Stormzy made Katy Perry's parody of Trump and May at last year's Brits look like The Muppet Show – and quite right too

Grime has given a voice to a generation which doesn’t have the privilege of choosing to be apolitical

Stormzy’s powerful comments at the Brits about Grenfell struck a chord. I almost spilt my chamomile tea (Getty)

The most annoying thing about getting older is the assumption that you can no longer connect with music which is made for and by young people. It’s a closed-minded, ridiculous assumption because back in the Nineties, I too was a millennial.

I am not bashful about the fact that I love grime music. My musical knowledge doesn’t stretch to being able to explain exactly what it is, other than to say it derives from a mish-mash of underground genres including garage, jungle, electronic, Jamaican dancehall and country and western (I might be wrong about the country and western influence but, like I say, I’m not an expert).

This new genre, which has only been around since the early Noughties, is intrinsically youthful and so it takes me back to the 16-year-old I was when I first heard the American hip-hop group Public Enemy. They became a huge part of my social and political awakening. (By the by, spellcheck is tenaciously changing “hip-hop” to “hippopotamus” as I write, presumably because it thinks, “Well, she’s a middle-class mum from Ealing, she’s not talking about Chuck D highlighting injustice against black America, is she? She obviously means a large semi-aquatic mammal.”)

I know that grime artists don’t talk about the life I live. Rarely do they discuss, in their 140bpm, the trials of having a west-facing garden which catches little sun.

But grime is a culture you don’t have to belong to in order to be enriched by its energy. In 2002 Ms Dynamite breathed fresh life into a music industry dominated by Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and a young me, desperate for a voice which spoke for me, woke up to something new and powerful.

The artist Stormzy has brought grime well and truly into the mainstream and he’s got political. At Glastonbury he promised he would not forget about Grenfell: “I refuse to forget you, I refuse to be silenced, I refuse to neglect you,” he famously cried. And boy, did he deliver on that promise this week at the Brits.

He used his platform on live television to, with rock-steady ferocity, call Theresa May a “criminal”. It was a landmark performance. “Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell?” he asked her, topless under an indoor rain shower, his face hard, angry, addressing her directly: “What? You thought we’d forget about Grenfell? You’re criminals. And you got the cheek to call us savages, you should do some jail time, you should pay some damages.”

The surge of hope I felt lifted me to my feet and I almost spilt my camomile tea. It was pure punk.

Nearly 21 years since D-Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better” serenaded what came to be three terms of New Labour government, the generation that grew up in that time would beg to differ – and Stormzy and other grime artists are speaking up.

This generation, unlike the generation before it – mine – does not have the privilege of being uninterested in politics.

My generation had faith in the idea that our political leaders were trustable. Noel Gallagher posing with Tony Blair had kind of sealed the deal for us. It’s Tony! Popstars could stick to singing about heartache and wonder walls. Yes, there was the Iraq war, but the love affair with Blair survived that.

Perhaps nice guy Nick Clegg’s U-turn on tuition fees can be credited with breaking those rose-tinted goggles for good – or at least for a generation.

A couple of years ago, I saw Billy Bragg implore a young audience to put politics back into music – “Don’t just leave it to the standup comedians” – and grime artists, during the election, delivered. Seventy-two per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds voted thanks to the social media reach of Generation Grime. In the towering 6ft 5in form of Stormzy this week, politics came back to music in a big way.

Corbyn, buoyed up from socking it back to the right-wing press, and ever down with the youth, applauded him on Twitter.

Beyoncé’s 2016 Super Bowl rallying call to “get in formation” appears heeded by the artist.

Stormzy made Katy Perry’s theatrical reference to Trump and May at last year’s Brits look like The Muppet Show.

Why now? Why the change? Grenfell, of course: the undeniable neglect of those from less wealthy backgrounds. But also the neglect of our youth.

Hattie Collins, who co-wrote This Is Grime with Olivia Rose, told me there was “a reluctance for MCs to involve themselves [in politics] before now. No one was listening, so it didn’t matter. Then Corbyn came along and they saw someone who was listening and they realised action is possible, difference is possible. Stormzy has seen the power of unifying.”

This is the generation that grew up without the guarantee of free higher education, only the prospect of debt, against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis from which capitalism and its excesses have walked away scot free. The youth are speaking – let’s hope they never shut up.

Shappi Khorsandi's comedy show Mistress and Misfit is playing at the Soho Theatre from 27th February