In the early 2000s, pirate radio stations such as Rinse FM and DvDs such as Risky Roadz and Lord of the Mics were the only major platforms that grime and UK rap artists could promote themselves through. This meant it was often difficult for an artist to find an audience. With this in mind, Jamal Edwards founded SB.TV in 2007, an online music platform that would be used to showcase artists and allow them an easy platform to release music through. This was followed by the founding of Link Up TV a year later, and finally Grime Daily in 2009, all based on the same concept. Collectively these platforms have served as the backbone to much of UK urban music and provided a large outlets for artists to gain popularity and fame. Grime Daily was formed in 2009 by founders Matt 'Sketchy' Thorne, Pierre Godson-Amamoo and Koby 'Posty' Hagan. The platform was created in order to create a space for UK urban artists to showcase themselves and release music. At the time, the platform was named 'Grime Daily', to denote its affiliation with the grime music scene. For the first week, the website was used to upload old grime DvDs and videos. Once Koby Hagan had ran out of things to upload, he decided to buy a camera and film his own unique content. The "Daily" is a reference to the fact that the outlet originally intended to release grime related content every single day. Early on, one way this was done was by doing long interviews with artists, splitting the interview into parts, and releasing the parts from the interview throughout the week. An interview with grime artist J2K was Grime Daily's first ever interview. In 2011, the original Grime Daily YouTube channel was taken down by YouTube. It was alleged that this was because a man had shown a knife on a music video for one of Scorcher's songs, however this was denied by both Scorcher and Grime Daily. The platform rebranded as GRM Daily in 2012, which stands for "Grime and Rap Music", and created a new YouTube channel. The new name was to clarify its expanded scope with not just grime, but also British hip hop and related genres. In 2012 Grime Daily joined together with The BiG! Agency, now taking responsibility for the commercial operations of GRM Daily's website, and Silver Bullet Digital. In 2015, GRM created the Rated Awards, an awards show dedicated to UK urban music.
Legacy
By 2012, the Grime Daily website was taking in 70 million website hits and had over 50,000 daily visitors. The platform played a part in popularising artists such as Tinie Tempah, Tinchy Stryder, and Wretch 32 in the early 2010s. GRM Daily has been very influential in propping up UK urban artists from various genres, such as grime, British hip hop, and Afroswing. The platform has been credited for bringing fame to artists such as Stormzy, Dave, J Hus, B Young, Amelia Monét, Kojo Funds, Steel Banglez, Not3s, Mabel, and many others. GRM Daily, along with related platforms such as Link Up TV and Pressplay Media, have created an ecosystem that allows artists to easily record, produce, and release music to the masses without the need of support from traditional media or the music industry.
Controversies
In 2010, DJ Werewolf was hit in the chest and buttox after an individual pulled out a Mac-10 submachine gun and fired rounds at a Grime Daily event, containing over 600 people, celebrating their anniversary. Another unidentified woman and man were also shot in the incident. Police claimed they were not informed the event was happening. Donatella Panayiotou, the presenter of the event, quit working for GRM Daily as a result of the shooting, and criticised them for their handling of the event. In 2018, British rapper Young Spray was stabbed at GRM Daily's Rated Awards event.
