There are quite a few reasons for Grime's continued non-success (lack of investment by record companies, substandard albums, the album 'form' being unnatural for what's essentially a track based genre). Discussions of language have generally, though, focused on how Americans Just Don't Get It. As with so many US/UK things, the two countries are divided by a common language.

Thinking about it recently, though, it strikes me that most middle class Londoners distate for Grime suggests there's a similar case of a shared language with radically different (and mutually antagonistic) dialects in the capital itself. Young black Londoners speak a mish mash of hiphop lingo, yard patois and working class cockney-isms, all dialects which are tinged with an inner city defiance of sorts. Yet if you live a comfortable middle class existence- something I've been seeing a lot of recently through flat-hunting- you can go weeks without having to encounter young black kids. Middle class and working class neighbourhoods are often radically different, despite in many cases existing just down the road from each other. Middle classes ride the tube; working classes the bus. Add to this the fact that the media is always going to be middle class, and you realise Grime-type dialects become more sidelined in London all the time. However it's only just struck me that many of Grime's defining attributes- relentless positivity, boasting as self-expression, visceral humour- are traits which are usually considered un-English. The language is shared, but the emphasis is 'foreign'.