Dizzee Rascal: Boy In Da Corner

looking forward to hearing dizzee.

jay z, eh? well there's a talented fellow.

but, hell, i'd love it if he did... didn't bushwick bill wear a bowler now and again?

this is the first line ever on ILX to genuinely make me laugh out loud.

i've listened to it about 40 times since i got hold of a copy last week. it gets better with every listen.

a good thing about this album is it will establish him as an amazing producer.

everyone knows I Luv U but it was made about two years ago. people slate it because it sounds raw [ except that's why i like it...] but the LP will surprise people, musically.

and there's such insane lyrics & slang on it. anyone know what 'dis one strictly for pitneys' is about?

i'm not sure. it will and it won't. the metal-on-metal bass sounds and D's voice on i luv you are the general constants. i think what will surprise people though is the depth of the production and breadth of the lyrics. and i don't mean that in an asian dub foundation we-must-now-write a bad song about ASYLUM "issues" way. i mean in the sense that there's far more going on in his head than the single and the stuff on p2p suggest. he's not a thug rapper. he is a thug rapper. he goes on about beating and robbing people BUT the tracks that bookend it are so fucking sad, complete conor oberst emo-boy pathos but without the bad hair and lame guitars (phew). like the bit where he goes on about wanting to go to sleep and never wake up again b/c he's so miserable with his life - after almost an hour of going on about how great he is. i'm simplifying, and it's a bit protest too much, but it's so refreshing to get that vulnerability from a rapper who also sounds so fresh and makes such awesome noises. the only upsetting thing about it is that the track i downloaded that had the "i ain't gonna lie / i ain't got a six pack / i got a bad temper and a baseball bat" line on it didn't get an update.

and he was born in 1985. even as someone born in the 80s, this makes me sick.

yes. that was my point.

and i also agree, he is a mass of contradictions. a reaction between his environment and his inner self. not that that's exclusive to dizzee obviously, but he's such a mess of tensions it's so entralling.

i love it when he parodies people parodying him. "that dizzee rascal's so rude..." he goes, in some soft cockney accent, not the usual harsh tone he uses.

the highlights definitely include the sad stuff. jezebel, sitting here and brand new day. heartwrenching.

i think we should shut up now martin. it must be like dangling chocolate from people's mouths and then pulling it away. i'm interviewing him on monday, though. can't fucking wait.

oh, and if anyone wants a copy....

no, no. sorry. no.

he's had loads of magazine coverage tho'

Is this on soulseek yet?

the only upsetting thing about it is that the track i downloaded that had the "i ain't gonna lie / i ain't got a six pack / i got a bad temper and a baseball bat" line on it didn't get an update

addendum: or an inclusion.

and there's such insane lyrics & slang on it. anyone know what 'dis one strictly for pitneys' is about?

Martin, I can't remember this lyric offhand and can't find my CD inlay right now, but I'd hazard a guess that it's not "Pitney" as in Gene, but "pickney" as in Jamaican slang for child ;-) Asin "for the kids"...

(Excerpt from 1Xtra interview with Ace & Vis)

Can any advance copy heads explain please?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/1xtra_aod.shtml?1xtra_av_dizzee

How is this nothing to get excited about?!

ever

So anyway, 'Brand New Day' let's talk about heart fuckingly awesome it is.

is this fucking thing on slsk yet or what?

do you know how happy it made me to see a TRANSMAT sticker on the record deck in Roll Deep's studio? Very.

oh and re:

>some from yourself or are you a different Martin?

>-- Ronan (ronan.fitzgerald...), June 7th, 2003.

Yeah i've covered Dizzee in Jockey Slut, Deuce, Mixmag and Hyperdub.
and i wrote his biog... he's amazing. bigup Dave Stelfox for pointing out how good it is that Dizzee's vulnerable as well as aggi, on record at least.

Is that the 'Who do you think you are? You pushed me too far' one?

And is anyone else obsessed with Sharky's 'This Ain't a Game' yet?

Vexed is on the ILU 12"
Creeper is by Danny Weed and Cage, not Dizzee.

Um, yeah.

Sorry, couldn't resist ;)

I do like it lots.

And if you hear a track as thrillingly edgy or fiercely funky as 'Fix Up, Look Sharp' this year, we'll eat our shoes.

haha billy squire to thread.

seriously, you can just hear the cultural cringe in those "celeb endorsements" at the bottom of the page

change that to 1991, MC BUZZ B - Words Escape Me !

There's not as much twinkly/pretty as I'd been led to believe, other than that it is greater than expectation. I'm very glad that it's right now and I'm hearing this.

