, ‘rapper’, ‘music’ and ‘grime’ are used collectively a total of seven times. ‘Murder’, ‘shot’, ‘shooting’ and ‘violence’ collectively feature nine times in the 422-word article. The article is also tagged with the topic keyword ‘Gun crime’.

The question whether grime promotes violence or whether grime is an attempt to push back against a violent environment is pertinent; in a more abstract sense, to what extent does the art form change society and to what extent does society influence art? These are questions that don’t have absolute answers. The words of grime MC Wretch 32 present a distilled personal reflection on the matter: ‘We’re writing to escape. If you listen deep into the lyrics, there’s probably a lot of cries for help in there’ (Collins and Rose, 2016, p. 24). Encountering this music genre for the first time through the Guardian article, for example, would have an impact on your reception of the genre, influencing how you might answer the question of ‘does grime promote violence?’ This highlights how the sources you encounter require the careful consideration of potential issues around interpretation and bias.

◄Contents►Next: 4.4 Grime reception

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