Hold Tight

By Jeffrey Boakye

Hold Tight is the book that kick started the 'Grime Library'. Bursting into bookshops in July 2017 to rave reviews and a sold out event at Rough Trade East, Hold Tight paved the way for Grime-related books such as Wiley's Eskiboy, Dan Hancox's Inner City Pressure and DJ Target’s Grime Kids.This new edition of Hold Tight features new chapters, a brand new introduction from Boakye and a brand new cover.

Celebrating over sixty key songs that make up Grime’s DNA, Jeffrey Boakye explores the meaning of the music and why it has such resonance in the UK. Boakye also examines the representation of masculinity in the music and the media that covers it.

Both a love letter to Grime and an investigation into life as a black man in Britain today, Hold Tight is insightful, very funny and stacked with sentences you’ll want to pull up and read again and again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Influx Press
• Release date: Sep 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781910312421

Jeffrey Boakye

Jeffrey Boakye is an author, broadcaster, educator and journalist with a particular interest in issues surrounding race, masculinity, education and popular culture. Originally from Brixton in London, Jeffrey has taught secondary English for fifteen years. He is a senior teaching fellow at the University of Manchester and has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Leicester. Jeffrey’s books include Hold Tight: Black Masculinity, Millennials and the Meaning of Grime; Black, Listed: Black British Culture Explored; What is Masculinity? Why Does it Matter? And Other Big Questions; Musical Truth: A Musical Journey Through Modern Black Britain and Kofi and the Rap Battle Summer. He is also the co-presenter of BBC Radio 4’s double award-winning Add to Playlist. He now lives in Yorkshire with his wife and two sons.