Representing the Inner City in London’s Urban Music Videos (1994-2021)

In this thesis I analyse a sample of music videos associated with the music genres of jungle, UK garage, grime, UK rap, and UK drill, referred to as urban music genres. Music videos from these genres have rarely been analysed together, if at all, in academic scholarship. This thesis addresses this shortcoming, with a particular focus on how these videos contribute to the production and development of London’s inner-city between 1994 and 2021. The analyses are multidisciplinary, drawing on methods from urban sociology, film and television, cultural studies, critical race studies, and urban geography. I also draw on interviews I conducted with music video producers, directors, and videographers. The way in which urban music videos engage multiple scales and modes of representation tell histories of London’s inner city, and how this space has been experienced and imagined by artists living in inner-city areas, particularly in relation to the eradication of social housing and to changing notions of national identity. This study informs theoretical understandings of how urban space is produced, accessed, and controlled, and how these dynamics are represented in urban music and music video over time, within the confines of a single city.