Sasha Frere-Jones Dizzee Rascal/The Streets New Yorker Article

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Has anyone else seen this? Now I know that he's a 'good' writer but this piece is awful - too many assumptions about the music and its history that are just wrong. It's like he's read a Rough Guide to English dance music and applied it woefully.

― Lazza, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Full disclosure: I'm a friend of Sasha's so I may be biased. But I really don't see your point. Which assumptions about the music and its history are wrong? Granted, he's writing for an uninformed audience -- and to my mind, he does it admirably, excellently. You're not going to turn on a New Yorker reader by going deep into the minutiae of Roll Deep and pirate radio (the latter is about the only thing exclued that really could have been in there -- some deeper sense of the context behind these two artists). But what assumptions or errors is he making?

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 19:47 (twenty-one years ago)

The claim that drum and bass came from dancehall and rave for a start, which is just wrong. The dancehall influence was minimal - it was hip-hop kids moving into rave culture that came up with it (hence many of the early prototype rave/DnB tracks having Wu-Tang vocal samples through them), and a cursory listen to UK hip-hop from just before then (the Britcore era) readily backs this up.

Also, he tries to put distance between Dizzee and the mode of the big American rap stars (Jay-Z etc) yet Dizzee's whole goal is to aspire to be a Jay-Z (he's readily said so himself in interview and his lyrics contain just as much 'hoe' talk as Jay-Z, again somethign that's presented differently in the article). He grew up listening to and wanting to be Nas, Jay-Z and Biggie - the 'grime/pirate radio' thing is more just an end to a means for him.

― Lazz, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 19:56 (twenty-one years ago)

― Lazza, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 19:56 (twenty-one years ago)

um, dude, did you miss the two or so years when it was nearly impossible to release a jungle 12" that didn't feature a dancehall sample?

i do admit that sasha can get a little myopic when dealing with non-american music, but if yr gonna talk shit, it should really be well grounded shit.

― jess, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:16 (twenty-one years ago)

The Thing Is: what Dizzee aspires to be has very little impact on how he reads or presents to American audiences. Writing in the NYer that Dizzee fits that particular mold would be actively misinforming the readership, I think.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, how does jungle NOT feature dancehall? All those Speed Limit comps were lying to me!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:18 (twenty-one years ago)

he tries to put distance between Dizzee and the mode of the big American rap stars

If he didn't do that some Brit would be on here whining that Dizzee has nothing to do with hip-hop.

― cry me a river, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

he has a point - no hip-hop no drum and bass, simple as that.

― AdamA, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I've read it. The article sort of smacks of something where the writer has been told to make pieces fit into a template set by an editor when the pieces may not really fit at all.

― addy, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Thing Is: what Dizzee aspires to be has very little impact on how he reads or presents to American audiences. Writing in the NYer that Dizzee fits that particular mold would be actively misinforming the readership, I think."

So it's better for a writer to misinform a readership than to print something that the artist has said/believes?

Of course what he - or any musician - aspires to be has an impact.

― motiv8, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:28 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, but dizzee isn't writing the piece, sasha is.

as for sasha's writing in the new yorker, they certainly don't seem to know what to do with him quite yet. they'll learn.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Yr right, that's bad phrasing: it's not that it has no "impact," it's that it isn't entirely telling or even strictly relevant to the reception of the finished product -- especially in a case like this, where it's an American audience reading about an English artist who considers himself to be trending more toward an American sound than ... umm, other English people.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Much of the article seems to be trying to place Dizzee as somehow being apart from 'hip-hop', and there are all these little bits of (mis)info to back that up, which gives a general impression of an article that somewhat sucks (or at least disappoints from a writer who should be able to do better)

― Lazza, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I am not a friend of Sasha's and I thought the piece was great. It's a short piece and by nature not designed to be laden down with history and details on subgenres. It's meant to give New Yorker readers a sense of what the music and the performers are all about, and at that I think it does a truly excellent job.

He is a great descriptive writer; one of the few music critics who can describe music I haven't heard in a way that makes me really feel like I have some idea what it sounds like.

― Scott CE (Scott CE), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's the sentence about drum and bass: Its roots are in the fast and furious fusion of Jamaican dance hall and English rave music called drum and bass, and another, lighter dance music called garage.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:32 (twenty-one years ago)

seeing the two of them being given the ol' avedon treatment made me catch my breath

― g--ff (gcannon), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought it was a pretty good article and in a way, SFJ is the perfect writer for the New Yorker.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I would like to be friends with Sasha, and I thought the piece was fine.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Lazza, I'm seriously thinking this may be a cultural orientation issue. For the average reader of this piece, hip-hop is going to mean Jay-Z or Nas (if even that), along with (possibly) some dim recollection of Sasha's Madvillain review from a little while back. To American ears -- I should hope to pretty much anyone's ears -- Dizzee doesn't quite sound like that stuff. No honest person would stand in the middle of Tower Records and tell Nas fans they might as well buy Dizzee's record instead. From what I remember of this piece, it didn't at all try to pretend that Dizzee has nothing to do with American hip-hop -- just that it doesn't always so easily slot in their with it, no matter whether Dizzee would like it to or not.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

that sentence is pretty poor

― AdamA, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought you meant mine, and was about to apologize.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

man his baseball luv just sent me right over the top; i'd totally vote for a sasha frere jones/dave q ticket right (i'm in a red state anyway).

― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, lazza, if you want to criticize sasha's piece based on the idea that dizzee isn't "apart from hip-hop", you'll need to lay out on argument for that, cuz i think a lot of people here would disagree with you.

also, x-post, for the average reader of this piece, i'm guessing hip-hop means eminem, since he's gotten the most Serious Critical Attention.

― Lukas (lukas), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

It has nice alliteration though (the sentence, that is).

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

god brit's get all three card monte when it comes to grimes relationship with hiphop - say it's part of or sprung from hip-hop and they accuse you of cultural ignorance and provincialism, say it ain't part of or sprung from hip-hop and they accuse you of cultural ignorance and provincialism - either way it's a balled up 13 yr old whining 'YOU'll NEVER UNDERSTAND' boofuckinghoo

― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

for new yorker readers hip-hop = jay-z; he's in there like every other week

― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry, but Fix Up Look Sharp is him rapping over Big Beat - it gets no more 'hip-hop' than that.

The article also asserts that 'both have the confidence not to talk about dominant themes in American chart hip-hop: pliant women, amphibious vehicles, bottomless pride'. Sorry, has he ever listened to Dizzee Rascal?

The article would have probably worked better if it was just The Streets.

― Lazza, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

stop bullying british people!

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

And Outkast, Blount! And those dead guys on all the t-shirts!

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

He's got a lot of other tunes besides Fix Up Look Sharp.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

for new yorker readers hip-hop = jay-z; he's in there like every other week

Yeah, Jigga's piece on the Rauscheberg retrospective was full of such stately prose.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh Lazza! If you don't admit on some level that there are differences between Dizzee and chart-topping American hip-hop, the tables will turn, and Americans will all come to the shocking realization that British people are totally not getting our music.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

haha

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I prefer Jigga's cartoons - very wry.

― AdamA, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

"Oh Lazza! If you don't admit on some level that there are differences between Dizzee and chart-topping American hip-hop, the tables will turn, and Americans will all come to the shocking realization that British people are totally not getting our music."

There's a difference between pointing out differences and using very suspect facts as a foundation for pointing them out.

― Lazza, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Whoever mentioned the 'grime' thing - I think that's pretty much just a style press fuelled flash in the pan (like speed garage and UK garage before it). I'm not sure even Dizzee Rascal or Wiley really see themselves as part of it - they're just kids making rap music and if people want to call it grime to get them articles in the mainstream and the new yorker then they're probably cool with that

― CH, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I prefer Jigga's cartoons - very wry.

...okay..I admit it...THEY GO COMPLETELY OVER MY HEAD!

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:58 (twenty-one years ago)

wot do you call it?

― Lukas (lukas), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 20:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Hova had an interesting Talk of the Town piece a couple weeks back about Kosher hot-dog vendors in Brooklyn.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I call it "the magazine"

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

You should see the look the guy in Borders gave me.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

It blew his tiny mind.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

mr. reynolds suggested a similar distance between rap and grime (and emphasised the dancehall linx) in his infinite livez review for the voice, for what its worth

ps. sasha is one the few music writers i enjoy reading more for his writing than for his 'right'ness (that said, i think he's right a lot of the time )

― m. (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I liked the way Jigga made the Financial Page so easy to read. Has a way with words, that one.

― AdamA, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 21:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a big SFJ fan but that article kinda seemed a bit of a void - left me feeling that the writer didn't really believe what he was being made to write

― CH, Wednesday, 11 August 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

jigga has broken some amazing stories from iraq, but i sometimes wonder if it's really necessary for him to ask all the military sources and iraqi insiders he interviews whether they think nas is really gay.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 21:27 (twenty-one years ago)

The "A-List" would submit that the latter fact is true, based on rumors about a party at Ginuwine's

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

a style press fuelled flash in the pan

There is hardly any left! (style press, that is). Also: try telling that to all the thousands of people who making up the scene by going out, tuning in etc.

― JoB (JoB), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 22:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry, has he ever listened to Dizzee Rascal?
Yeah, he has. More than once, I'm guessing.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Thursday, 12 August 2004 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Since the Streets and Dizzee and Wiley assorted random downloads are all I know from any of that scene, I'm in no position to comment on SF-J's depth of knowledge. But the article seemed fine to me for what it is: an article about Dizzee Rascal and Mike Skinner in The New Yorker. I like reading about music in lots of different venues, but you do have to account for the difference of the venues. The density of references in, say, Sterling Clover's Royce Da 5'9" review in this week's Voice would be as incomprehensible to a New Yorker audience as, say, your average New Yorker MoMA review would be to a Maxim reader.

