I’ve just been on a very strange voyage. A voyage into Donk.
I’m going to rewind and retrace my steps so that you can join me. Come with me. Come to the Donkside. Take a trip to the heart of Donkness…
Here’s where the rabbit hole opened up. A simple P.S. at the bottom of an email from Little Boots…
I click the link. It takes me here. To this video.
I was convinced that it was a spoof. As if there’d be a genre called Donk. Everything is wrong about the video. The knowing subtitles over subtle Northern Accents. The presenter’s slight grin when he’s chatting to folk. The funnily named shops. Everything. There’s no way I’m falling for a prank like that. It reminds me heavily of the episode of Brass Eye where they whang on about Cake (the made up drug). And all the characters and the interviews look like they could be setups or clever edits.
So the I popped out and went round to Curtis’ house and showed it to him. And he (and his son Max) both went “oh yeah, Put a Donk on it”. So much for the fake thing then. And once again I’m behind the curve.
Here are the real Blackout Crew with their real hit Put A Donk On It. With a real 4 million views on YouTube. Holy crap!
Oh yeah, the YouTube page features a link to go and buy the real MP3 from the real iTunes store. Put a Donk on that. Seriously.
So at this point it becomes clear that Donk is no joke. And the donkumentary (sorry) is also no joke. So I watch part 2, and part 3 and part 4 and part 5. Back to back. Mouth agape. Unable to pick my jaw up off the trackpad. It’s fucking incredible. So many amazing moments. So many brilliant lines. So many stunning characters. The films do have a touch of that Vice maggy sneeriness (to be honest, you’d really struggle not to given some of the situations). Having said that it’s a bloody amazing bit of documentary footage and well worth the 20 minutes or so it’d take to watch the whole lot.
It’s an amazing tour of an incredible, almost unbelievable scene that’s rooted in a chunk of the North of England. Although there’s undoubtedly Donk mutations elsewhere. To be honest it’s pretty close to a lot of the hard-dance scene in a lot of ways – fashion, sound, people, drugs. Trakky-wearing gurners with glo-sticks have always existed at ‘that’ end of dance music. But you can’t ignore Donk – it’s just got such an awesome name.
Interesting dress code mutations too…
There’s a full article about it in Vice Land. Which, if you can’t be bothered to watch the videos (shame on you) is a decent summary of what goes on in the video series. But nothing can quite deliver the faces of Donk quite like seeing them moving and gurning – with blue WKD stained tongues :-p
What smacked me between the eyes is really how naive I am to things that go on outside London and Brighton. Sure I’ve been to ‘hard dance’ things and danced amongst the day-glo-mong-puppets in my time. And tried in vain to keep up with music that’s twice as fast as my heart. But it’s always been a passing toe-in-the-water at a festival or something like that. I’ve never been and lived the Donk.
I sit in endless meetings where people pretend to understand ‘the young people’. But they only really view it through a really tiny window. A window where the view extends just outside the central line. So the best you’ll get is someone who’s really bloody ‘on it’ because they went to a Dubstep night, once, for 10 minutes, until they felt a bit sick. Or someone will drop Dizzee Rascal, yet again, into a presentation, because it’s a shorthand for urban and street (but not too urban and street).
One day I want to see Donk in a segmentation. Please let it happen. Please. Fuck it. I might even take my next Keynote presentation and ‘Put Some Donk on it’.
Want to hear a bit more Donk?
Here’s what happens when you Put Some Donk on the Ting Tings.
And don’t worry all you London-based marketing agencies – Dizzee’s been Donked too. Imagine that – it’s a north-south Donk mash-up. Stick that in your presso and feel the client Kudos.
This is where my Donk journey ended for today. If you want to carry on there’s plenty of Donk out there, just get searching.
So after all that it’d be easy, and kinda logical, to do what Vice did and conclude:
After a week in the northwest immersed in donk culture, it was impossible to deny that it’s the bottom-feeder of the already bottomed-out dance-music food chain. It’s parochial, drug-centred, racist, sexist and violent, and that’s what makes it so, well, special. For all its flaws, donk perfectly mirrors the generation of kids and the society that created it: totally and hopelessly fucked, in every sense of the word.
But there’s something else in there too. Sure it’s built around escapism and getting fucked out of your mind on pills and cheap booze. And it’s pretty much the soundtrack to getting the living pulp kicked out of you. But at least they’re making something that’s theirs. Doing something together. Sharing in a scene that they own. Something they love.
