Ever since West Side Story brought a pirouette to a knife fight, the inner-city musical has had a credibility problem. Take Jungle (Prime Video), a six-part drama set in a neon-lit, near-future London and told “through the prism of UK rap and drill music”. Is it intended as a cri de coeur from the disaffected urban youth? Or a slice of stylised entertainment, as escapist as any other? Could it possibly be both?
Even Jungle’s narrator seems unsure, though he is fronting it out: “What if I told you that this was all real?” asks a tough-talking voiceover early on in the first episode. “That it wasn’t just a story with a bunch of cameras, actors and musicians, all put together for your entertainment.” What if? The implication is that we cosseted TV viewers, in our comfy living rooms, couldn’t hack the unfiltered urban realness. Perhaps co-creators Junior Okoli and Chas Appeti would have been wise to get those “just a story” basics right before picking such fights?
At the centre of their story is Gogo (newcomer Ezra Elliot), a young thief and father-to-be who wants out of the criminal lifestyle even before he is press-ganged into one last robbery by his bullying partner in crime, Slim (rapper RA). When – inevitably – something goes wrong and Slim starts shooting, Gogo is racked with guilt. Though not enough, apparently, to prevent him from pawning a dead man’s watch to an underworld dealer, Mia Mor$ (Manchester-based rapper IAMDDB). Before long, he is being hunted down by the victim’s vengeful relatives (M24 and J Fado) and getting embroiled in even shadier schemes.
This is a well-worn, fairly straightforward crime plot made confusing by unskilled storytelling and uninspired performances. All of that would be more excusable if Jungle could truly claim to be original. It can’t, though, despite being billed as “TV’s first drill musical”. Back in 2018, YouTube series Shiro’s Story offered up a similar rap-narrated melodrama of rivalry and revenge, which, like Jungle, featured cameos from prominent UK MCs (Shiro’s Story had Konan and Headie One; in Jungle, it’s the poppier likes of Tinie Tempah, Dizzee Rascal and Big Narstie). When the deep-pocketed Paramount Pictures came calling, Shiro’s Story creator, Andrew “Rapman” Onwubolu, repackaged his winning formula into the feature film Blue Story (2019). It was a hit at the UK box office with his target demographic of 16- to 24-year-olds, and set actor Micheal Ward (Small Axe, Top Boy) on the path to stardom.
Crucially, Blue Story a) never wasted time justifying its existence to an assumed audience of middle-class sceptics and b) employed actors to do the acting bit, while Rapman supplied his own Greek-chorus-like commentary. It is no small task to fill a cast with performers who are equally gifted at both. Traditionally, Hollywood and Bollywood have got around this by dubbing in professional “playback singers”, but Jungle goes another way, casting up-and-coming MCs in key roles. This further exposes the weakness of the script, since most of these guys can only sell a line when they are rapping it. (Though it is quite something to watch otherwise flat performances spring to life when a beat kicks in.)
Okoli and Appeti, who collaborate as Nothing Lost, were seemingly more concerned with creating a slick, futuristic aesthetic for their show. That’s a laudable aim. God knows, there’s no reason why every “urban” drama must be gritty, grey-skied realism. But Jungle doesn’t seem to have developed its vision much beyond that initial idea: “What if it was Blade Runner … but for badmen?” The ostentatious interiors look more like sets than lived-in homes; the direction is overreliant on a repetitive handful of flashy shots; and while, yes, ex-council high-rises can make cool backdrops for bloody, balletic action, Gangs of London has done it before – and done it better.
Big streamers like Amazon’s Prime Video being willing to invest in untested, risk-taking creatives is a sign of a healthy industry, even when – especially when – those risks don’t pay off. Plus, I’m no economist, but clearly siphoning off some of Jeff Bezos’s billions into the pockets of drill rappers makes a fairer society for all. However, this series is eminently skippable. There is more consistent entertainment to be found scrolling through the new freestyle videos on GRM Daily.
