Dizzee Rascal: Black, white, we’d all fight... then you realise you’re all the same

In response to the Standard’s project to improve life on London’s housing estates, high-profile Londoners share their experiences of growing up on one. Today rapper Dizzee Rascal talks to Miranda Bryant
Speaking out: Dizzee Rascal on the Lincoln Estate in Bow
Cavan Pawson
Miranda Bryant13 November 2015
The Weekender

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Dizzee Rascal today called for greater investment in the capital’s youth clubs as he told of the crucial role they played in transforming him from an ordinary teenager on an east London estate to a global star.

Speaking in support of the Standard’s estates project, the rapper and grime MC said the clubs helped him lay foundations for his music career — and were also a vital safe haven for children and teenagers, helping keep them out of trouble.

Dizzee, real name Dylan Mills, lived on the Lincoln Estate in Bow until he was 17.

He said: “Just put some money in the youth clubs, man.

School days: Dizzee Rascal as a pupil at The Blessed John Roche secondary school in Poplar

“Sometimes, those little youth clubs, you can close them down and some kids don’t necessarily care, some don’t give a shit.

"But [for] some kids, being in that youth club is keeping them away from a whole lot of f***ery. Some kids might not want to go home, their home’s not a great situation, so that little youth club community there is a good thing.”

The star told how he went to “loads of youth clubs” growing up, including the Linc Centre in Bow and venues in Roman Road, Beckton, Canning Town and Deptford.

Youth clubs are also key to nurturing creativity and the capital’s music culture. London’s grime scene would not have achieved the success it has now without them, he claimed.

Performer: On stage Jessie J at the 2013 Jingle Bell Ball at the O2
Yui Mok/PA

Name-checking Tinchy Stryder, Chipmunk, Wiley, and grime collective and label Boy Better Know, he said numerous stars had their origins in youth club culture, and called for it to be protected:

“It’s all well making it smart and putting coffee shops and Tescos everywhere, but if you lose the youth clubs then you lose the youths using that energy to create something amazing.

“They’ve got nowhere to do it no more so the shit doesn’t come out, and they’re the things that are making these areas cool too.”

Dizzee’s debut album Boy In Da Corner won the 2003 Mercury Prize and he is now working on his sixth. Now 31 and living in Kent, he spoke fondly of the close-knit community of his youth:

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“I’ve never lived anywhere with more sense of community than I did when I lived on a council estate.

“People look out for each other on estates. The reason you might get an area of boys that fight another area of boys and it seems so vicious is because when you grow up in an area that poor, the way people look out for each other, you become like family.”

He described himself as “one of them kids that was in everybody’s house”. Poverty was a challenge but “more than anything, pride” was a central factor.

Racial tensions were also an issue at the time: “Black boys, white boys, Asian boys, we’d all just fight each other, for territory or whatever it was.

"But then you grow up and realise, ‘Oh, really we’re all kind of the same, we’ve all just got to get on with it.’”

The Standard is running a £1.45million programme to improve life on London’s housing estates. Charities and community groups have until 23 November to apply for grants. 

Who is eligible to apply?

If you are a charity or community group operating on an estate in London, you can apply for a grant of £2,000 to £20,000. 

Apply to The London Community Foundation, the charity that manages the Dispossessed Fund, at: londoncf.org.uk/grants/london-estates.aspx

Groups operating for the benefit of Angell Town in Brixton may apply for grants of £1,000 to £5,000 at londoncf.org.uk/grants/angell-town-.aspx, also by November 23.

It could be difficult to stay out of trouble, but looking back “the majority of it” could have been avoided, he added. “It overshadows all the hardworking people that are living on estates and just getting on with it, which I still feel are the majority.

“The people doing bad shit, people acting up, they take more of the shine I guess. And there’s different degrees of acting up — some people were doing what they need to do, just a bit naughty, they’re doing it quietly and not hurting anyone.

"There’s other people just f***ing causing mayhem.”

Of the serious violence, he said: “I didn’t need to be on a council estate to see that, sometimes I went to nightclubs and saw that.” In 2003 he was stabbed, in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, and needed hospital treatment.

Dizzee paid tribute to his mother — who worked and studied while he was growing up — as “the original hustler I looked up to”.

That and his focus and passion for music kept him on track. “I kept myself on the straight and narrow, man. I know when people say, ‘Ah, music saved my life’ — I saved my own life.”

The MC spoke ahead of the November 23 deadline for grant applications to our estates project by charities and community groups. He said he supported “anything that gives people the chance to help their community”.

Schemes that aim to improve quality of life on estates can have a far greater impact by helping to cut crime and anti-social behaviour, he added.

“A lot of it’s down to pride. If people feel like the Government cares about them, some problems will cease to exist, because a lot of it’s attention seeking.”

There are 43 council-run youth centres in Tower Hamlets, the borough where Dizzee grew up, but in other areas of London youth clubs have been closed or scaled back in recent years.

Jim Minton of London Youth, a network of 400 youth groups, said: “There’s a need for more investment in these clubs so that more young people get the opportunity to do something positive and fun outside of school — and so the next generation of Dizzee Rascals has a chance to succeed.

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