Could Donk Heroes the Blackout Crew Bring Peace to the Middle East?

Monumental world events are probably taking place as you settle down to waste a portion of your inconsequential day reading this inconsequential article. You've snuck away from your desk for a shit haven't you? You've snuck away for a shit because that's the only slither of enjoyment left, isn't it? It's the only time you get to really 'be yourself' anymore, yeah I know mate, I know: us too. Guardian app isn't working, is it? You've only got a 10 minute window before your line manager's nostril hairs start to twitch in anticipation of those revenue figures and anyway, the new Paul Mason looks a bit long and challenging, doesn't it? Economics! High Politics! World Events! No, this is your little safe-shit zone and for the next ten, blissful minutes you just want to hunker down, squeeze out a copper-hearted log and wash it down with 1000 or so words of light, nostalgia-soaked clickbait.

Soz mate. Soz about monumental world events. At this very moment, as you squat on the warm, slightly too small regulation fit porcelain there is a clandestine, top-secret, top-level meeting taking place to sort out the whole, sorry Syrian tragedy. Heads of state have assembled in an undisclosed retail park in Bolton to hammer out a comprehensive, conclusive settlement. The warehouse is littered with overflowing ashtrays and half-eaten steak bakes. Discussions are tense. The Saudis have the hump with the Iranians over a missing Hula-Hoop grab bag. "Where," they want to know "are the Hula-Hoops?"

Progress is glacial. More crisps are lost, more words exchanged. Putin intervenes and offers to go halfers on a crate of tinnies. Obama interjection that "anything but Carlsberg, gives me the right squitters" is the only tabled amendment. Hours pass by. Days. Then progress: slow, meandering progress. Finally, the little bloke from the U.N pops up, impatient to get things over so he can get stuck into the Sports Direct sale next door: "Lads, this is a mess. Look, Bashar, we'll chuck in a swegway and an iPad if you'll just sod off quietly. Maybe a timeshare in the Maldives, too?" Sure, it's not perfect, but geopolitics is complicated: the art of the possible, not the ideal. Finally, painstakingly, a resolution is drawn ready to be singed: "Peace in Syria 2k1666". Signatures are duly squiggled. Only the U.N bloke remains to sign: "Yeah yeah, it's sick that, yeah that's good", but his brow furrows. "Wait pull it up, stop." The room quietens. "You know what you want to do with that, right? You want to put a banging donk on it".

Let me slap my bollocks on the table and say right now that, yes, I believe donk is conflict resolution music. I fervently believe that if you stuffed enough heads of state into a small warehouse and forced them to listen to Blackout Crew on an endless loop that enduring peace would be yours for the plucking. Why? It's simple: Donk is, was and remains the sonic approximation of an endless, furious pasty fist pump. Donk is essentially the sound of fury distilled into a constellation of terrible heart tremor thumps, overlaid with unintelligible stream of consciousness MCing. That is Donk in a terrifying nutshell. It is in equal measure an appropriate soundtrack to gubbing four eccies in an forcefully commandeered youth club and/or breaking a wrongfully accused mans spirit in Guantanamo Bay. Donk is pain and the Blackout Crew are its master practitioners.

The scene originated in and, aside from the wider consciousness pricking "Put A Donk On It," stayed mainly confined to its post-industrial North-West heartlands, providing some distraction from the scourges of unemployment, drug-abuse and general malaise that pockmark the prospects of young people in towns like Burnely, Wigan and Bolton, the tri-pronged Mecca of Donk. While it might sound fucking terrifying to the uninitiated, it doesn't take much of an imaginative leap to see that furious pasty fist-pump as one of release from an environment of minimal social mobility and limited prospects. Christ's arse, it seems appealing enough to me now and I'm literally living the precarious-white-collar-meal deal-a-day existence that every little boy dreams of. If you've been working 12 hour shifts shuffling bits of cardboard about a warehouse, or you're not working at all, then it isn't completely batshit mental to see the prospect of a night aggressively donking as a half-decent release of festering frustrations.

If you can get 30 seconds into "LICK YA BEAVER" without gurning and clenching your fists then you're a much bigger man than me. If you can get 30 seconds into "Bad Boy (Not Enough Donk)" without wanting to stuff the settee out the window then yes, you're a much bigger man than me. When a man is tired of Donk he is tired of life. Sadly it seems that Blackout Crew—the Beatles/Goldie Looking Chain hybrid of the scene—have tired of Donk. Look up 'poignant' in the OED and you'll be directed to their Twitter account, last active in 2012 and still bearing the thin scars of three reply beefs with smart arse Scousers. "Does anyone have a spare Nova exhaust?" had me staring wanly out the window for a good three minutes. There is pathos and then there is 'where all are tweets gon?' cast out into the uncaring abyss in 2010. Where did all the tweets gon? More importantly, where has all the Donk gone?

You're cold now, aren't you? You're cold and sore because your arse cheeks are still chaffing against the too-small bog seat, aren't they? It's been a solid 45 minutes now and you've been staring at the toilet roll holder, thinking about all the things you've ever put a banging donk on and thinking 'Will I ever Donk again?' You've forgotten all about that revenue report. Oh dear.

Follow Francisco on Twitter