Intertextual Links

Artist: Plan B
Track: Ill Manors
Release Date: March 12 2012
Genre: Hip-Hop, Big Beat, Electronica, Breakbeat
Director: Ben Drew (Plan B)

'Ill Manors' is a hip hop protest song by English singer and songwriter Plan B, otherwise known as Ben Drew.  The track was released in the United Kingdom on 25 March 2012 as the lead single from the Ill Manors soundtrack, a film which Plan B also directed. The song was written in reaction to the 2011 riots across England, and specifically Plan B's perception of "society's failure to nurture its disadvantaged youth". The song deals with both the causes and the consequences of the riots, concentrating on society's attitude towards the disadvantaged youth population of the United Kingdom. Drawing upon Plan B's own experiences of being expelled from school and attending a pupil referral unit, the song sarcastically attacks the media view of working class children: "Keep on believing what you read in the papers / Council estate kids—scum of the earth."

The music video for 'Ill Manors' was looked at in close proximity when filming for our music video, 'Fight Back'. Although different genres, the two songs relate very closely as both focus around the riots that took place in 2011 in London. 'Ill Manors' explores many similar aspects that are portrayed through the lyrics spoken in 'Fight Back' such as police brutality and disadvantaged youth that is the result of the governments 'careless' and 'unthoughtful' actions. A dominant message portrayed through 'Fight Back' is the mistreatment of student peaceful protesters at the 2011 London riots, this message closely relates to 'Ill Manors' as the working class youth shown feel they aren't being treated as equals within society and aren't valued as much as the middle class, therefore in order to express their anger they riot and furthermore promote negativity amongst themselves. However a negative stereotype isn't given to all working class youth in today's society and it is argued that it is the mindless minority of working class youth shown rioting in 'Ill Manors' that represent working class youth as a whole, this relates to the message being expressed in 'Fight Back' as the lyrics suggest that the media fully focused on the violent, criminal behaviour of the minority during the London riots and had little coverage for the peaceful protesters back in 2011. Both Ill Manors and Fight Back show the distinctive divide between the peaceful protesters and the violent, savage protesters who were attending purely to cause havoc and depredation and how the peaceful protesters were massively overshadowed by the bad and didn't even get a mention for what they were fighting for.



Looking at ‘Ill Manors’ music video in more detail, a way young people could be represented is by looking at the individual’s fragmented identity and different pieces form an identity for them. It can be formed by the interests that they are in disagreement with the government and that the lower working class young people not being treated as they should be. When filming for Fight Back we wanted to represent the peaceful protests that were going on to challenge the fact that the media only focused on the mindless minority and show an opposistion to what the lyrics were stating.These form an individual’s fragmented personality and these shared interests can then form a collective identity which shows a group of people belonging in a group and the youth are rebelling against the higher classes who are in power. These youngsters are represented as lower class youths who are misbehaving to get attention. Looking at Michael Maffesoli’s work, the young people can be seen as an urban tribe which he defined as ‘groups of people in urban areas who have close association based upon similar lifestyles or activities’ which the music video shows them all to be outside in the narrows areas causing vandalism and disturbing middle class working people. Maffesoli also stated that urban tribes are young city people that gather in groups and share common interests which differ from the interests of mainstream culture. This is portrayed in the video as a mainstream culture would follow the government and respect the rules and their country but the young people here are shown to be rebellious and distant from the rest of the country, giving them negative stereotypes. Looking at the sense of the young people being a subculture or an urban tribe, they are negatively represented by the devilish ways that are acting and lack of respect they show in society.