HERITAGE: North London Legend Joe Black Represents His Area On "I'm So Islington" (2009)

HERITAGE: North London Legend Joe Black Represents His Area On "I'm So Islington" (2009)


July 29, 2022

South London, quite rightly, gets a lot of praise for the sheer volume of UK rap legends it's produced, but North London absolutely deserves a place in the conversation. People like Joe Black and his ilk played huge roles in shaping the sound and the language of the genre and we'll never tire of reminding you of that.

This late 2000s freestyle, for example, has aged like a fine wine. Filmed in front of the Emirates Stadium, it's as gritty as it gets and there are certainly no slick effects, but the thing with Joe Black's generation was they never needed polish.

As happy as we are that Joe Black's off coaching kids in football, you can't help but wonder what UK rap would sound like if he was still rhyming in 2022.




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