by Nick Moss
Ain’t a city, but the rest is true.
Rocks galore, fiends cookin up
In the Tesco car park, daylight,
Sun shinin.
And a new batch of street benzos,
All the old faces noddin out
Round Craven Park,
Against the wall, by the Atlas Café.
And it’s one of them mad
Street soundclash days;
Someone playin old Joe Gibbs dubs,
Stuck in traffic in a blacked-out Wrangler,’
Boaz on his bike, speakers round his neck,
Playin Damian Marley, but says he
Prefers his daddy’s music,
An the students over the
Bookies boomin Holy Priest,
So you have a mesh of basslines
Everywhere, but underpinned by these
Insane stabs, kicks and “ay, yo, fuck this”,
Stompin over the top.
Welcome to Harlesden, rock city.
Chicken charrin’ on a barbecue barrel,
Jerk smoke risin to a Constable sky.
Me, I still prefer the nighttime
When the state withdraws.
No, not withdraws, more that
They become more visible to us,
As we become shadows on e-bikes
To them.
Even the old baseheads on the ex-RBS steps
Are cranky. Been on it since 5am
But still game for a party.
White rum double cup
And what’s left of the candy.
When I was graftin, the nitties
were my eyes and ears.
If the gavvers were sniffin around,
The nitty grapevine warned me.
St Marys Road, the anti-gentrification
War continues. Next to the swagged-up
Carpetbagger homes, 5 kids from the flats
Have dragged a table out onto the street,
Henny and Wray bottles lined up,
Slamming dominoes, hard as they can,
Pop Smoke and bashment blarin
Through the open windows, steppin up the noise
As the light fades. It’s the Lucius Accius
Strategy. Let them hate so long
As they fear. Maybe noise is all we have.
So we live as best we can.
Loud as we can. Hear us. Fear us. (1)
All born over a grave for sure,
But pinned, partying, pissed,
Drooling (the overproof’ s numbed my face.)
Once saw a kid hit the rock from a Martell pipe
And in the half-dark his face lit up
Like he was Johnny Blaze.
NOTES
1. “I love it when they fear me/ Holler if ya hear me” – Holler If Ya Hear Me, 2PAC (1995)
