“5-4-3-2-1 lets go...” Like most people here, the boy pouting down at his audience with penetrating indifference can't be any older than 11. “Shouts out to the Chorley crew!” He's crouched on the steps to the stage, delivering quick volleys of rapid-fire phrases, a huddle of boys around him waiting their turn. Clearly not in a rush to pass the mic on, the words don't really matter. Rattling out short sharp bursts of high velocity rhyme, he probably couldn't tell you the last phrase he spun, or what it meant. What's important is the spectacle. Bigging up the DJ behind him, he stands to count out the beats in the air as the tune climaxes, and with a flick of the wrist brings that beat back. Sporting a spotless tracksuit and baseball cap, he parades the stage like a well-tailored mod. His secret weapon? Elasticated ankles are de rigueur, and he's rocking a pair of Burberry socks. Sean nods in his direction. “You don't want to mess with his older brother.”
A small group of Asian lads watch from the sides, while at the back of the hall girls with glow-sticked necks and wrists are doing cartwheels, or pulling each other round by their feet. A handful of boys are break-dancing at the front with unusual agility, and everyone is giddy on pop and sweets. If it wasn't for the floor-shaking wall of noise hurtling out of the soundsystem, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was another school disco. Cranked up ridiculously loud, the air is throbbing with the sound of hard, bouncy house. It would be the perfect music for children – all cutesy melodies, nursery-rhyme lyrics and jump-around energy – if it weren't so utterly terrifying.
Accrington Town Hall , monument to Robert Peel and home to the Annual folk and clog festival, has been taken over by the sound of the council estates. In an era when the search for authenticity has become all-important, these fag-end remains of acid house and happy hardcore make everything else going on in the country look contrived by comparrison. No-one pretends to rap with an American or London accent, and any attempt to bling would be openly laughable. There's no mistaking the regional flavour to what's taking place.
“Free free free as a bird I'm flying / can't you see I'm alive.” Girly helium vocals repeat their de-sexed mantra, sincere, reckless and euphoric, before giving way to the unrelenting rhythm. It's an adrenaline shot straight to the heart; the last resort for those with nothing to loose.
Suddenly the year 11s show up. The pre-teens are dancing unperturbed, the MCs bicker on, but from the edges their older selves are watching, glowing in bright white track-tops and drity white traners. Stood smoking outside the doors to the hall, they're controlling access to the mens toilets. A boy with bad teeth pushes past me, ready to take to the stage, a flash of white marking the inside of one nostril. Another runs in from the hall, and calls his friend, a boy of 11 stood close-by. “Someone in there's got a gun,” he pants. Welcome to Accrington .
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The local area shot to notoriety in 2001, when race riots flared up in neighbouring Burnley , quickly becoming the official racist capital of the UK . For a few weeks during that hot summer, the eyes of Europe were on these Northern mill-towns. The BNP were quick to capitalise on the mutual mistrust which characterised race relations between the white and predominantly Pakistani communities, making electoral headway. Though one BNP local councillor lost his position recently, they still hold seven seats in Burnley .
What exists in the surrounding towns and estates is a system of de facto segregation. It's something which governs all aspects of life, from youth-clubs, to schools, to whole towns. While Brierfield is mostly Pakistani, Barrowford next-door, a town of ten-bob millionaires and up-market hair salons, has a single Asian family. Edge End High School is overwhelmingly Asian; St Teds is predominantly white. In local colleges the two groups don't even use the same common rooms.
In Accrington the situation isn't quite as bad, though it's still at risk, especially when the far right masquerades in a cloak of respectability specially tailored for it by BNP leader Nick Griffin. Like Burnley , the primary cause of the problem isn't a backwardsness bred upon these isolated moorlands, but poverty. If Britain was once the workshop of the world, then these unassuming cotton towns were the machinery at it's centre. However, the dark satanic mills that brought the first waves of migrants to Lancashire have slowly been replaced with lean-to drive-thu's and industrial estates. What's left behind is a stagnation that offers few opportunities. The industries that have survived are often involved in the manufacture of the objects that best symbolise Britain 's post-colonial role in the world – arms.
