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Inside Made in the Manor: A Look at Kano’s 2016 Masterpiece 📁 We’d say it’s hard to believe 2016 was a decade ago. But not quite. Social media is flooded with decade-old retrospectives on various pop culture pastiches. So here’s ours: a 4,000-word guest essay courtesy of @0scill8 on @therealkano and his 2016 classic album Made in the Manor, examined in depth. Let’s dive in. The year was 2016. Here was a Black British rhymer, 30 years old, refusing abstraction. This was the era of aspirational rap—“Panda”, “Bad and Boujee”, The Life of Pablo: records preoccupied with scale, wealth and spectacle.  Made in the Manor moved in the opposite direction. Kano was making an album about Dorothy, about Newham Leisure Centre, about getting a screwball from the ice-cream van and about his mate Dean. An album about the little sister he met once and never saw again. At the same time, grime was in the midst of a commercial resurgence. Skepta was ascending on the back of “That’s Not Me” and “Shutdown”, with Konnichiwa on the horizon. Wiley had scored a #1 single just a few years earlier. Jme’s Integrity> had nearly broken the Top 10. Chip was clashing with half the scene.  Made in the Manor was a rare album for its time: a British rap record that knew exactly what it wanted to be. Kano set out to document a time and a place: his time, stretching from childhood into early adulthood, and his place, East London. His lyrical strategy is one of radical specificity. He namechecks roads, neighbourhoods, friends, cocktails and now-shuttered pubs… At the time, the BBC described the record as “a signpost for the future of grime.” In reality, its influence stretched further than that. The album helped usher in a more reflective and inward-looking strain of British rap and in the years that followed, that sensibility would come to define much of the UK’s most acclaimed hip-hop, shaping the work of artists including Dave, Loyle Carner and Little Simz. Head over to our website to read the full retrospective 🔗 ✍️ @020sik

🎥✨ From a £20 CEX camera to a sold-out @peckhamplexcinema premiere, @3stacks.s is rewriting what it means to document the underground. In our latest interview, she opens up about her journey, her vision for Kino DVD Vol. 2, and why being “undeniable” matters more than anything. Read the full story now at the link in bio! Words: @020sik

@harrisdickinson 's @urchinmovie is a film that lingers - a tender, unflinching portrait of a young man on the edges of East London, and of the systems and silences that fail him. Premiering at Cannes (Un Certain Regard), where Dickinson won the FIPRESCI Prize and @_frank_dillane_ took Best Actor, Urchin is as raw as it is poetic - political in its compassion, and dreamlike in its descent. Hit the link in bio to read @020sik 's full thoughts on the film Urchin - now in UK cinemas. #Urchin #HarrisDickinson #FrankDillane #Cannes2024 #BritishCinema #IndependentFilm #A24Vibes #EastLondon #UnCertainRegard #NewWaveCinema @picentfilms @12special

The total work of art isn’t a product to be consumed or a style to be imitated. It is a framework for living. Full essay at link in bio! [grace wales bonner kanye west ye bauhaus gesamtkunstwerk wagner nietzsche solange skepta konnichiwa art george condo surrealism]

Film has always been a mirror for how a generation sees itself. So after we watch we’re asking @sibusisiiwe , @020sik , @thatsewnicole and @_edemm what it truly means to be young today? How do we define it, how we feel it and how it shows up in the work we make. Hosted by @ethanljoseph April 10-NFT3 @britishfilminstitute Tickets still available in bio.

This week on the Editor’s Log…read and sign up at the link in bio! ✍️ @020sik

The cost of making it. Riz Ahmed’s Bait is the sharpest thing made about race, ambition, and British identity in years. Six episodes. No easy answers. The Brown Bond question finally gets the treatment it deserves, and it’s not the victory lap you’d expect. 🔗 Link in bio for the full review.

The day after MLK was assassinated, Beuford Smith walked out into New York with his camera. His photographs - made with the Kamoinge Workshop, published alongside Toni Morrison and James Baldwin - insisted on Black life in full, on its own terms. An essential and undersung voice in photography history. Read the full deep dive at the link in bio.

