Energy! Energy! Reflecting on grime’s legacy with two people who witnessed its birth

“Hak Baker and Simon Wheatley know the Alpha Place Community Centre all too well. In the early 2000s, the centre, found in the heart of the Isle of Dogs, East London, was a sanctuary for youngsters and a breeding ground for would-be MCs in the midst of grime’s inception. Baker, a local boy – his mother still lives a stone’s throw away and he attended Seven Mills Primary School around the corner – witnessed it first-hand, watching veterans Dizzee Rascal and Trim perform there for the first time, sowing the seeds for his own brief career as a grime MC. ​“That inspired me to write bars, or at least try to,” Baker recalls with a smile. Meanwhile, Wheatley, a budding photographer at the time, captured this subculture from behind the lens of his camera, material that would later grace his epic 2011 anthology Don’t Call Me Urban! and his new book Lost Dreams.”