Inner City Youth, London is a photo essay by Simon Wheatley, depicting its namesake and discussing their lives and the day-to-day of London’s grime^? scene in 2005. I’m always surprised to see how American culture gets refracted, refactored, and reflected abroad. I was also kind of offended that Wheatley at once lauds hip-hop as a vital cultural force and one of the few positive things in the bleak lives of the grime community, and then turns around and blames American “cultural imperialism” for engendering false hope and celebrating gangsterism. It’s like video game alarmists who think Doom caused Columbine. If info consumers aren’t savvy enough to consume with a grain of salt, then it’s their communities that have failed them, not the media (IMO). Then again, I haven’t lived a life even remotely like that of the urban poor, so my words count for squat.

(In other hip-hop mutation news, Nerdcore Rising looks like another, better nerdcore documentary)

Via Digg, trailers via Penny Arcade