Counter-example: The Cold Vein?

this really doesn't sound like an album genre though it is my first foray into nu-garage after weeks of talk about it here.

nihilist?

tune in via the web:
http://www.kikido.com/Capital/Kikido/live/onair_xfm/player/onair_xfmIE.html
or
http://www.xfm.co.uk

And also the distinct sense that Rascal’s been listening, funnily enough (because this album demonstrates no humour whatsoever or wheresoever)

this is such bullshit it makes me wonder if he's even heard the album

odds sr is aware of the source's hip-hop quotables: 9000 to 1

me. dizzee rascal. billy bragg. cabaret voltaire. night and day. david sylvain. ryuichi sakamoto. shut up and dance. bob dylan. w t pooh. the streets. karen carpenter. so solid. boards of canada. tony chrisitie. roger whitaker. bonham. tricky. madonna. sugababes. westwood. busta. gilbert and sullivan. trouble funk. lydon. pil. camus. wyngaarde.

postscript:

"so, in limiting yourself to a single glass, you have a much better notion of all other objects than if you had wanted to do everything. in having a quarter of an inch of something, you have a better chance of holding onto a certain feeling of the universe than if you had pretended to be doing the whole sky"

the music, not the lyrics

I dunno, I sorta like the idea that Chomsky is a prog freak! If it wasn't him it was a good choice of pseudonym.

The "hey" as heard on More Fire's LP is the trademark of Platinum 45 who produced that track, the More Fire LP and is a mate of Dizzee's.

He has, incidentally, a full Roll Deep Eskimo vocal special which is incredible.

How do we know Chomsky is a music geek again?

"Over a bittersweet melody that sounds like a blend of an Oriental music box and a Lali Puna lullaby"

"as i have commented before on another thread - brand new day IS morr music or aphex from about 96. dont know how dizzee arrived at these off kilter melodies and skrucnhy rhythms, but it totally sounds like he just riding some instrumental lali puni track.
presumably he hasnt been buying morr compilations though."
-- ambrose (ambrosewhit...), June 9th, 2003.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf700/f747/f74715kusx4.jpg

vs.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/images/d/dizzee-rascal/boy-in-da-corner.gif

http://www.netzbrummer.de/images/cover/biz_markie.jpg

Markie's influence reaches farther than one may think! The intro track on that Soul Position EP was a straight jack on the Biz's take on "Alone Again."

I like scott's review, Pfork's rookie of the year.

I'm confused. I keep listening to it though...so that's something.

What is not absurd is the notion of Dizzee Rascal as a completely fresh voice, a five star artist who takes a position that has not already been mined to death (or perhaps a genre not yet over-critiqued, as Dizzee Rascal is not exactly a precedent setter, or is he?) ... I mean, one thing everyone must admit is that "I Luv U" sounds completely different to how you thought it would sound when you first read about it.

Personally, I'm really conflicted. I love recent UKG, but what exactly is it that exhalts Dizzee Rascal before your Nasty Crews, your {other members of} Roll Deep Crews? Is it that Dizzee won the race for a full-length, well-distributed album (pretty necessary for widespread critical acceptance)? No ... the album seems hurried, so he/XL/somebody was pretty sure he was pretty close to the finish line anyway. So is it the whole youth/honesty/freshness chestnut?

... still thinking ... mainly about the now-more-obvious-than-ever but more-confusingly-unsortable-than-ever relationship between the critical public and the general public ...

This album is fucking bananas. Dancehall 2-step crunk, beats that'd give Flat Eric whiplash, funny/morbid/hardass/vulnerable, murder murder murder. Cannot form coherent sentences. Outkast will have to bring Jesus, Mayfield and "Love Machine" Art Barr back from the grave to even come close. NGH. NGAAAH. BEAT COMA

The Kano vs Dizzee comparison is also made easy and fun b/c you can use "I Luv U" and "Boys Luv Girls".

Nasty Crew is certainly shaping up to be the second group in the requisite two-groups-that-define-the-genre pairing. I think they've got slightly better quality control MC-wise than Roll Deep too, although Roll Deep will have a pretty fucking big trump card if they employ Harry Toddler full-time.

Now, to get off the fence, I agree with Fields of Salmon. However I like the less busy tracks a lot, they give the highly syllabic vocals room some room breathe. On some other tracks I was just listening to an overly fidgety, fussily cubased mixed, and it was mildly frustrating. Room to breath!

Radical? No way. As I had expected, it's heavily influenced by modern lo-fi dancehall but with some jungle influence.

Stop trying to get so excited people. It's good, not brilliant, you want to kill this guy's talent with too early praise?

1. his multi-faceted persona
2. his voice
3. his auteur status. He's the only one who's a brilliant rapper and a brilliant producer
4. I Luv U

Bearing in mind it takes me a good two hours to download one track (terrible connection) which album tracks should I go for next?

I've got "We Ain't Having It" but in fact that doesn't seem to be on the album at all - anyone know where it's from?

Tim: Having not heard much of the album I can't comment too heavily, but I think Dizzee is first among equals

Yeah, I'm definitely not convinced he's the absolute tops either. I feel his phrasing is not on the same level as some of the same MCs operating in the genre. Lyrics aside, if you break it down to how he places the syllables across the beats (e.g. the way he s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s "fuck you cuz I ain't playing your game" on Vexed) he really shows his inexperience. I guess it's not a big complaint, he is 18, after all (and sometimes his rhymes have a high school limeric quality) but a more astute MC might have tossed some extra syllables in just to help it roll into the next bar. I don't know if I'm making any sense here ...

