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Jeremy Corbyn appears as Boy Better Know member on Wikipedia after 'Grime 4 Corbyn' campaign

Labour leader has been praised by UK artists encouraging young people to vote in the general election

Roisin O'Connor
Music Correspondent
Tuesday 16 May 2017 12:30 BST
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Corbyn has support from several UK artists including Jme, Stormzy and Akala
Corbyn has support from several UK artists including Jme, Stormzy and Akala (Getty)

Jeremy Corbyn has appeared on the Boy Better Know Wikipedia page following the launch of a 'Grime4Corbyn' campaign.

The Labour leader was listed as a founder member of the grime collective alongside Skepta and Jme, and as a "current artist".

The Labour manifesto also appeared on the BBK discography alongside Wiley's album Godfather and Skepta's Mercury Prize-winning Konnichiwa.

The 'Grime 4 Corbyn' website urges people to register to vote and features a Soundcloud embed for the track 'Corbyn Riddim', which was produced by DA.

People who register to vote will apparently be eligible to win a pair of tickets to a secret party in London - with a date and venue TBC.

Following the launch of the campaign, the hashtag #grime4corbyn was one of the top trends on Twitter in the UK at the time of writing.

Corbyn recently met with Jme to discuss the forthcoming general election, where the BBK co-founder (Jme, not Corbyn), urged young people to register to vote.

Taking over Corbyn's Snapchat he said: "Hi, it's Jme, Boy Better Know. I'm on Jeremy's Snapchat to make sure you register to vote."

The pair spoke about music, education and art, and Jme explained why he felt that "bare of us don't vote" in UK politics.

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Jme is one of several artists who have urged their fans to get involved in the general election - others include Stormzy, AJ Tracey, Akala and Novelist.

Akala wrote a detailed post on his Facebook page where he admitted that, while he had never voted in a general election before, he would be voting Labour in support of Corbyn.

"I am not a Labour supporter," he wrote. "I do not share the romanticism of many that the Labour party was ever as radical an alternative as some would like to think.

"Labour – despite building the welfare state/NHS - has been an imperialist party from Atlee to Wilson to Blair, thus for a ‘third world’ internationalist such as myself I have never been able to cast a vote for them. In truth my politics are closer at present to the Green party, of the options available."

"So why will I be voting now?" he continued. "The answer will surprise none of you, Jeremy Corbyn. It’s not that I am naïve enough to believe that one man (who is of course powerless without the people that support him) can fundamentally alter the nature of British politics, or that I think that if he/Labour win that the UK will suddenly reflect his personal political convictions, or even that I believe that the prime minister actually runs the country.

"I also recognize that Mr. Corbyn is a human and as such is an imperfect ‘leader’. He was abysmal during the Brexit campaign for example and this whole sense that a left wing exit from the EU was possible via a campaign led by anti-immigrant fervor is to my mind ridiculous. It seems around this issue Corbyn was more committed to an ideology than reality and how that reality would affect real people. He is a politician, he will make more mistakes, or at least what I deem to be mistakes."

You can read the full post by Akala here.

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