Top Boy

In 2001, the lyrics to So Solid Crew’s breakthrough number one hit 21 Seconds taught me two lessons that I have lived by ever since.  The first was “Asher D’s never fading” and, true to his word, Ashley Walters is back on Netflix screens across the country in a new series of Top Boy, prompting immediate Just One More Episode treatment in this week’s post.  And the second: “So Solid are amazing” is just a god-damn plain fact that nobody can deny.  You might wonder what a bookish young lad from affluent Surrey could find to identify with in the brutal rhymes of an inner London garage collective, but poetry is poetry and that song has soundtracked subsequent moments in my life on many occasions.  I remember a work ski trip where 80 of us took over an après bar (which already shows how urban I am) and requested this song.  Cue unleashed office workers clad in snowboarding jackets and salopettes stood atop tables in a group recital of every single verse.  At a recent wedding, this song came on, and even the southern French heatwave (see earlier comment about being urban) couldn’t stop me taking to the dancefloor, inebriated enough to be convinced I am not only the world’s best undiscovered dancer, but also an MC so talented that surely being able to shout along with every single word couldn’t fail to impress all the other guests.  Seeing them giving me a wide berth, their expressions concerned, was the proof I needed that any of us can be a member of So Solid.

Another way for me as a Home Counties young adult to gain access to this inner circle was to follow its members’ pursuits in other artforms.  Of course, I was therefore glued to the screen when not just Harvey, but also Romeo and Lisa Maffia took part in Channel 4’s The Games between 2003 and 2005.  But it was Ashley Walters in 2004’s Bullet Boy that really showed me So Solid really are amazing.  So when Top Boy appeared on Channel 4 in 2011, my viewership was guaranteed from the first promotional trailer.  The four episodes of that first series, and the four in 2013’s season two stayed with me long afterwards, but I was convinced the whole experience was a hidden treasure only I, and maybe my sister, had found.  Drawing up a list of beloved shows to cover here when I started this self-gratifying blog, Top Boy easily made the list.  But, uncertain of its broader appeal, it had to wait its turn.  Until now.  It turns out I wasn’t alone and being a fan of Top Boy is just one of the many things I have in common with Drake.  To paraphrase inaccurately the PR coverage surrounding the third series recently brought out by Netflix and trending at number one, this celebrity fan (Drake, not me) was able to click his fingers to have his favourite show resurrected, after Channel 4 were too busy with Bake Off (although maybe they could have collaborated on The Great British Drake Off).  So let’s relive the Top Boy journey below:

Season one, 2011

Now labelled as Top Boy: Summerhouse on Netflix and positioned as a separate companion series, I would actually attest that you need to watch both previous seasons of Top Boy before starting the new stuff.  In fact, recently re-watching everything in preparation for the new instalment only made me more certain that the episodes work best all together.  We’re introduced to the Summerhouse Estate in Hackney through the eyes of Ra’Nell, a fairly reticent lad who’s coping with his mother’s mental health problems while trying to hold down school and resist the lure of easy money offered by drug-dealing gangs he has to walk past every day.  Heading up one of those gangs are Dushane (Walters) and Sully (Kane “Kano” Robinson), and while the latter actively tries to recruit Ra’Nell and his hapless bestie Gem, Dushane is our dealer with a more complex moral compass.

There is neither glitz nor glamour in this production, just grimness.  Every interior betrays neglect, every exterior is swirling in trash on concrete.  Yet here are people trying to get by, and you can stare at them as much as you like from your middle-class bubble.  Everyone is trying to get out and do better, but it’s clear their options are limited, so their misdemeanours take on undeniable plausibility.  For example, pregnant Heather converts her spare room to a cannabis farm, babyface Michael swaps primary school for dealers’ errands, Dushane and Sully resort to kidnapping.  The drama unfolds, harrowing scenes rain down, but you can’t look away.  You learn that the good guys cannot win.