Keith:
1. his multi-faceted persona
2. his voice
3. his auteur status. He's the only one who's a brilliant rapper and a brilliant producer
4. I Luv U

I definitely agree with 1, 2, and 4, but only part of 3. I remember when I heard that Dizzee vs. Asher D thing (the first I had heard of Dizzee) and I was actually under the mistaken impression that Asher D somehow had Dizzee on the verge of tears. And then I realized later ohhhhh, he always sounds like he's crying. I know I'm not the first person to mention the lachrymose quality of his voice, but I definitely second that motion.

The "auteur" thing is it, I think -- while there's a lot of great stuff in the genre, most of it is still mired in the money/weed/gyals/nike/cars/boasting things that is generally pretty light on actual content (of course "It Ain't a Game" etc. are excused).

I don't think he's a brilliant producer at all, either (or at least not a consistent one). Maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for "correctness" and Dizzee's melodies/basslines rarely make any technical sense (yes yes I know I'm overanalyzing/missing the point). That said, "Jezebel" is actually a beautiful piece of string counterpoint (too bad the lyrics make me cringe).

Have not heard this Harry Toddler fellow ... what should I be listening to?

Tim, i think yr comments regarding Wiley's MCing are a bit harsh, i'm not aware of yr opinion on his voice but next to flow dan and maybe scratchy i think his is the strongest in rolldeep. The old 'rhyming the same word at the end of a sentence' chestnut doesn't really stick with me especially as Wiley has some awesome lyrics and his persona is very interesting; he's 22 years old, has already had 3 big hits with PAYG's 'Nicoles Groove', 'Champagne Dance' and 'Know We' - he's sorta like the old wise man of rolldeep, like a Mr. Miyagi stylee mentor. Coupled with his voice which is part Methical gruffness and part Scarface's smooth storyteller wisdom he's alot more interesting and endearing than yr description allows. I mean i can't describe how exciting that final verse of '2 Far' is, or the way he draws out the "rolldeep" refrain during his 'rolldeep regular' verse; he's SO determined to let you know how heavy his crew are "ROLLDEEP ROLLDEEP they couldnt never test ROLLDEEP no sound boys couldnt never test ROLLDEEP im from the ghetto better know that i ROLLDEEP even yr girl she talks about ROLLDEEP its yr fault she talks about ROLLDEEP cos she hears u talk about ROLLDEEP its willy kat i come straight from ROLLDEEP you cant see me cos i ROLL - DEEP..." it just hammers and hammers and HAMMERS into the beat. Anyway..

As for Dizzee Rascal; well his record is nang for sure but it's only the tip of the iceberg as far as the next few years go i think, surely there's gonna be a Rolldeep album, and i'm aware that Shark Major is working on a record with Jammer and Wiley so it's all very exciting that finally this music is able to translate to album form without seeming cumbersome and out of context.

Personally, the most outstanding MC out right now is SCRATCHY i dun know why everyone is on Sharky and Kano;s dick they're heavy but i find them a bit restrained and vocally weak, maybe not weak but perhaps thin compared to SCRATCHY the way he shouts in that hyper-emotional ghostface style and his really witty lyrics about not being a wigga etc is really very exciting.

1. the bass line on 'Stop Dat'
2. Wiley's verse on '2 Far'
3. The Goldeneye sampled gun reloads puncuating God's Gift's verse.
4. tinchey strider saying "what u talking bout u got girls in north and paris....suck yr mum"
5. that final trailblazing verse from 'jus a rascal'

Donkey Kick!

Of course I haven't heard *either* of the tracks you're citing so maybe I've just been listening to the wrong stuff. I'd love to hear him top "Steppin' outta line on the streets ya get battered/teeth get shattered/crew get splattered!"

I think what I like about Kano is how easily and naturally he can switch his voice to suit the character of his rap - the whole meet ya father/all night "uh uh" contrast in "Boys Luv Girls" is fantastic (especially with the darker bassline coming in for the "sour" section).

What would I have heard Scratchy on?

"I've had enough of that simple shit / You only use one word at the end of every sentence / How can Wiley step to me when you've already been hanged for your sentence" - Dutty Doogz. Doogz actually ends lines with the same word all the time, and it sounds great.

Also I totally agree with Sean G about Roll Deep Regular. In fact "You can't see me cause I roll - deep!" is probably one of my favourite garage rap moments. Tim I'm sure I gave it to you. Damn silly of me not to give you Boy in da Corner though.

riko dan
wiley
j2k
jet li
jamakabi
dizzee
flo dan
all-in-one

harry toddler is a veteran dancehall dj from JA and is unlikely to join roll deep in the foreseeable future.