The mostly Pakistani ward of Daneshouse is the fifth most deprived in the whole of the UK . Central ward, Accrinton, similarly holds the enviable title of being in the top 1% in terms of deprivation. The loose string of slate-gray towns, nestling in the shadow of Pendle hill, are at the top of the tree when it comes to almost every index of poverty – drug use; teenage pregnancy; divorce; gun ownership; infant mortality. It was only when the powder keg exploded, with the torching of white pubs and attacks on Asian shops two years ago, that government officials acknowledged the scale of the problem. Money is now flowing into the area. However, the webs of deprivation and resentment that thread in and out of these tightly packed terraces and pebble-dash estates are too tightly woven to be untangled in a matter of years. Everything is happening twenty years too late.
Sean is just one of the many people who've been involved in music programmes in Burnley , bringing Hip Hop and House to local youth centres. World ITF scratch champion DJ Woody has also been hosting workshops. A Burnley resident himself, the shop just round the corner from his home was targeted just after the disturbances. “We did a workshop in Stoneyholme estate, which has one of the worst reputations in the area,” he tells me. “Because of the hassle we got, we couldn't really risk running it again.”
Similar things are taking place a little further down the valley. A group of lads, all baseball caps and beenies, nod to Sean as we carry the turntables through Accrington town centre that afternoon. Many of the performers at tonights event will have come up through the New Era commuinity centre's PDQ (Pretty Damn Quick) scheme - weekly workshops in DJing, MCing and studio production. Sean runs a turntable session every Thursday, “everything from the basics to scratching, juggling and trick-mixing,” he explains, hadning over a CD. “And we're working on a record label, ‘Studio PDQ,'”
‘Strobe Crew,' the cover reads, all sun-flare graphics and psychedelia. It's a hard house outfit formed out of the workshops, their five members aged between 11 and 15. “You'll be seeing them tonight,” he continues, lugging the equipment up the stairs, “though you've got to remember where these kids are coming from – some of the MCs you'll see on stage will have both parents in prison.”
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Abdul Kalam is sixteen. He stands out from the majority of kids here this evening; apart from his particularly snazzy brown-and-cream Dunks, he's conspicuously free of brands or logos. “I got ‘em for Eid,” Kalam smiles. He scratches in an instrumental while the rest of the 11 strong group take to the stage. Abdul Basit, AKA Baggy MC, is checking the mic. The boys form part of Damak, a mixed-race multi-instrumental group from Burnley , and the first act of the evening.
A million miles separates Basit's performance and those of the House MCs later on. Strolling the stage with a Hip-Hop bounce, his sharply political lyrics speak of day-to-day racism and messages of unity, metered out against the multi-cultural rhythms of Damak. The group grew out of sessions organised by Burnley coucil. Incorporating turntables and dholdrums, guitars and horns, their music reflects the world of their membership – a mixed-up cup of influences.
The end result might be an exciting east-meets-west fusion, though the wider cultural divide that Basit and his friends find themselves straddling is often much more difficulty to resolve. “A lot of the time we've got to make difficult decisions,” turntablist Kalam explains. “We're trapped between doing something we're passionate about, and being good Muslims.” Abdul Kayum, sat in between his friends, drinking a post-performance non-alcoholic cocktail, continues: “My parents aren't that happy about what we do. You can get carried away playing music – intoxicated, like – and its meant to be forbidden. The dholdrums are seen as a bit more acceptable, cos I only play one side of the drum. But they're still not happy.”
Resonating beats thud out from next door, four to the floor. Asked what he thinks, Kayum shrugs. “It's ok I suppose. I'd never listen to it.” Instead, on the record shopping trips that Sean takes them on when money permits, Kayum, Basit and Kalam stock up on Hip Hop and RnB. “We get might get around two hundred quid from the council to get new records, but that only happens twice a year or something. It's frustrating. We need more instrumentals to rap over.” All three of them are also into Bhangra. “RDB, Nitun Soni, Rishi Rich,” lists Kalam, “it's massive in our community.”
Other Asian MCs take to the stage during the night, and there's a reasonable Pakistani presence. However, it suddenly becomes obvious that there's something missing. There are no Asian girls. “Yea,” Basit acknowledges, pulling his beanie hat down over his ears, “It wouldn't be respectable for parents to let them come somewhere like this, where they'd be looked at by so many people. It'd be like putting yourself on display.”
