"It's calm, fam." is one of the many bits of British slang that has entered my speech in recent months since watching Netflix's Top Boy. It's an awesome show about ambition and the drug game in the outskirts of East London. This show brings audiences to a British subculture that I was far less familiar with before watching... and now I'm often listening to British Grime and Drill music (Britain's flavors of hip hop; Grime being a bit older and characterized by fast beats per minute and electro sounds and Drill being the more modern, trap-like sound coming from the UK). The show reminds me a bit of The Wire, the classic American television show in the early 2000s that brought audiences to inner city Baltimore and the interplay between its criminal underworld and the police efforts to curtail its influence.
I admit that I'm late on this show (season one of the Netflix production was released in 2019), and I have been wondering why it took me so long to actually watch. Perhaps one reason was my reluctance to embrace a foreign flavor in the British urban scene and its music, a large part of the show. Maybe it's because I have been somewhat of a cocky New Yorker; we're the home of hip-hop and some of us have been reluctant to embrace urban music and culture beyond our region in hotbeds like the West Coast and Atlanta, let alone across the pond in London. But alas, one grows as a fan of a genre and as a person if you can allow yourself to be put onto new sounds, cultures, and artists. Top Boy is protagonized by two huge artists within British hip-hop: Asher D (Ashley Walters) and Kano (Kaine Brett Robinson) who put on incredible acting performances, and there are several other British musical talents with exceptional supporting roles as well. What is it about the UK that they seem to breed such quality actors time and time again? I think of Idris Elba's chilling performance as kingpin Stringer Bell in The Wire, wherein Elba did an American gangster almost better than any American actor I have seen before. It must be something in their water...
Left: A classic 2005 Grime album from Kano (Sully).
Besides Kano and Asher D, Top Boy features other UK artists that act in the show, like Dave, Bashy, Little Simz, Blakie, and others (see https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/top-boy-all-best-music-stars).
From a cultural perspective too, my ignorance kept me away. I didn't appreciate the depth of Jamaican immigrant culture within London and its profound influence on British food, music, and slang (Wag wan, still.). Thinking back, I think my first exposure to Top Boy came from Desus Nice's remarks about the show on his Bodega Boys podcast several years ago; I enjoyed that podcast during my Grad school days while pursuing my Master's at WFU in North Carolina. The Bodega Boys (Nice and The Kid Mero) are Bronx guys and they brought me back to New York when I felt nostalgic at times while living in NC. Desus, himself, is from a Jamaican background and has connections across the pond, and I recall him discussing the realness of Top Boy's portrayal of Jamaican culture in Britain.
It might have been not until I heard that Toronto hip-hop artist Drake was in the fold as the Executive Producer on Top Boy and one figure largely responsible for breathing life back into the series that I decided to give the show a watch. Top Boy had originally been produced at a lower production level in the early 2010s on British television for a short couple of seasons, and it featured Walters and Kano at lower stakes levels in the drug game; the show was popular but did not continue. In 2019, Netflix and Drake revamped the show as a continuation of those early seasons (which have since been rebranded Top Boy: Summerhouse), but this time with Sully (Kano's character) and Dushane Hill (Walters') returning to the game with more drive and focus, embracing bigger stakes to establish themselves as the true "Top Boy" (kingpin).
The writing for Top Boy (both Summerhouse and the Netflix version) was largely done by Irish novelist Ronan Bennett. Per Top Boy's Wikipedia page, Bennett was inspired to create a show that told stories of the British crime underworld after he personally encountered a London boy who had already been swept into the game at a young age that shocked Bennett. Bennett's episodes are engrossing and often carry surprising plot twists that keep you engaged. Nevertheless, there are several happenstance moments in the show's writing that don't necessarily aim to help construct any one overarching story arc within the show--and I love this. To me, that is what makes great cinema and especially great television: bringing you a slice of life of a culture, time, and place that is foreign to you and giving you that voyeur experience we all enjoy from time to time. Those moments in the show attract you to the characters and make you feel like you know them, and then BAM!--an unexpected twist shakes up the normalcy in the lives of the characters that you have bonded with.
Great writing. Amazing acting. I already hinted at the show's musical contribution; the soundtrack is a fantastic mix of London Drill, Grime (especially in the older seasons), and other one-off songs of various genres that truly capture the essence of the scenes. Top Boy has an excellent Spotify soundtrack that I have been bumping often (as well as a collection of music inspired by the series) and some of my favorite songs from it have made their way into my monthly playlists.
Still, I've been asking myself why exactly I've been so drawn to this show, and I think this interview with Executive Producer Drake explains why. Drake offers a more profound definition of what a Top Boy is; he muses that the show is a reflection of the realities it takes to become and stay a Top Boy, the number one competitor, in your industry; the sacrifices and difficulties one must endure (to become el más top, for those familiar with my Instagram handle). Drake, himself, can claim this title in hip hop with great evidence, having been topping charts for over a decade, but it's a sentiment any of us who have felt ambitious about being the best in a certain field, in seeing through a specific project, or in pursuing a certain goal can relate to: being the Top Boy en lo tuyo for any amount of time is hard, and it's not for everybody nor for any one person all of the time. I think of one particularly powerful scene in the series in which Sully and DuShane go to the mattresses (go to war with a rival gang). In a moment of reflection, one asks, "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" (Is all this effort worth it?) to which the other replies, "What else are we going to be (if not Top Boys)?"
I'm hyped for Season 3 of the Netflix show (Season 5 overall), which is set to be released in 2023. There are reports of some creative infighting on the show, but I hope that conflict is positive in nature and is a case of pressure creating diamonds and a spectacular finale to this great series... regardless, Kano, Bennett, Drake, Walters, and all of the others involved in Top Boy have already produced classic television in my eyes and I thank them for their contribution.
Feel free to leave me a comment if you enjoyed this Blog (or not). I feel a little corny writing these posts, caught in between casual speak (how I would discuss this media with my friends) while also trying to sound somewhat academic and measured in my statements here, like critics traditionally are. At the same time, I don't aim to critique in these posts but rather share positive reactions to great media I have had, art that inspired me and might inspire you too. Cheers :)
- Ben
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