-sex in the alleyway sex in the dirt- is a dizzee lyric, and scratch has quite careful enunciation, think beanie siegel, so it might not have been him on that thing you heard.
if you think sharky's 'restrained and vocally weak' you haven't heard sharky, you made a mistake. sharky, dirty doogz, stormin and j2k are the only ones i know of with the same amount of technical ability/understanding as the americans. kano isn't up there with those boys, his flows lose their momentum and pattern, he often has difficulty replicating the (quite tricksy) lyrics from his records live in the studio. he only recently joined NASTY anyway, shortly before viceversa came out.
sharky is pure aggression, he really attacks a beat like no one else in the country, he's destroy mnost of the hip-hop MCs, jhest, ricochet, chester p, he'd burn any of them, make them sound stupid, he'll go on for ever too, 50 bars 60 bars whatever, live on radio so fuck 'one-take-hov' with his studio punchins. stormin is just as talented but has a funkier more relaxed flow, supple, bounces over the beats, skips over them, amazing MC, never sounds like he's got his mouth full, dirty doogz is the soundboy killer
hear him on 100.3 rinse fm (when it comes back on air) firday 9-11pm
and roll deep, same station, same time, tuesdays.
nasty 8-10pm 92.3fm de ja vu.wiley is one of the fathers of the whole scene, he's getting lazy but he's still a legend and can still spit when he needs to. a lot of MCs modelled their flow after his, he's still the most influential man on the scene.

When i said Sharky was 'restrained' i didn't mean it as a direct criticism particularly, and besides I was comparing him to Scratchy. Yes, he's been MCing for what 6 years now I think he occasionally becomes a bit boring when riding a mix. As you rightly imply, he has more of a traditional hip hop flow and works better on a tune in his own right. He reminds me of an east coast rapper like early Big L or something. Though i'm not sure whether having the "technical understanding and ability" of an American mc is a relevant criticism.

Dutty Doogz i always forget about. He's awesome and is easily the best JA style mc out right now. And when it comes to Nasty Crew D Double E is the one to watch alongside kano and sharky obv. Oh and Tim Finney, you need to drop the Tinchey Strider hate!

How old is he exactly? He sounds like he's 13.

I've forgotten which guy in Nasty Crew does the verse in "Take 'Em Out" that goes cannibal/hannibal/untannable. Who's that again?

For those of us not blessed enough to be within listening range, it seems this site streams Rinse FM live pretty much every night. The audio quality is actually quite good, might be worth recording ...

HYPER has the cannibal hannibal lyric, hyper's big.

d.e.e's a superstar
'i saw your gash and i was like
urrrrhhhhhhhh urrrhhhhhhhhhhh
she's
dirrrtyyyyyy!'

when i talk about technical understanding/ability i'm not talking about anything particularly recondite, just things like
not running out of breath before finishing your line, and you know, being able to keep to the beat, just simple things like that which i think are always relevant, although i agree it's not the be all and end all.

it was siegbran,and i agree,its really good

'i'm a white man in a avirex'
that one, i don't like that one...
dog-z, don't like him either.

scratch though, he's alright.

How old is he exactly? He sounds like he's 13.

14, according to something I just read ...

You get the same thing on the remix of Ashanti's Baby he did. He sounds good against straight-up R&B, like he's coming in from another place. Plus he has some cute, straightforwardly appreciative lines about the object of affection there. Shame he's only on for one verse at the beginning.

sean do you have any concept of hip-hop at all?

Watch out for the blinging Stop Dat (third single?) segment near the end!

nice to see you here mr vandross

and who knows what that 'big pimping' soundalike is called? it's another roll deeper
'talk dirty with a mouth full of food
talk crude about your sister in the nude
bad news if you catch me in a bad mood'
etc
etc.

did anyone see this?:
http://www.viceland.com/issues/v10n5/htdocs/spitting.php
so which one is which? Jammer's the one with the dreads, right?

Let's get all the North American UKG-loving ILM readers together and make our own magazine!

watch them all crawl out of the woodwork

Actually, when you take into account their often excellent staff mixtape page (have The Face swiped their similar new page from here?) and their fondness for dancehall, Fader might be (gasp) the most on-point US mag at the moment, and they're certainly the only mag anywhere that would cover both Mars Volta *and* Dizzee with the same level of reverence. They lose points for their Ashanti love though.

(i should have posted it here and not said where it was from)

They said something about her being the greatest R&B performer in ten years - that's not passable.

Yeah, well, I work at this magazine in the Netherlands that you can't read, but...

(& those links are really harshing my buzz)

by the way, Mary: Tower has the best price on it

http://www.matadorrecords.com/news/index.html

A second bonus disc will include remixes by pretty girls make graves and robert pollard. possibly.

Unfortunately the taint of the Matador association probably means it will only reach the usual community of indie fans. Talk about a label that has totally lost its way. it seems all they ever do anymore is flail about and cherry pick somewhat established overseas hipster favorites. Really, ever since their Too Pure deal...

But I obviously have a more favorable opinion of the label than most of you - it's still de facto my favorite record label.

But that's not why I think it fits - it fits because they will market that record to the niche audience who wants Dizzee the most in the US - indie white guys who want to seem one step ahead.

C'mon, you don't REALLY thing he could be big in a mainstream way? Dream a little dream, buddy.

And he's really not that great of an MC - he really can't compete with even the middling American MCs. Dizzee's severely overrated. He would fail in the mainstream.

