Four years ago, Archie Lamb and Jack Foster dropped out of their sixth form college in Norwich and built a record label around London grime MC Tinchy Stryder. Last week, Stryder’s latest single ‘Take Me Back’ entered the UK charts at number 3.
At a time when the music industry is struggling to cope with very modern pressures, the story of Takeover Entertainment is genuinely refreshing: opening with two teens who took a huge risk for their love of music, it looks likely to close with the pair and their label achieving more success than they could have thought possible back in 2006.
‘It’s definitely a big shock,’ Lamb tells me, but shocked is an emotion that hardly fits with the confident impression he makes. It is clear from talking with that young man that the remarkable success of Takeover Entertainment is rooted in the talent and determination of its founders. He asserts that Stryder’s next single ‘is a number-one,’ and states that ‘the aim with Tinchy is to have a platinum album by the end of the year.’ That’s confidence. There is no air of uncertainty in his voice. apparently he has no understanding of how things should work, but given that his confidence has not been misplaced so far, it would be foolish to question it here.
Such an audacious DIY bid to establish themselves in a notoriously unfriendly industry must have seemed naive. Certainly Lamb and Foster’s parents were dubious as to the boys’ prospects, but they nonetheless helped to fund the project, using money they had expected to use to finance university educations for their sons.
The boys started promoting ̉student parties while they were still at school, and were soon making ‘real money’ from promoting grime nights in Norwich with a host of London-based urban artists. They met Stryder at one of these nights and Lamb affirms that they struck up a good relationship straight away.
‘He’s a really nice person, a lot of people from his environment would have rubbished us straight away; we’re middle-class white boys after all.’ Lamb clearly recognises that his personal background is something of an oddity in the UK grime scene. His father, Norman Lamb, is a Liberal Democrat MP and shadow Secretary of State for Health. The Lib-Dem frontbencher’s unlikely involvement in grime was the subject of an article in the Guardian newspaper last week. He has been fully supportive of his son’s chosen career, remortgaging his house in order to invest £10,000 in the label. That investment looks likely to be repaid sooner than he might initially have reckoned given the enthusiasm with which Stryder’s debut album is awaited by many.
The younger Lamb is clear on what is unique about his 22-year old artist. ‘The UK scene needs a non-threatening grime artist,’ he says. ‘It’s not about being a thug with him and he can really write songs.’ Stryder succeeds in writing music that combines the trademark sound of the grime scene he started out in with a pop-R&B slant which is the key to his work’s accessibility. The success of Take Me Back came as no surprise to those that have followed Stryder’s rise over the last few years.
Current single, the excellent ‘Take Me Back’ is out now, with the album is expected later this year. Stryder has been well supported by BBC Radio 1, Kiss FM and many other TV and radio stations, and his fanbase is growing exponentially.
Clearly Lamb and Foster believed in Stryder; investing their futures in his potential was a move that must have required great faith. That faith is being rewarded. Stryder has been hailed as the ‘Prince of Grime’ and looks set for big things. Takeover recently acquired the support of Universal Records, whose influence will doubtless further Stryder’s career. His success is heartening, based as it is on the mutual belief and bold determination of the three then-teenage protagonists of this story.
Takeover has big plans for the future beyond Stryder. ‘There are big things in the pipeline for this year,’ Lamb claims in a predictably positive manner.
Given the cynical nature of the music industry, the unlikely success of two ‘middle-class white boys’ with parliamentary connections and a willingness to take a chance and do something they believed in is a relief. The leap of faith they took is laudable, and their rise to the status of industry moguls looks certain. One can hardly begrudge them their success; blind optimism is rarely so justly rewarded.
Cash for Legislation
What is the latest scandal in the House of Lords?
Four Labour peers have been accused of entering into negotiations over amendments to legislation, contrary to the House of Lords code of conduct. In a sting operation these peers are said to have been offered fees of up to £120,000 by Sunday Times reporters posing as lobbyists for a fictitious Hong Kong businessman seeking to set up 30 retail outlets across Britain and worried that the business rates and supplements bill would impose extra costs on his business. All four have denied any wrongdoing. In addition, a Conservative peer has been accused by Spinwatch, a campaigning pressure group, of misusing parliamentary facilities to promote her own business. Other peers are also said to have tabled amendments to legislation that would benefit organizations they worked for, and lobbyists are said to have targeted the House of Lords as an arena in which to exert influence since tighter anti-sleaze rules were introduced for the House of Commons.
What are the current rules on peers working for outside organizations?
1) Peers are required to declare ‘relevant interests’ when speaking in the House, communicating with ministers, government departments or executive agencies, so that their audience may form a balanced judgment about their argument
2) Anyone given a parliamentary pass is required to declare “any employment, or any other financial interest, in business or organisations involved in parliamentary lobbying”.
3) The House of Lords code of conduct advises peers to “take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends.” But these rules appear to allow peers who work for an outside organisation to table amendments that would benefit that organisation, provided they declare their interest, and in any case sanctions for breach of the code are relatively weak.
What action is the government taking?
Baroness Royall, the government’s leader of the Lords, is conducting an investigation. She has stated that the current rules need to be changed to allow “more forceful sanctions” to be brought against peers found to be in breach of the rules. She has proposed new powers for peers to be suspended immediately while an investigation is being carried out and for peers to be suspended for longer and “perhaps permanent exclusions in extreme cases.” In addition, the Justice Secretary Jack Straw has said he was planning to amend the forthcoming constitutional renewal bill to provide for peers being removed for breaking the law, serious misconduct, and not being resident in the UK for tax purposes.
What have the other parties proposed?
All three main parties have called for stronger sanctions to be able to be used against peers who break the rules. The Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, has filed complaints with the police and called for a police inquiry, as noted earlier.
A formal inquiry into the specific allegations raised by the Sunday Times is being conducted by the cross-party five-person Standards subcommittee of the House of Lords and the chairman of the House’s Privileges Committee is examining the misconduct rules more generally.
Are there any other necessary reforms that should be implemented?
Opinions differ.
1) Some follow Lady Royall in calling for a clarification and tightening of the current conflict of interest rules, while others say a ‘tick-box’ approach to the conduct of legislators merely leads to token compliance rather than a public service ethos.
2) Some say the rules should go much further, in forbidding members of either house of Parliament from undertaking any paid work at all for outside interests, while others say such a prohibition merely turns parliamentarians into bureaucrats with little experience of the world outside the parliamentary ‘bubble’.
3) Some say a democratically elected House of Lords would be more exposed to pressure from the electorate for higher standards of conduct, while others argue that the experience of the House of Commons hardly bears out such an assumption.
Of these three options, I would personally have more sympathy with the first and the third than the second.