Love Island as Outpost of the Nuum

Another series of Love Island  reaches its finale - and finally it's time to unfurl my "Love Island as Mainstream Outpost of the Hardcore Continuum" thesis. 

For starters, there is the theme tune.

An instrumental that lies somewhere between UKG and Deep Tech - it sounds a bit like if an Eski-era grime producer decided to make a house track. 

Then there's some of the musical guests on the show, who have either been pure Nuum - Craig David - or Nuum-adjacent (Katy B, Tinie Tempah). 

The guests chosen often seem to come from around that 2010-2011 moment - which must be when the typical contestant on the show would have been 9 or 10. Perhaps there's a sort of nostalgia appeal for the contestants, a flashback to watching Channel U or listening to your older brother or sister's music. Although quite a few of these artists would have been on the Top of the Pops. 

And then there is the fact that Chris & Kem, from the third season of  Love Island, revealed an ability to rap in the Talent Show episode of that 2017 season. 

This resulted in their recording a not-bad-at-all grime-ish single that incorporates Love Island-slang and which reached #15 in the charts. 

"Little Bit Leave It"  came out on Relentless, the UK garage label. Nuumtastic!

Stormzy also made a non-musical appearance in the 2017 season, with a video clip apologizing for a tweet about one of the prominent female contestants. He also gave tips to Kem & Chris about their MC-ing technique: "I can give you advice about the raps - you can't use the phones".

Certain contestants over the years have actually been performers in "urban"  bands as singers or backing dancers (e.g. Cach, from the winning couple this year).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

How about that season finale then? 

They should really have bent the rules and allowed two girls to count as a couple, given that Toni and Shakira were clearly the stars of the season and theirs is the true love story here. 

Toni has the best tone and cadence since Liza Minelli.

In another era, some impresario would have spotted Shakira's incandescence and whisked her off to Elstree - or more likely, given her gumption, she'd have made her own way to Hollywood, like Cary Grant and other Brits did did. There she'd have been screen-tested and put through the studio system finishing school (what a shame though for elocution to override that delicious accent) and emerged as a star. 

If she can half-way act, it could still happen. 

More likely, in this day and age, she'll be famous for being herself, a public personality. 

With any luck, she'll drift from entertainment into politics and sort out all our problems.