Articulate and eager to talk about their experiences of growing up in Burnley , racism - often petty street incidents - appears to have increased since the riots. “Definitely. And it works both ways. There's racism towards whites in the Asian community as well. But projects like this are definitely helping.” Basit might be right. Music has certainly provided people like him with an outlet for their enthusiasm and a new-found voice. But it could be a blunt instrument with which to tackle the problems that the Asian community is up against. Especially if it excludes half of their number.
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In the Town Hall tonight it's the same old story. The boys still look like little boys, while the girls are talking and acting like young women. Charlotte Ridge is no different. “I hate pop music, and I really hate Busted. ‘Specially Charlie. Can you write that down?” Friendly, pretty and popular, she appears no different from the gaggle of girls that crowds round her in a frenzy of pre-teen excitement. So it's something of a surprise to see her take to the stage as MC Blazee Blaze.
Lyrically, she's head and shoulders above anyone else during the evening, performing self-penned numbers that manage to be issue-based without being clichéd or preachy. “Got my back against the wall but I'll come out fighting / anybody try to stop me rappin or writin,” she rhymes, before launching into her own version of 50 Cents ‘In Da Club'. “‘Back Against the Wall' - that one's about boys putting girls down, telling them they can't do things,” Charlotte explains. “A lot of their stuff,” she indicates in the direction of the stage, “is rubbish.” She also freestyles and battles, going head to head against other rappers every Tuesday at the youth centre sessions organised by rapper Tony (MC TL). Alongside Eminem and Missy Elliot, she counts him as one of her biggest influences.
Six months ago she would never have picked up a microphone. “No way. I liked Hip Hop but would never have had the guts to give it ago.” Only last month she performed in front of a huge audience at the ‘ Accrington in the Park' festival. I ask about Girl Power, though for her it doesn't seem to be an idea with much meaning behind it. “I don't think of my music in that way,” she states, hesitantly. “I just go along with what I want to write about.”
Charlotte is twelve. Some of the boys her age are clearly in awe of the house-culture that dictates the lives of their older peers. These girls, by contrast, have a more inconsistent attitude. Though she admits that she ‘doesn't like dance music', Charlotte and her friends are looking forwards to going to the recently re-opened Churchill's next Friday, where hard and bouncy house will again be the flavour of the moment. Both Churchill's and La Di Da's run special nights for the under-sixteens. Targeting under-age clubbers might make for cynical marketing but it's extraordinarily good business sense. I ask why Churchill's closed down. “The bouncers ending up killing someone.”
While drinking alcopops out on the streets still seems a rite of passage, they're fully aware of e-culture, “though none of our friends are really into all that.” It's a contrast to the bravado of many of the young boys, often all-too keen to look drug-savvy. Instead, they quickly jump to a subject familiar to women all over the country – date rape drugs. “My friend knows someone who had her drink spiked in Churchill's,” one girl pipes up. Everyone knows part of second-hand story along the same lines.
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During the afternoon before the performance, the UK chapter of the Rocksteady Crew has been running a b-boy workshop. Marc's been busy getting kids to take photos of the breakers to turn them into visuals for tonight's event. Growing up in Burnley during the second summer of love in 1989, Marc has watched things come full-circle. “There's a reason why kids round here are listening to the stuff they do,” he explains, helping the boy with the camera upload his images onto the laptop. “Clubs round here were at the forefront of the scene when rave culture first kicked off.” Though he's now collecting library music and bits of electronica, Marc cut his teeth DJing at Burnley 's legendary venue Angels. “There was a time when people would come from all over the country to come to Angels. Oakenfold , Rampling, Holloway – they were all there during the late eighties. There's a whole history of Lancashire 's role in the rave scene waiting to be written.”
Angels might have been demolished to make way for a shopping-centre, but Monroe 's, once at the epicentre of a movement in its infancy, remains. The club closes, re-opens and changes hands regularly. Events go on till six in the morning, though Monroes serves no alcohol. Located just over on the other side of the M65, it carries unusual sway over the aspirations of Accrington youth. Every one of the young white MCs I asked wanted to perform there. Brendon, 13, can tell me his favourite MC as quick as anything - “Colin.”