I think there's just a lot of people who want him to do well because it suits their critical agenda. The guy simply cannot compete with American hip hop, so the only way to really market him is to elitists and reactionaries in the indie/record geek realm.

Matthew I dig you so don't take this the wrong way or nothin' but um this smacks of "there are lots of people who are desirous [sic] of seeing a black quarterback do well" only along cultural instead of racial lines

How does a Moonshake LP and EP constitute a "Too Pure deal"?

You know, John, I totally agree with you about that. That's exactly what I was thinking of when I was writing that post - "oh my god, I sound like Rush!" - but I don't know, it really seems like this is the case for some people. There's a certain number of people who would really like for UK Garage to be taken seriously, and Dizzee Rascal having commercial success would vindicate a lot of people who've been invested in that scene for a while.

I think there are a lot noble and cool reasons for wanting Dizzee to do well - hell, I want any musician I like (including Dizzee, because "Fix Up Look Sharp" totally deserves to be a hit in the US), but it just doesn't seem very realistic. It's that word "agenda," isn't it? It makes everything sound icky and paranoid. It mucks things up.

Anyway, I'm totally confident that Matador will be able to sell this record to exactly the people who would most want it, but I do question just how many people besides a handful of niche markets would be interested. To the trained ear, UK Garage may be its own thing, but to everyone else, this is just some kind of weirdo indie rap record, and there's only so much of an audience for that kind of thing.

I agree that a way to break Dizzee Rascal to a US audience would be for him to do guest spots on high profile records, but who's going to put him on their record? Have any high profile American hip hop stars/producers taken notice? Does anyone in the US aside from music writers really care?

To be fair to Matador, the hip hop artists that they've had in the past haven't really been very a) good (that's my opinion) and b) particularly mainstream (I think most anyone would agree with that). They didn't have much to work with, and arguably, those records did make it to their audience for the most part. They did the best with what they had to work with.

Having Dizzee is a step up for Matador. I think this is more of a challenge for them, because this record perhaps can break to some audiences that Matador hasn't been successful in reaching in the past. If there was ever a test to see what they can do with a decent record in a genre not identified with their label, this is it.

A lot of people think "Fix Up Look Sharp" is great, but I don't think anyone would describe it as revolutionary. I don't understand why this song and not "I Luv U" has seemingly become Dizzee's representative record - it's almost as nonsensical as judging an album's quality solely on the basis of its skits (which admittedly is an interesting idea).

And again there's too much emphasis being placed on Dizzee's success in America being determinative of his quality. We don't judge Jay-Z by his success in England! We don't judge Aesop Rock by his success anywhere!

I think you mean "minimalistic."

But I know what you mean, Tim. It seems like poor Dizzee Rascal has got himself caught up in a lot of expectations, and it really warps how most everyone thinks about his music. He's just got so much context around him that it's very hard to ignore it. It's not impossible to overcome that kind of backstory and hype - it looks like 50 Cent has managed to transcend it - but 50 has massive international cross-format hits, and that will probably never happen for Dizzee. If Dizzee even goes gold in the US, it'll be a miracle.

Oh yeah...he doesn't really make POP songs...if a British grime MC or whatever is gonna make it, he's gonna have to get some hook-y ness like Sean Paul or Wayne Wonder did for dancehall.

I'm surprised the critical establishment has jumped on this the way they have as it is...not that I don't think its deserved. But damn.

Dizze should be hanging out with Lebron James! They're the same age, aren't they?

Nonsense.

I do, however, find it silly that whenever I say that I don't like Dizzee Rascal everyone insists it's because I don't like the accent. NOT TRUE. I bloody well don't like his flow. That's the problem. I think his beats are interesting, but he's intolerable. I don't understand what makes him so masterful and thus, I agree with Mr. Perry.

Busta is lyrically crap most of the time, just a fucking rhythmic device compared to Dizzee and that's why the best thing he's ever "done" is that Mr Reds Vs DJ Skribble track.

In theory, the idea of the Tasmanian Devil rapping is the greatest thing ever but the execution just doesn't come off.

Dizzee : Busta :: Bush : Nirvana?

Yes, I have, hence me even saying something about it in the first place. For fuck's sake.

Ouch. Ronan. Condescending much? I wouldn't get too up on your highhorse given that it'd be hard for you to argue that you know what's new and what aint--given that you're admitting on another thread to know ABSOLUTELY zilch about one of the most revolutionary and NEW rap outfits ever.

Oh, and Dan OTM encore.

Cybele I know enough about Gangstarr to feel confident they are not one of the most revolutionary and NEW rap outfits ever.

More traditionalism?

It was a wonderful month!

cybele, if that's what you think.

I wouldn't bother with this if I didn't think the Dizzee album was worth it. My only "advantage" here is being from this side of the water, I know nothing about grime or garage really.

My favorite bits are when he's just making unintelligible sounds, like in the beginning of his first verse on that tune. This also may apply to Eminem.

not sure if you were talking to Baaderist or me there but that was also what I was saying.

Just sayin'

People in the US seem to be very resistant to people from Europe rapping unless it's over a house beat.