Season two, 2013

The repercussions of the first series’ climactic finale are still being felt, though there’s an injection of new characters that step the narrative on into new directions as well.  An underclass in himself, Jason shows the direct results of the drugs that the rest of the characters worry so much about dealing, coming and going from his junkie mother’s squalid squat and rarely catching a break.  Dushane, meanwhile, still runs the estate, but rather than glamorising his success, the show manoeuvres to expose his unenviable position.  His new legal counsel (and love interest) points out that the only way to protect his position is through constant paranoia and violence, all while being unable to enjoy the wealth his entrepreneurial spirit brings him.

Imagine if other industries operated like drug dealing.  If someone finds a better supplier, you steal that supply.  If someone brings out a rival product, you threaten or kill them.  Dushane sells his foot soldiers an unattainable goal, one they must pursue through unfair working practices, risk and deprivation.  Yet, again, we see this is their only option.  Series two examines the Dushane-Sully dynamic while ramping up the action with more violence.  Their story starts to seem more outlandish when compared to the first season’s reliance on the threat of violence.  But we remain rooted in the banal, with Ra’Nell’s mother fighting hopelessly against gentrification, and Ra’Nell himself, played with unrivalled intensity by Malcolm Kamulete, steering his course through the misfortune.  My beloved Michaela Coel (Chewing Gum) steals scenes while falling victim to Dushane’s darkest sides, but it’s Ashley Walters’ inscrutable expressions that come across as a masterclass in understated character.  We never know what he’s thinking, but we root for him.  Even though we start to suspect we shouldn’t.

Season three, 2019

And so here we are, six years later, on Netflix, with ten whole new episodes.  Just because Drake wanted it.  Imagine what else he could achieve.  Our settings have expanded into Jamaica, Ramsgate and prison, but inner London estates are still the scenes of our crimes.  The show takes pains to lay bare how much London has changed (gentrified), perfectly lampooning pretentious coffee culture as it perplexes Dushane.  We have new characters, with a household of brothers led by Micheal Ward as Jamie, treading a similar tightrope to Dushane: doing the right thing by his family while committing crimes to support them.  However, each time a character from the old series reappears, you feel a resurgence of emotion at the reunion.  Sadly, though, it’s clear that any expectations we were ever left with of happy endings are to be dashed.  Even those still standing on the same street corners have been ravaged by age and lifestyle, with Dris, though still in possession of his ability to make the most cutting remarks, a shadow of his former self thanks to excessive nitrous oxide use.  Nevertheless, Shone Romulus’s performance demands to be seen.  Immigration law becomes one additional strand woven in with the rest in this tableau of societal injustice but, ultimately, not much has changed beyond the price of coffee.  So we stand with Dushane, Sully and Jamie as they try to get by on the cards they’ve been dealt.  They deal.  It’s an appalling reflection on Britain today that Sully says, “What else is there?”

Filling the ten episodes does start to fall into the Netflix trap of overcomplicating the plot, but the later instalments crescendo as new layers of jeopardy are thrust upon our leads.  We’re spending more time getting to know the characters, creating narratives around the rival gangs rather than casting anonymous hooded figures, which adds greater significance to their actions and their actions’ consequences.  I would simply to urge everyone to watch all of this programme.  If not for the compelling drama, then click play for the stark look at the society we live in today.  There’s no one interpretation of its message – you’ll think about different things throughout.  Any claims of glorification or fetishisation fall away.  As a Londoner, certain scenes seem familiar, but my privileged upbringing means my reality is a world away.  If anything, I’m one of the awful gentrifiers in the background (I’ve bought a flat in an area of London undergoing extensive redevelopment and my only contribution to the local economy has been some overpriced coffee and a few hipster haircuts).  I shouldn’t have made my flippant fanboy comments about So Solid Crew at the start because they risk taking away from Top Boy’s serious effect.  While our politicians fail to govern due to neighbourly preoccupations, a whole generation is being left without access to the UK’s prosperity.