On June 14, 2017, 72 residents perished in the Grenfell Tower disaster in London. Grenfell Tower was a "council house," one of Britain's federal government-funded buildings based on laws stretching back to 1875, meant largely for the working class and the needy. The highly flammable exterior "cladding," which ignited rapidly, totally violated the building code, the "Tenant Management Organization" (A.K.A. landlord) had ignored continuous complaints from residents about an assortment of fire-safety hazards, even threatening two complainers with defamation lawsuits (both of whom died in the blaze), and the insulation even emitted clouds of toxic cyanide fumes when it caught on fire. There was an idiotic, Titanic-esque builder claim that each flat was fully fireproof, and thus no one need be evacuated in a fire; the London Fire Brigade dutifully adhered to this nonsense until people were jumping out the windows. The level of negligence and corruption resembles building code enforcement in the region of Turkey's deadly earthquake last year. It was the largest residential fire in Britain since World War II. Its total costs were estimated to be $1.5 billion--about 4,000 times higher than the $300,000 saved by the tower's builders by using the cheap, highly flammable cladding.
According to Queen's Counsel Leslie Thomas, "85% of the residents of Grenfell Tower who died on the night were people of color," from West, East, and North Africa, the Caribbean, and other former British Empire colonies, and "seven people were white British or Irish." The existence of the dilapidated Grenfell Tower death trap not far from gleaming financial institution skyscrapers and some of the poshest real estate in the world--so favored by money-laundering Russian oligarchs that it's nicknamed "Londongrad"--has made London a present-day dystopia. A new film, The Kitchen,amplifies the anxieties and struggles often experienced by immigrants and the working class, drawing a stark parallel to the tragic Grenfell fire, where shoddy construction and systemic neglect claimed numerous lives. If you make this connection, it imbues the film with a chilling reminder of how dystopian elements can manifest in unexpected ways, closer to home than we might think.
Thirty-five minutes on the Tube from the Grenfell Tower is where the actor Daniel Kaluuya grew up, also in a council house, the son of immigrants from Uganda. Kaluuya has teamed brilliantly with director Jordan Peele as the lead in Get Out and Nope and also appeared in Black Panther. But it's his absolutely riveting performance in Judas and the Black Messiah, which won him an Oscar, that really stands out. It felt like he had inhabited every molecule of Black martyr Fred Hampton.
Kaluuya makes an excellent debut as producer/co-writer/co-director of The Kitchen, now available to stream on Netflix. His co-director was Kibwe Tavares, an architect who had directed a few short films earlier.
Council houses have been a controversy for much of their long history, with Labor generally supporting, and the Tories generally opposing. The hammer really started coming down with "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, with large cutbacks of government support. She said council houses were "not for the respectable." More recently, there has been a big effort to simply move council houses from the government over to the private sector, with predictable bottom-line-thinking results. Tom Slater in The Sociological Review discusses racist dog-whistle views, e.g. "self-inflicted poverty stemming from...the dead weight of low expectations."
The Kitchen, set in London's near future, just carries this conflict to its logical conclusion: Britain's government has altogether eliminated council houses, and the working class is squatting in a vast and partially caved-in apartment block in a neighborhood called "The Kitchen." Riot police with billy clubs, helmets, and shields, are constantly raiding the Kitchen, speakers blaring "You are illegally occupying privately owned property!" with the goal of permanently expelling its predominantly Black population, hauling away anyone they can grab. We see vicious chokeholds and hear several cries of "I can't breathe." Repurposing COVID's pot-clanging salutes to essential workers, as the police approach, Kaluuya has higher-floor squatters, who've spotted police armored trucks rushing towards the Kitchen, bang pans from windows to warn people outside to run. They can save themselves only by remaining inside their flats, behind reinforced metal doors.
Kaluuya's father had returned to Africa, and Kaluuya did not finally meet him until he was 15 years old. The human drama within The Kitchen, likewise, centers on a boy, Benji (played by newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman), who is seeking a father he never knew. After his mother's sudden death, at the futuristic funeral service he attends alone, Benji spots an employee there lurking in the background, Izi (played by Kane Robinson), and latches onto him, more and more convinced as the film progresses that Izi is his father.
