#006 Elijah on Yellow Squares, peak authenticity, and the unfortunate ubiquity of Joe Budden

Music Not Diving is supported by AC55ID... head over to www.ac55id.com to check out the fastest growing electronic music marketplace, a central hub for music discovery, streaming and purchasing! -- Watch the full video version of this episode over at youtube.com/@WeNotDiving Elijah is one of the deepest thinkers in underground culture. Having first come to prominence in the second wave of Grime along with Skilliam and their label Butterz , and as an artist manager to UK DJ Flava D amongst others, he has reinvented himself in recent years with the Yellow Squares project which seeks to encourage debate around the changing nature of the UK music scene. His appearance on episode 41 of the audio-only predecessor of this show (link below) was one of the most popular and best episodes, so it's great to welcome him back for a full video episode. The Yellow Squares project is now a book which you can get hold of here: https://velocitypress.uk/product/elijah-close-the-app-make-the-ting/ We discuss the changing landscape of the UK music scene, from the decline of music's audibility generally in London itself to the obligation (or not) of successful acts to support smaller venues. We also discuss the push for diversity in recent years and associated trap of tokenism, as well as the changing role of artist management over time and the obsession of Xtra radio programmers with a particular 20 year-old Joe Budden track. And we also touch on the cultural influence of professional wrestling and the need for more heels in music... -- If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else. You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support . Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server ... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels. Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Music Not Diving Podcast Spotify playlist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.