In the dark, against the wet bricks of an east London alley wall, rapper Shortz, 22, is about to articulate what drives him to rap. A police car cruises by slowly and his group duck behind walls or pull hoods up. The acrid waft of a familiar smell suggests the wall is wet for a reason and Shortz might be better to position himself somewhere else. “These ends, man,” he says. “People just piss on everything.”
This isn’t the high-end costume party of a Drake shoot – this is grime in every sense. But despite the low-fi surrounds, Shortz’s video – on YouTube platform site PacmanTV – will have 10,000 views within 24 hours of being uploaded. Everyone of a certain age in his area – Hackney, east London – knows…
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FHM UK (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 2016