British period dramas don’t usually have their theme music remixed by rappers. But Snoop Dogg’s rendition of “Red Right Hand”, in which he dons a flat cap and the alias “Snoop Shelby”, is just one of many hip-hop homages to “Peaky Blinders”, the bbc’s gangland drama. Other rappers have dressed up like the hero, Tommy Shelby, in music videos; some invite comparisons with his leadership skills. “I brought the fam together like when Tommy got the black hand,” rapped Dave in 2018. Some are more melancholic. Kambulat, a Russian mc, says: “I, like Thomas Shelby, would still walk with sadness.”
“Peaky Blinders”, back for its sixth and final season on February 27th, tracks the rise of an Irish-Romani gang in Birmingham after the first world war. Shelby (Cillian Murphy) yearns for respectability. He establishes companies—often fronts for criminal activity—and becomes a Labour mp, albeit one who spies on extremists on behalf of the state and murders his enemies. The show takes the country houses of “Downton Abbey”, shoots the hapless lords and replaces them with a compelling, factory-owning Al Capone speaking in the Birmingham argot.
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