Hold Tight: Black masculinity, millennials and the meaning of grime
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 (Penguin 2017), Dan Hancox's Inner City Pressure (4th Estate 2018), and DJ Target's Grime Kids (Trapeze 2018, now being made into a television series). The new edition of HOLD TIGHT featured new chapters for 2018, 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.
Two editions, published by Influx Press in 2017 and 2018, and in audiobook, published 2020.
Praise for Hold Tight
“A frenetic, energetic and bouncy journey through grime music… punchy, hilarious and informative.” - Nikesh Shukla
“Couldn’t put it down… An essential starting point if you’re looking to develop a wider knowledge of the genre.” – Jammz (Grime MC)
“This book is an excellent addition to the literature. Like the best grime MCs, it is witty and perceptive, confident and charming - and its flow and timing are flawless.” - Musa Okwonga
“Boakye’s book is as choppy and charming and conversational as the music he’s rhapsodising about. He’s no didactic orator - Hold Tight feels like he’s talking across the table from you, direct, punchy, accessible.” - Wire
Accolades
Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2018.
Reviews / in the press
New book to explore grime’s DNA through 55 key tracks, FACT, April 2017
9 Classic Tracks Which Show Grime’s Complex Relationship With Masculinity, The Fader, June 2017
Exclusive: Read An Extract From ‘Hold Tight’, A Book About Grime And Black British Culture, Complex, June 2017
Grime Time, DJ Mag, July 2017
Hold Tight: a witty and perceptive history of grime music, New Statesman, July 2017
Jeffrey Boakye, ‘Hold Tight’, review: a frenetic journey through grime music, inews, July 2017
Noisey magazine, July 2017
Voice of a Nation, Mixmag, August 2017
Grime watch: Jeffrey Boakye explains roots of music phenomenon, Camden New Journal, September 2017
Hold Tight: Black masculinity, millennials and the meaning of grime, The Wire, September 2017
Image copyright Sophie Hostick-Boakye, 2020