Inner City Pressure

Dan Hancox is a native Londoner who writes about music, politics, gentrification, social exclusion, protest and the margins of urban life, chiefly for the Guardian, but also the New York Times, Vice, The Fader, Dazed & Confused and XXL.

‘Grime is the sound of 21st century protest. Inner City Pressure is essential reading from a superb writer on the political awakening of a generation’ Owen Jones‘Dan Hancox charts a remarkable story from pirate radio to the front pages. This is a story that deserves to be heard’ David Lammy MP‘Unputdownable and bristling with insights about grime and the city it was born in. Anyone with any interest in grime, you need to be reading this, trust me’ Jeffrey Boakye, author of Hold Tight'It says something about the last two decades that the first real history of 21st century London comes in the form of a book about grime. Hancox tells the story of a city and a music scene with restraint, humour and anger’ Owen Hatherley, author of A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain‘Riveting… Grime, black music’s rawest response against social injustice, has the chronicler it deserves. Hancox is a tremendous guide’ Kitty Empire, Observer‘An extraordinary pop music story. Hancox’s deep knowledge of London illuminates the music … just as you could tell the story of the US in the Sixties via rock music, Hancox sees 21st Century London through a grime lens, from the 2011 riots to Grenfell Tower’ Dorian Lynskey, GQ‘A vivid and serious study of grime, stretching from its earliest stirrings through to its unexpected love-fest clinch with Corbyn’ Simon Reynolds‘A terrific achievement and an instant London classic’ Leo Hollis, author of Cities Are Good For You‘An absolutely brilliant read’ Tom Dyckhoff‘A must read’ DJ Slimzee‘A dazzling book’ Ellie Mae O’Hagan‘An excellent, thorough history’ Wire‘An exhaustive, thrilling account of one of UK music’s most fascinating and complex musical experiences’ Clash