That's the feeling I got from Dizzee...that if I heard the context I'd be a lot more excited by the album.

But naw, that Large Pro album was disappointing as hell. Beats were really lame throughout. And it sucks cause he's really lost his way since the mid 90s. Those classic remixes - one love, resurrection, stress, it's a boy...oh man, some of my favorite hip hop tracks. Never mind the Ak, Main Source albums...The LP...but 1st Class was laaaaaaame. I also disagree about Guru sucking. I kinda feel like he's stepped up his game every album, actually. His rhymes on "Zonin'" and "The Ownerz" are some of the best of his career.

"matador isn't shocking at all when you realize them and xl are all owned by the same parent company"

Not exactly. Matador and XL are co-owned by the same company. Beggars holds a 50% stake in both Matador and XL.

"Talk about a label that has totally lost its way. it seems all they ever do anymore is flail about and cherry pick somewhat established overseas hipster favorites. Really, ever since their Too Pure deal..."

Matador's 2003 signings until now : Pretty Girls Make Graves, Dead Meadow, Seachange. One of 'em from overseas and hardly an established hipster favorite (so far). Our recent flailing around has also included albums from the following "overseas hipster favorites" : Interpol, Cat Power, Yo La Tengo, Guided By Voices, Stephen Malkmu and The New Pornographers. But the next time someone asks how 2003 managed to be the most successful year to date in this directionless label's 14 year history, I will be sure to point to our winning strategy of cherry-picking overseas hipster faves.

GC

There are plenty of Americans on ILM who like Dizzee, perhaps the ones who don't ought to think about how the Euros are managing to get US hip-hop?

one doesn't have to "get" something to buy lots of it

Ned, you should at least try to make sense when spouting such poopymouth.

(although it's true, I did thumb through an issue of Esquire at a gas station and there was a sidebar on Dizzee, complete with his translations of cockney slang)

(Hmm, okay I reread your post and am no longer convinced you're comparing Dizzee to Busta but I'm posting this anyway.)

relentless, raw and claustrophobic are exactly what's needed though!

(xpost Yeah, well LL's been spitting complete gibberish since 1989 so Busta's got a ways to go before he catches up.)

Er, yeah, I was just talking about Dizzee working with both qualities!

Boy > Showtime > Diamond In The Dirt > Treddin' On Thin Ice

I love Dizzee's flow on Showtime, I love how... at ease he is. And I love how it's all about his voice and its nuances because the beats are so sparse. I don't find it anywhere near as stunning as BIDC but at the same time it's the perfect follow-up, and all I'd change is replacing a couple of the more wearying songs in the middle with the busier b-sides. But I don't know how anyone could claim it has anywhere near the impact of BIDC.

Yes, but 'impact' vs. 'actually listening to it a lot' is also important, and BIDC need not represent both.

B-sides - "Is This Real?", "Trapped", "Give U More", all better than quite a lot on Showtime, definitely preferable to "Face" and "Respect Me". Busier, less one-paced, more inventive. I can send "Is This Real?" and "Give U More" to anyone who wants them...

You say this like it was necessarily a bad thing (and btw Busta did the cameo on the remix of MOP's "Ante UP" post-1999 and it's far from gibberish being one of the tightest guest verses ever so your claim is off the mark anyway.)

splooge otm. I find Sparse Dizzee interesting but give me Busy Dizzee any day.

as for busy dizzee vs sparse dizzee, id propose that busy (insert virtually any grime artist) trumps sparse (insert any grime artist) 9 times out of ten.

You are bonkers. I mean seriously fuckin' crazy. I don't even want to imagine the mindset that hears Busta's and Remy's verses as "ruining" song. I'm kind of in shock actually.

in general I think I'd agree but then my favourite grime song might be "Murk Dem" by Lady Fury which is pretty sparse. I think Wiley is better the sparser he gets too.

youre probably right about wiley. theres a kind of restraint to wiley's beats that seems to suit him best. he makes up for the lack of business with strange and odd sounds and textures and ideas though. i still like early pay as u go songs though, and how he used to rhyme on those. he sounds really great over busy beats when on rinse fm though.

The key to grime is always intensity, and sparseness and business are both routes to this. And something like "Chosen One" is actually quite sparse but sounds very busy because it's so perfectly constructed.

I mean this sort of sparse vs busy binary annoys me in the same way that the hip hop vs garage binary annoys me in the other thread - it's not about a choice between one and other, it's about navigating the course through and beyond them.

ice rink is one of the most amazing beats wiley or anyone for that matter has made in the last five years. that beat's kinetic cos of the syncopation but sparse at the same time in terms of how few sounds seem to be in the mix (im going on memory here).

chosen one is pretty busy but target kinda manages to wrap up any sort of clattering or noisiness it might have by being so precise and being really strict about what stays in and what gets removed.

in the other UKHH vs grime post, i think its more of a case of not whether its sparse/slow, but disliking it if it seems too much like hip hop (i.e. less garage/dance influence overall?). drum patterns are key here i think.