With the constant police raids and his own striver aspirations for upward mobility, Izi is on a waitlist for a modern flat in trendy Buena Vida, where Benji lived with his mum. Now alone in the world, Benji plunges headfirst into the Kitchen lifestyle, welcomed into a gang of bandits who hijack food trucks destined for the wealthy to solve the government cutoff of food deliveries into the Kitchen, and who later rampage through an upscale mall. He wins them over by knocking a surveillance drone out of the sky with a gigantic David-vs.-Goliath slingshot.
The film paints a captivating picture of a divided society, reminiscent of the stark contrast between the underbelly of Los Angeles and the elite Tyrell Corporation in the still-definitive dystopic film Blade Runner. Similar to Blade Runner, where a cacophony of foreign languages underscores the all-minority ethnic Earthbound city, with wealthy Americans safe in their Offworld, The Kitchen paints a London neighborhood almost entirely populated by people of color, creating a sense of isolation and vulnerability within this marginalized community. This divide amplifies the anxieties around displacement and social inequality, highlighting the stark separation between "us" and "them" in both films' dystopian societies. The Kitchen's cinematography by Wyatt Garfield brilliantly contrasts both the desperation and the raw energy within The Kitchen, its barbershops, food stalls, street rappers, and kids playing street games, with the cold indifference of the world that expelled these people. This condemned community becomes both a haven and a battleground for Izi and Benji, its gritty reality starkly contrasted against the neon-lit opulence of the privileged world beyond.
The Kitchen delves into provocative themes like social injustice, community power, and the lengths people go to survive, similar to Blade Runner's exploration of societal anxieties. But while Blade Runner focuses on existential questions through its futuristic lens, The Kitchen offers a more grounded, human portrayal of these anxieties. It raises questions about societal structures and the human cost of systemic neglect, sparking reflection long after the credits roll.
Kitchen Radio's DJ is named Lord Kitchener and is played by former Arsenal (BTW, Kaluuya's favorite team) football (soccer for Yanks) star Ian Wright. The character provides the spine of the story, alerting Kitchen residents when the hijacked trucks speed in with food, warning them when the government shuts off the water supply, giving birthday shout-outs, broadcasting marriage proposals, and doing everything he can to elevate the morale of the community. Of course, he is targeted by the authorities. We've definitely seen DJs given important narrational roles in movies about young people in caught in inner city conflicts before, notably Samuel Jackson as Mister Señor Love Daddy in Do the Right Thing and the "D.J." character in The Warriors.
If you're a second or third generation London Afro-Caribbean, your grandparents will surely know exactly where Kaluuya got the name Lord Kitchener, and it's not because he has deemed himself the "Lord" of the Kitchen. The real Lord Kitchener (1922-2000) was known as "the grand master of calypso," and frequently criticized Britain's colonial rule over his native Trinidad and Tobago. He famously came to London on the Empire Windrush ship in 1948, became hugely popular there, performed live and regularly on BBC Radio, opened his own nightclub in Manchester, toured the US, and only returned to Trinidad and Tobago in 1962. I'm convinced his early soca hit "Sugar Bum Bum" is the direct ancestor of "Shake Your Bam Bam," "Shake Your Bon-Bon," "Shaky Bum Bum," and countless other more recent songs about (excuse any objectification) female posteriors. [Note that this Lord Kitchner is a central figure in the film One Hand Don't Clap, playing at BAM in Brooklyn, March 8-14.]
There were so many British casualties in World War II, the nation suffered a serious shortage of manpower. To address this, Black manpower was encouraged to emigrate to Britain from its colonial possessions in the Caribbean. The Empire Windrush, on which Lord Kitchener traveled, was one of the first ships bringing them, and they came to be known as the "Windrush Generation," undoubtedly helping keep Britain's economy afloat for many years. Before the arrival of Britain's Windrush rescue workforce, London was nearly 100% white. Black Caribbeans composed the beginning core of a new immigrant population, and in 2011, Britain's government announced that a majority of London's population were ethnic minorities.
