Years apart, worlds apart, musically apart, and yet Mick Jagger and Stormzy, whose shared birthdays we are celebrating in the Standard today, do have something in common: as young men both rose to become the most iconic stars of their era. Yes, ‘iconic’ is a phrase so overused now it barely means anything, but these two genuinely deserve that term, in that they symbolize their times. Not just by being pretty poster boys either: in different ways they redefined what an artist could be.
Under the early tutelage of his teen genius manager Andrew Loog Oldham – who stumbled across The Rolling Stones and spotted a chance to create the “anti-Beatles” — Jagger paved the way for Stormzy, and many other artists, by creating the bad boy pop star. In uptight post-war Britain, he and the Stones were quickly seen as a threat to morality, decency, and the very fabric of society (‘Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?’ was Oldham’s genius press line), to the delight of a burgeoning youth market of baby boomers. “They were scandalous, but in 1963 you didn’t have to do very much - walk into the Savoy without wearing a tie and you end up on the front page,” says Jagger and Stones biographer Philip Norman.
But it came at a cost. Says Norman, “Of all the 60s groups, they were the least likely to last. Two of them went to jail — Mick and Keith on ridiculously trivial drug charges. Brian Jones was found dead in a swimming pool. By the end of the Sixties they were disintegrating.”
The Stones had also been pulled apart in a predatory and exploitative music industry. Everyone on that scene, including The Beatles, was hurt by terrible deals, crippling contracts, shyster impresarios, and outright criminals. Norman says, “Oldham bowed out and basically sold the Stones publishing to [manager/lawyer] Alan Klein and they’ve never got it back. It’s still in the hands of Klein’s heirs. They also owed a huge amount of tax, thinking Klein had paid it when he hadn’t.”
That the Stones did claw their way out of all this wreckage was because of Jagger, and his other indirect influence on Stormzy: business smarts. Despite his image — “Him pretending to be wicked is one of the greatest acts ever seen in showbiz,” says Norman — this former London School of Economics student began making The Rolling Stones into more of a business than a band. He appointed a European noble, Prince Rupert Loewenstein as business manager, and became, “essentially the CEO of The Rolling Stones Inc, taking them into an era of huge tours, and huge sponsorship deals with everyone from Tommy Hilfiger to American Express.”
This has caused disdain over the years, as the Stones seemingly went from counter-cultural gods to corporate conglomerate, but after the brutal lessons of the Sixties, Mick was simply establishing the self-determining artist-as-entrepreneur that is virtually the norm now for any major artist from Jay-Z to Radiohead.
Stormzy is every inch the artist-entrepreneur, and has been from the beginning, making full use of the tools of the social media age to manage every aspect of his work. But what’s interesting is that he’s built in social responsibility too. #Merky is his brand, created initially give him control of his music through the label #Merky records, but which has now expanded into an umbrella organisation to ‘elevate, support and amplify the issues and the voices of the black community.” Currently it encompasses the charitable #Merky Foundation, #Merky Books which supports new black authors, #Merky FC, fighting racial equality in football, and the Stormzy Scholarships, which provides financial support to Black scholars at Cambridge.
Stormzy is a strong outspoken musician intent on breaking down doors as Jagger once did, the difference is he’s holding open the door behind him. He chimes with a modern era of authenticity and responsibility and community (at least on one side of the culture wars) in the context of a more diverse London, which isn’t about swinging, but surviving. Equally as effective as Jagger was in questioning the world and making things happen.
Will Stormzy have as long a career as Jagger? It’s inevitable.