For AW26, @yaku.____ returned to reality without leaving the fantasy behind, deepening the mythology of Amir and Nathaniel while sharpening his most precise silhouettes yet. Thorned tech fleece, turquoise muscle tees, warrior choreography, and orchestral-grime swells. His most fully realised world to date.

Channelling a feral theatricality and a vividly handmade aesthetic, the world of Talia Beale, better known as @taliable , is one where punk, queer futurism and north London grit coexist in a delirious tangle. Over the past six years, she’s been building a sound and visual language that refuses categorisation. Growing up in Tottenham, she was shaped by the area’s musical lineage. Little Simz, especially, was foundational. “‘Good for What’ was the one that really hit me,” she recalls. “Women who don’t care, who take up space… I’ve always been inspired by that.” Read the full interview at the link in @crackmagazine ’s bio or in issue 174 out now. Words: Sik Frydas @0scill8 Photography: Aysia Edwards

‘Raindance’ is one of three tracks from @santandave ’s third studio album, ‘The Boy Who Played the Harp,’ to earn a place on this list, and that’s no coincidence. On this record, Dave delivers what is, in my view, one of the most emotionally affecting and energising albums in British music history. ‘Raindance’ is central to that achievement. Pairing Dave with Nigerian singer @temsbaby proves inspired. Their chemistry feels effortless, with vocals that overlap and interlock naturally. Tems’ ethereal refrains float above the instrumental, softening and elevating Dave’s intricately paced verse. Sonically, the track sits in a smooth, atmospheric space between Afrobeats and jerk rhythms, signalling a more mature and refined engagement with the genre than Dave has previously shown. The production is restrained but luxurious, allowing the pairs’ intimacy to do the heavy lifting. The song’s impact was not limited to the artistic. ‘Raindance’ was a commercial success, sparking persistent speculation about Dave and Tems’ off-record relationship and earning Silver certification in the UK in under two months. Lyrically, Dave first sketches a meeting at the bar - “See you at the bar, you was hardly talkin’ / That’s when I knew that your heart was scarrin’” - before slipping in a playful nod to a viral @damsonidris moment: “This ain’t Gucci, this is Prada, darlin’.” The song’s emotional core, however, arrives in the outro, where Dave imagines commitment - putting a rock on Tems’ finger, spending enough to have the bank block his card - while Tems glides overhead with a simple, devastating refrain: “Tell me, you’re the only one I want.” ‘Raindance’ is a rare thing: a modern love song that feels both cinematic and sincere, and it proves to be one of the most beautiful moments in Dave’s catalogue. Words @020sik Check the full list at the link in bio!

Chy Cartier’s debut album ‘NO BRING INS’ was, frankly, a disappointment. That said, one track from the project has quickly become a personal favourite. ‘PROBLEM’ stands apart not only for its conviction, but for the way it foregrounds a vaguely South Asian–inflected sample while Chy wears her North London identity with unmistakable pride - a combination that inevitably resonated with me as a half-Indian North Londoner. On ‘PROBLEM’, Cartier sounds fearless, poised for confrontation in the best sense. Her delivery is confrontational but controlled as she asserts her presence - “We call your name, they're like, ‘Who are you?’ / I bet they know me though” - while affirming femininity on her own terms: “And I'm rarely in a dress, still a girly girl.” The chorus doubles down on her geography: “Straight out of North, not Compton / You can tell by the way that I dress / You can tell by the way how I talk / Probably how I walk.” Produced by BenjiFlow, the track is built around a South Asian–tinged vocal loop, swelling synths, stripped-back kicks, and ghostly vocal textures. Where much of Cartier’s catalogue can feel like a frontal assault on the beat, ‘PROBLEM’ finds her in rare alignment, gliding across the instrumental with precision. You don’t need to be a devoted Chy Cartier listener, or even from North London, to appreciate what works here. ‘PROBLEM’ earns its place on its own terms. Words @020sik Check the full list at the link in bio!