The loyal service to the Crown of the Windrush Generation, however, was long forgotten when the Tories' Home Office sicced their private contractor Capita (very polite Brit version of ICE) on them beginning in 2013. Despite being British subjects, they were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, lost their jobs or homes, had their passports confiscated, or denied benefits or medical care to which they were entitled. Documents proving their citizenship, held for decades exclusively by the Home Office, were destroyed. Processing fees for crucial paperwork were cruelly jacked up. Deportation targets were circulated. Complaints soon began pouring in, which were arrogantly ignored. At least 83 were wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office. This was the era of what was officially named a "hostile environment policy," i.e. ruining lives of immigrants (and note it's not the usual euphemism), initiated in 2012 by Tory Home Secretary Theresa May, who later became Prime Minister in 2016.
It took five years, until 2018, for 60 MPs, concerned by a damaging Home Office Select Committee report on the verge of being released, to simply write a letter to the by-then new Home Secretary Amber Rudd, urging the government to halt the "inhumane" policy. Left-leaning The Guardian newspaper had already begun publishing a series of highly damaging exposés of this massive injustice in 2017, one reeking of sheer ingratitude. Its journalist Amelia Gentleman won an award for her coverage of "the catastrophic consequences for a group of elderly Commonwealth-born citizens who were told they were illegal immigrants, despite having lived in the UK for around 50 years." Caribbean Prime Ministers denounced the travesty. MP Harriet Harman accused the immigration officials of being "out of control." MP David Lammy called it "a day of national shame."
Upshot? Despite the Equality and Human Rights Committee's assertion crimes had been committed, there were no indictments. Only one solitary head rolled, Amber Rudd's; she resigned, acknowledging that she had "inadvertently misled" the government. Oops! Theresa May, who launched this foul policy back in 2012, got away scot-free. Reforms were announced with fanfare (implementation TBD). And the victims? By 2020, out of up to $725 million in financial compensation set aside, only $80,000 had been doled out. By 2021, out of 15,000 people being eligible, only 864 people, just 5%, had received any compensation whatsoever. After a few cosmetic months on hold, deportations duly resumed, as did threats made to immigrants by Home Office caseworkers.
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The Windrush Scandal is well worth bringing up in this essay. The Kitchen is a story about London's Black immigrant community, and the Windrush Scandal is a very important chapter in that larger story.
Important to note as well that the filmic Lord Kitchener is on the ones and twos here. The Kitchen has a brilliant soundtrack, songs old and new, hiplife from Ghana, Afrobeat from Nigeria, Black grime music from the London scene, other music from the African diaspora, and a hymn.
"Holding On" by Tirzah
"Party Popper" written by Shandy Bongwala Bombusa
"I'm Free" written by Shandy Bongwala Bombusa
"En blue jeans et blouson d'cuir" by Salvatore Amato
"Kyenkyen Bi Adi M'awu" by Alhaji K Frimpong
"How 'Bout Us" by Champaign
"Odo Nwom" by Kofi Nti feat Ofori Amponsah and Barosky
"AK47" by Sayfar, Cyfred, 2woBunnies
"Living Like I Do" by SBTRKT & Sampha
"Lock Doh" by Giggs
"Stay So" by Busy Signal
"Zombie" by Fela Kuti
"Candy" by Cameo
"Xtra (Instrumental)" by Ruff Sqwad
"Walk Away (Dub Mix)" by Bitty McLean
"How Great Thou Art" written by Stuart K Hine
In making "The Kitchen," Daniel Kaluuya doesn't simply step behind the camera, he delivers a masterful directorial debut. Having electrified audiences with his acting, Kaluuya seamlessly transitions into storytelling, with a strong social commentary, and creating a visually stunning yet deeply human experience. He proves himself to be a talent not just in front of the camera, but also behind it, leaving audiences eager to see what he creates next.
(Afterthought: lest any above critiques of inequities in the U.K. trigger a "pot calling the kettle black" retort, it's all fully replicated on this side of the pond, with the 2022 Bronx affordable housing fire that killed 17, including an entire family from The Gambia, Ken Griffin's quarter-billion-dollar skyscraper flat, and Governor Abbott drowning migrants crossing the Rio Grande.)
dj.henri is a New York City DJ who has performed at the Summerstage, the Apollo Theater, B.B. King's, and elsewhere. He is also the creator of radioafricaonline.com.
