Grime fought and won its battle to make London Multicultural English cool in mainstream music. In fact, it did it so well that lads from Knutsford were suddenly becoming roadmen. Lancashire has yet to make such an attempt at making its accent desirable. Though it may have its first pioneer: Bill Shakes.
Blackburn-born MC Bill Shakes is less identifiable by his 90s-inspired beats than his long rhotic Rs that would make AJ Odudu blush. It’s an unfortunate necessity to focus on accent when discussing Shakes, because, for reasons too long to count, he’s probably the first Blackburn rapper you’ve ever heard. Outside of recent exceptions like Aitch, mainstream appreciation of North West rap has been confined to the mockery of Blackpool grime. This novelty of so-called regional accents in rap is not lost on Shakes, as he flaps “Blackburn accent, talking strange.” It feels right then that Shakes is part of Blah Records, a collective of North West rappers boasting a roster that includes the likes of Black Josh and Lee Scott (who happens to be one of its founders).
His latest track’s title, “Don’t Be A Menace To Blackburn While Drinking White Lightning On A Council Estate” is an open homage to Paris Barclay’s hood comedy Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. And like Barclay, Shakes is unafraid to throw digs at his hometown and self-described misfit lifestyle. The film references continue throughout, with Shakes proudly boasting up top that “I’m on speed like Keanu Reeves on a bus,” and later telling us “Don’t stand by me, I ain’t Corey Feldman.”
It feels a bit naff at first, but it’s unfair to shackle Shakes with the burden of single-handedly making unvarnished Northern accents acceptable outside of kitchen sink dramas. And yet, he actually might’ve managed it. An intrigue is built by Shakes through stacked layers of alternating jokes and hard lad violence. It is par for the course for rappers to declare their mischievous thuggery, but to then follow it up with “I got a modelling job from me mugshot” is something that feels idiosyncratically Shakes. All this delivered through the bellows of an unflinching Lancashire accent and the result is something that’s genuinely cool as fuck.
Unfortunately, the track’s instrumental loiters around without much to do, letting Shakes’ BB charm keep listeners captivated through his voice alone, like a pal of a pal telling you some mad story on the pavement. It’s not far from GP hold music, but it gives you plenty of time to wonder how far Shakes could soar with some more flattering production (like on his 2019 release Eh?).
Shakes dishes out braggadocious violence and cheeky one-liners in equal measure, but it’s perhaps when he asks us to “look at life through a disenfranchised chav’s eyes,” that we see a flash of what his penmanship can do, and a promise of what still may come.