I suspect some of the suspicion might also be residue of the proto-jungle vs. ambient/early-nineties-IDM wars, but I dunno.

maybe its that suggestion that grime is two lane music as someone put it in some other post. either fast beat/slow rhymes or slow beat/fast rhymes. again, i dont think the two are mutually exclusive though.

"Imagine", being the pinnacle of Foul Playfication, is not so much decisively on one side or other of the jungle vs ambient wars, but their synthesis ("ambient jungle", as Reynolds used to say). Again itta be allabout the dialectic.

Maybe I'm not even sure of what's been argued about here???

But again I think there are obvious ways in which grime can learn - has learned - from hip hop without capitulating to it. I mean the history of garage post-"Pulse X" has been the history of its confrontation with hip hop.

I think a good analogy for this sort of thing - one which I've used perhaps too many times - is that of a rubberband. Grime's progress is pretty obviously predominantly a case of trying to incorporate as many ideas from hip hop as it can without actually becoming hip hop, without sacrificing the potentially endlessly accomodating kernel of difference which is its garage/jungle/dancehall/hardcore heritage - stretching the rubberband as far as possible without snapping it.

I sort of see the same thing wrt Dizzee - my favourite tracks on Showtime are those which add as much as possible to my previous understanding of him without shattering or defacing that understanding. Which is why "Fickle" is so clearly the most astonishing track for me, but maybe a better example is "Learn", which strikes me a summing up a huge amount of what is great about Dizzee despite running at a hip hop tempo.

one thing ive learnt about grime is its got too many different strands of activity to brand it all as one singular monolith. but its a fine line between borrowing so much from something without becoming it. how much can you take from one thing (ie hip hop) without more or less surrendering to it virtually wholesale? all those disparate influences have to be as audible (without piledriving them in there, that is) as the dominant one to make it its own distinct thing. i.e. how far can you stretch the rubberband before it does snap?

i might be rambling here. off to bed i think........but yeah, fickle is just brilliant.

Much of Showtime reminds me of "Fill Me In" in that manner, it's grime by the skin of its teeth, but in a funny way that makes it feel as if it is nonetheless wholly grime. There will doubtless be further, and more frequent occurrences of capitulations to hip hop in the future, but I've liked this ongoing thread of music for so long now that I'm confident that this isn't going to take over the scene, or, if it does, the scene will split and the vital/viral part will go elsewhere.

I was thinking on the way home from work that if the whole idea of any genre -- and to be utterly frank, I hate genres as encapsulating terms, they're actually the worst necessary evil of criticism and it's little wonder I like those writers who try and trash/redefine them as much as I do those performers -- would theoretically be to try anything and everything. Spinning off in a very oblique way from some of what I was suggesting on the Tate hip hop thread, if we are presumably coming down on the descriptive rather than the proscriptive side of what one can do with a sound, or whatever, then speed, tempo, amount of sound in the mix ('too many notes, Mozart!'), whatever you want to focus on, can't actually define it. Though perhaps this is going far afield.

Does one music capitulate to another or does it simply say, "That's good, I'll have that and devil take the hindmost?"

Hey, I bring up my Disco Inferno comparison precisely because the song it makes me thing of is "Love Stepping Out" and if that isn't minimal melodic hyperactivity subsumed/consumed into a meditative contemplation then what is? ;-)

Hefty dose of parochialism here, I think. I can see why this doesn't really matter to a lot of Americans but as a Londoner I feel excited by the emergence of a style of music that feels defineably 'ours', as well as something thats nascent and still feels like a bit of a blank page. If you brand it hip-hop it becomes our take on your music and is in the massive shadow of 20 years worth of records and history.

found this excerpt of a roll deep interview on rwdmag.com -

"What about the UK hip hop scene? Why are they always slating Dizzee?"

Bionics: What we need to establish is that we are not UK hip hop. UK hip hop ain’t even UK hip hop.

Flo Dan: They’re not representing. They copy America. We are just doing our own thing; this is the UK street sound.

Danny Weed: Hip hop has different elements, what we do is another element of that.

Where I disagree with quite a few people on this is that I don't think tempo is the sole determinant, and sometimes the music on grime tracks will sound very close indeed to US hip hop and yet still feel, er, grimey, somehow. Wiley & Davinche's "Baby" is a good example of this.

x-post Dan I think Danny Weed is saying that grime and "UK Hip Hop" draw on different elements of hip hop as a whole, which doesn't contradict Flo Dan or Bionics.

I'm sure there are some people in grime who see America in vaguely 'Babylon' term, though they've probably never seen the video for Stand Up Tall :)

Yes, but if X is a subset of Y, then everything that can be described as X can be described as Y. Saying something like "That's not hip-hop, that's crunk," would make most reasonably informed people look askance at you. I am having this same issue with "That's not hip-hop, that's grime"; the entire attitude smacks of both parochialism (as posited by MattDC) and genre-ghettofication ("Ew, we can't be hip-hop, that's for n*ggers!" being the extreme strawman here).

