Lost Dreams is the latest self-published offering from highly regarded documentary photographer Simon Wheatley.
A bittersweet documentation of the streets and tower blocks from where grime music first emerged, Lost Dreams remembers a time when pirate radio was a furtive experience, when youth club’s were the genre’s underground, and when raw and abrasive lyrics reflected life for young people on East London’s council estates. Set in the post-code of E14, the photographs focus upon the underground crews Bomb Squad and the Wile Out Onez, who together comprised the ‘youngers’ of Roll Deep, grime’s pioneering collective. Beyond the photographs, Wheatley includes an insightful interview with a Bomb Squad member of Somali origin who became involved in the street life that was fundamental to grime’s origins. Also, Hak Baker, the singer-songwriter who as a young teenager was also a Bomb Squad emcee, contributes a free-wheeling poem reminiscing on these days of his youth.