Oh crap. I can feel it coming on. A silent-flash-Donk-rave at Doncaster Station. Life is for sharing after all.
Well that’s donk killed. Expect it on a Frosties ad in the middle of Coronation Street in about a week.
Wondering how long it will be before the first advert appears with a donk on it.
To help things along, here’s a link so that everyone can put their own donk on it – http://icanhaz.com/basslinedonkonit
Great post.
Nice one – now get yourself over to the Donk / Scouse House tutorial. You’ll be putting Donks on everything soon enough…
Everything I want to say about this just sounds like marketing-speak. But I really thought this was authentic and real. Brill.
Donk is the s*it in ASDA parking lots at 6-7 in the evening up here in the norf. My life will never be the same :(
@ andrea This is one of the reasons I moved down south. Another donk hits the dust?
Ian, can you mix up a donk podcast for next month please?
This is incredible, it’s cured my hangover! I’ll be putting a donk in wherever i can for the next millennium blad
Hey Iain, stumbled on your post last night.
It really reminded my of this news article from the bbc last year.. thought you might find it interesting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7396111.stm
“And 95% of the national media is controlled from within the M25 so I think that’s why they don’t see it. They just literally don’t get it. “
This is the music they play in the King’s Castle group of Go Go bars on Patpong. I’m quite familiar with it. Less donk than in the videos above. But so close.
Sounds like niche from Sheff http://bit.ly/Hnc0z. But with significantly less music in it.
I’ve been wondering what the sound was I normally hear coming out at ear splitting volume from five year old Corsas that have been subject to some ill advised customisation and are being driven by spotty teenagers wearing baseball caps. And now I know.
I love it.. this kinda homebrew stuff is where most of my favorite kinds of music come from. From Chiptune, to Skweee, to Donk.. even Dubstep was a sort of mature mutation like these.. fun fun fun.
Now you mention Sheffield, it reminds me of the old bouncy Hard House days, with the Donk. Rachael Auburn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4gBi6fLhrw
I live in the North West. My sister plays Donk none stop. It was best described to me and the noise the Jeremy Kyle audience would make if you stuffed the lot of them in a blender. I have yet to try and test the theory.
There’s nothing like a depressing economic climate to bring out the most edgy, grimy and innovative music scene. That’s how all the best genres came about – punk, grunge and even blues and folk. People are desperate so they unite and come together with music.
I don’t need a gun, I’ve got a Donk…
Knotty – that’s brilliant.
And the subtitles make it even better :-)
How can this be a genuine musical movement – I haven’t seen it in The Observer Music Monthly supplement.
i’m bring donk to NYC>
It’s the f**ing Kersal Massive with a budget
Nice. Though it sounds much like the ‘stompy’ hardcore house which the likes of Stu Allan has been ‘spinning’ for what seems like decades. I guess now it’s been long enough for the next generation to pick it up and give it their own ‘special’ twist.
Hey man I might just get involved. It can’t be especially difficult to knock up a Donk remix, double drop some pills and get into a fight.
Jesus. I’m so behind the curve on that one that I’m orbiting another planet. Thankfully.
there was a big article on this in the guardian last year…
Jesus Christ! That is horrible, truly horrendus viewing. I’m almost ashamed to be from the North. There’s always been ‘townies’ or ‘chavs’ as they get called now, but that’s a whole new level.
They shouldn’t be encouraged, these are the types of fuckers who’ll knife your grandma for 50p.
Believe me, there are much better scenes or cultures that are happening up North, not all the kids are like that.
donk, donk- donk, donk donnnnnnk–sisqo
Donk Dj – upload an MP3, and voila it comes out all donkified!
http://www.donkdj.com/
Each to their own, if you don’t like a certain genre of music don’t listen to it/write about it. We don’t go round saying how unbelievable other genre’s are. We don’t have the same taste as you? We find different things to do than you? A crime, no. Wouldn’t life be great if we all lived how you wanted us to; everyone would like the same music, do the same things. How boring would it be? People like different things, get over it.
And no, just because you listen to donk it does not mean you go around ‘mugging your granny for 50p’. Im an avid gamer, work full time, DJ + produce donk, clean record and an intelligent lad. Stereotype much? Thats like me saying you have long greasy hair and slit your wrists because you listen to rock, true? Most likely not.
Point made, stop looking down your noses at people for wearing different clothes or liking different music. Your are lower than the people you are stereotyping, pathetic.
What vst/patch will donk out my tracks?