Yes, but so is saying, "oh since it is hip hop it can't have its own properties", and goodness knows we've had a lot of posters pop onto grime threads and say roughly the same thing (or, rather, "what's all the fuss about, it's just hip hop. Stop talking about it as if there was anything special or unique going on here." Would you agree that saying the same thing re crunk would seem like a rather limited, overly generalist dismissal of anything distinct crunk had to offer to the ongoing "conversation" of hip hop?

Of course. X is Y but Y is not necessarily X.

I'm not going to comment on the dancehall vs hip-hop thing because A) I have already made my point about genre-ghettofication and bringing another genre into it doesn't change it; and B) I would be talking out of my ass.

just found out dizzee is doing a gig with tony allen from fela kuti's band in march!

xxpost I think there's still a huge dancehall influence in a lot of the rapping, and the radio sets especially sound a lot like dancehall in the way they're structured, leading to a very similar overall feel.

this sounds absolutely repugnant by the way, even as a strawman argument. i have never read or heard anyone say anything like that. grime is made primarily by black males. any one who thinks otherwise is a fool.

arent the radio shows more like jungle or UKG shows though? (im aware of the sound system culture thats trickled down but even so...) where can i hear dancehall sets like pirate radio exactly? and what dancehall artists/records should i hear to see the influence in the rapping? suggestions would be much appreciated. thanks.

xpost - Dan, maybe if you explained it a bit more?

I still like Showtime more. And am very interested in whatever number three will sound like.

this has aged really well

I haven't heard it in its entirety in a long time but whenever I hear anything from it I'm like yeah this is the shit

http://soundcloud.com/uncledugs/dugsshotzdizzeewileytinchysyer

listened to this the other week and was just utterly blown away by him all over again.... most of the bars ended up on bidc but hearing them in this context, among his peers (even wiley, also on top form) really hits home what an astonishing, preternatural, fearlessly bright talent he truly was

yeah this is one of the best album of the 00's. i blast it quite a bit. pity now everyone (inc. him prob) sees it as some sort of babystep to a chart bursting monster he is today.

how sad is "brand new day" ffs?

the majority of it is p heartbreaking tbh, that one and "stop dat" and "i luv u" esp

Hadn't listened to this in forever. Still sounds great, so electric and confident.

two thousand and slew was a long time ago

It's funny -- or maybe just predictable -- that this still sounds more futuristic than anything he did after.

i secretly hope that the skepta album might rejuvenate him.

he had moments on each album (or b sides) after though that were as good or 'futuristic' as what was on BIDC

The Skepta album isn't even in the same galaxy as this.

yep, this still sounds mighty

its not the same kind of album. but its a great grime album, regardless. but i think dizzee prob feels that hes done it all already so theres no need for him to go back to grime. shame though, id love to hear him over some of the more outre beats around (and yes i know the skepta album def is NOT remotely outre).

I love his first three albums.

same, i lost track after that.

ditto. I haven't even heard "the fifth" although this track from it is pretty nifty. is the album worth checking out?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlzgDVLtU6g

Put it on 15 minutes. Yep, I think this album still has it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMzx-OzYICs

Dizzee's verse on this from 2014 is good

saw skepta on his recent 'pop-up' UK tour & when the DJ on beforehand played tht^, the crowd went nuts. (also went mental for desiigner's panda).

skepta record isn't even as good as JME's from last year.

its not like he just fell off after BIDC, then suddenly popped up on daytime radio 1 with bonkers.

showtime -
stand up tall
graftin
respect me
knock knock
dream
girls
flyin
fickle
give u more
trapped
is this real?
off to work

maths + english
world outside (not that this makes it superior, but the intro to this sounds like james ferraro or OPN)
pussyole
flex
wanna be (though this really depends on how much you can tolerate lilly allen, i dont mind her, but she does push insufferability on this one)
u cant tell me nuffin
my life feat newham generals

im stopping at tongue in cheek as this is such a shift that you might as well include the whole thing. i never listened to the 5th properly, but i liked the stupidity of bassline junkie.

pagans/couple of stacks from 2014 arent bad. the song with giggs was good too. but his taste in beats is pretty uninteresting.

'Bubbles' still bangs.

i laughed when i saw this was getting the full-on heritage album treatment in brooklyn of all places. still can't imagine a less exciting live experience than An Entire Album Played In Order

and especially not THIS album of all albums! my goodness.

dont get why RBMA put that BIDC show on in brooklyn either. surely it should have been in the assembly hall of his old secondary school?

given the kind of gig it was it was entirely appropriate that he was far from its origins imo. brooklyn can have it

im fine with him doing one of those classic album shows (would only want to see it out of curiosity). its not really about making BIDC into some dull revered canon album, more allowing it to get the same dull revered canon treatment as other albums from other genres.

its not like he just fell off after BIDC, then suddenly popped up on daytime radio 1 with bonkers.

Oh yeah, I don't slight Showtime or M+E. Great songs on both. It's just BIDC arrived so fully formed, perfect union of sonics and voice.

Interview with Dizzee's teacher:

http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/05/dizzee-rascal-music-teacher-interview

http://www.thefader.com/2016/06/15/dizzee-rascal-calvin-harris-hype