Don't Call Me Urban!: The Time of Grime - Hardcover

"Wheatley's searing and sympathetic images achieve a strange beauty for all the emptiness and despair they capture." --"Metro "(January 31, 2011)

"An honest and bitter-sweet document of our time that should continue to have significance long after the moments of its making." --Chris Steele-Perkins

"No one else has really documented the culture and what it is to have a life of grime." "--"Dacre Bracey, "RWD "magazine

"The book is a visual reflection of what grime represented, chronicling the conditions that spawned the genre." --www.InvisibleMadeVisible.co.uk

"Wheatley's pictures just ooze a feeling of isolation and the tension within many of the frames almost reaches out and grabs the viewer." --www.BBC.co.uk/news

"It's a must have." --www.bjp-online.com

"Wheatley's brilliant work of photojournalism is much needed as a sociological study." --Isabel Taylor, www.zyworld.com

"I love the way he's captured the realness and rawness of London and its youth - especially in the action shots." --www.elektrodrop.com

This book is a photographic record compiled over a 12 year period, focussing on the youth of London's inner-city at a vital time, taking as its prism the genre of grime - the most significant and controversial musical expression to emerge from the UK since punk. Grime was essentially the UK's own authentic response to hip hop, an angst-ridden, confrontational music conveying the hopes and frustrations of an apolitical generation locked into decaying housing estates. The book is a visual reflection of what grime represented, chronicling the conditions that spawned the genre. It is a combination of music portraiture, social documentary and architectural photography.

Many black youths reject the urban label that has been imposed on them by commerce and the media. There is a significant discrepancy between perceptions of black culture as `cool' and the often-harsh reality of being born black on a London council estate. Don't Call me Urban! takes us through the raw environment from which the new stars of British popular music, such as Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder emerged, and introduces us to many other hopefuls who remain stranded in bedroom studios, hidden amongst concrete blocks glamorized in countless music videos. The Time of Grime is an era when `clashing' and postcode warfare have emerged, when young lives have fallen victim to absurdly trivial disputes, when rampant material aspiration collides with grim social reality. The book is a unique and penetrating document of an era in which London's inner-city youth has veered out of control.