Colin, a regular at Monroe 's, is up on stage. From this pedestal, in short rhythmical punches, he's delivering his message on good times and positivity, interspersed with snatches of MC blustering. He removes his brown woollen hat, perched high on his head, and leaves the stage as the sound of the number one hit Pretty Green Eyes fills the air. Released on All Around the World Records, just down the road in Blackburn , it's another reminder of the local pedigree of the scene Colin is involved in. He saunters off again to the toilets with a swagger born of boredom, not arrogance. Colin's nineteen, though looks older, and has been rapping “for ‘bout four years.” He's been getting back into it since being detained at Her Majesty's leisure. I don't ask why.
The kids are utterly in his thrall. He's an undisputed role model for most of the boys I spoke to, and is now helping keep them out of trouble, running rap sessions each week at New Era. I spend most of the night trying to catch up with him, and though he's nothing but pleasant, Colin is reluctant to talk.
“It's his bad boy image, int it.” DJ TJ, wiping sweat from his forehead, has just come off stage. He's pissed-off that DJ Anton is hogging the turntables. “Three fucking tunes, that's all I got to spin” he explains. “He's had decks for over five years, and some certificate saying he's studied DJ skills, and he's still shit.” Just a minute ago, TJ was passing the mic backwards and forwards between a group of lads, chatting over the pounding instrumentals with his distinctive rough vocals and ragga delivery. “But I'm a DJ really. MCin's just a bit of a laugh. I used to DJ at Monroes , but ended up saying ‘fuck it.' Too rough, that's the problem.” TJ's nineteen, having been heavily into the scene and come out the other side. He took pills for over three years, before ‘burning out'.
TJ takes a contradictory line on what's going on. A moment earlier he was swapping numbers with Sean, eager to come down to the centre. “You can see how much they get out of it,” he says, glancing into the hall where girls are congregated in group of threes or fours, hard-stepping by the now empty stage. He's also openly critical of what they're getting themselves into. “The only place you can listen to this stuff is clubs. And any club that's playing this is gonna be rough as owt.” With a nod to a group of eleven-year olds, charging down the stairs, he continues, “With this music, they'll be all on pills in a years time. That's the way it goes.”
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The gun, as it turns out, was a BB gun that never existed in the first place. It's half ten, the lights are up and only a handful of kids remain. No-one's been paired off and there's been no suggestion of snogging in dark corners. It's a reminder of how young everyone is – they're barely interested in the opposite sex. There's been no fighting, no drinking, and no trouble for the youth-workers on the doors.
Outside, the youngsters are making their way back through the cold night, mingling with groups of pastel-shirted lads and party girls. TJ's prediction begins to look frighteningly prophetic. It's worrying that only thing that seizes the imagination of these pre-teens is the shallow hedonism of club culture. What's clear, however, is that the mainstream curriculum offers them nothing. It's fifty years out of step with their needs and aspirations. “Getting them interested in anything is a struggle,” explains organiser Paul.
Like provincial towns across Britain , this is place where local celebrities are the club bouncers; where kids start living for the weekend before they hit their teens; where the way to get by is to keep your head down. Low self-esteem is endemic. You can watch it in the large groups of factory workers silently smoking by the gates, ready to start the nightshift. You can see it in the unwillingness of ordinary people to speak out about what they see going on around them. This is a town where Friday night on the piss is the only time when you're allowed to really live. The kids that filled the hall tonight know this better than anyone. It's not surprising that this is where their aspirations lie. These communities, white and Asian, House kids and Hip-Hoppers, have little else to live for.
The chippy is just about to close as we enter, and our reward is bumper chip butties with extra chips. The woman behind the counter tries to give away the last cartons of curry sauce. Sean is more than happy with the evening, and I nod in agreement through my mouthfulls. Outside, it's kicking out time. Accrington is coming alive.
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It's only when I get home that I realise. Someone has stolen my phone. One week, two phone conversations and numerous failed attempts later, I try calling one last time. It's answered again by another young lad. This time I recognise the voice at the other end. “Oh - arite mate? It's Colin…”