Maybe there are some unfortunate generalizations in the piece, but generalizations and shorthand are inherent risks of all criticism, just as much as esotericism and inside baseball (which the Voice risks on a weekly basis -- some of Christgau's reviews this week seem written in response to other music critics and no one else). Keep in mind who it was written for, and that it was written and published at all, and give credit where it's due. Plus, the Voice was never gonna get Richard Avedon to shoot a Dizzee/Skinner portrait (I don't even like Avedon, but the mere fact of that photo's existence gave me a laugh that justifed my New Yorker subscription for the week).

I do agree that SF-J sounds more surefooted on all things Timbaland, but damn, everyone's got their strengths and weaknesses.

― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 12 August 2004 01:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Did he write anything on Audio Bullys last year?

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Thursday, 12 August 2004 01:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know why you're all making excuses for where it was written. The article doesn't talk down to the audience, it doesn't make any "unfortunate generalizations" and none of the ill-informed criticisms in this thread have laid a glove on it.

― bugged out, Thursday, 12 August 2004 01:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I've read it. The article sort of smacks of something where the writer has been told to make pieces fit into a template set by an editor when the pieces may not really fit at all.

-- addy (ade32...), August 11th, 2004.

That's not how it happens--editors don't set templates. There's not some unseen hand guiding this thing.

― shookout (shookout), Thursday, 12 August 2004 01:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I really hate how people see Shasha's writing as being "dumbed down" (although they often use "nicer" terms for it). Writing with clarity is writing well.

I thought this article was very well written (and his discussion of the rhythmic differences between grime beats and american hip-hop were very well done.)

― djdee2005, Thursday, 12 August 2004 02:07 (twenty-one years ago)

The article doesn't talk down to the audience, it doesn't make any "unfortunate generalizations" and none of the ill-informed criticisms in this thread have laid a glove on it.

His writing overall is great. He's one of my favorite critics in the country, no matter who he's writing for. But it's not making excuses to say that the style and content varies with the venue. His writing in the New Yorker is different than his writing on Slate, which was also different than his writing for the Voice. It's all still identifiably him, but of course any good critic is going to write differently for different audiences. And also, there's no shame in writing for the New Yorker, which is only (for my money) the best written, best reported magazine in the country.

I only said maybe he makes some unfortunate generalizations because that's among the things he's being accused of here, and I don't know enough about the subject at hand to assess the charge.

― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 12 August 2004 02:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I suppose I'd consider myself a music nerd but one of the things I can't stand about lots of the writing in the voice is the by-nerds-for-nerds quality of its writing, like I'm trying to constantly decipher hip references and when I don't know them I'm supposed to be in awe of the writer or something. I don't love Sasha's (much-praised) review of "Rooty" - it's full of music nerd references and while I know a good portion of them it still feels...uncomfortable. My mom, who has a masters in english and is a professional freelance editor/proofreader, had trouble following it. And yeah I guess it is "know your audience" but I think that's often an easy excuse to write in a masturbatory fashion. Sasha's work in the New Yorker is some of the best I've ever read - much like Kelefa Sennah's writing in the NYTimes.

― djdee2005, Thursday, 12 August 2004 02:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, Kelefa S. has a killer ear and he writes about everything like it's the most natural thing in the world, like there's nothing any more hip or esoteric about kwaito or Villalobos than there is about Avril Lavigne, and he's just writing about what he happens to be listening to this week -- except that what he's listening to is usually pretty fucking great, whatever it is. It's a great solution to the whole question of how do you write about something in an informed way for an audience that you can't assume brings anything to the table. He (and SF-J too, especially in the New Yorker where the music-nerd stuff is reined in a bit) assumes that people are as unlikely to be familiar with Avril as kwaito -- which would certainly be true of a good portion of the NYT readership -- and gives enough information to clue in the unintiated but with enough casual authority to assure the popnoscenti and rockists (he even introduced the word "rockist" to the NYT, I think).

― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 12 August 2004 02:40 (twenty-one years ago)

er, any chance of a link to this article please?

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 12 August 2004 06:04 (twenty-one years ago)

http://newyorker.com/critics/music/

― C0L1N B3CK3TT (Colin Beckett), Thursday, 12 August 2004 08:23 (twenty-one years ago)

And also, there's no shame in writing for the New Yorker, which is only (for my money) the best written, best reported magazine in the country.

I think that's sort of the point - that the article shouldn't have these deficiencies if it's going to be in The New Yorker

― addy, Thursday, 12 August 2004 08:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree with what seems to be the consensus--SFJ is the perfect person to take the New Yorker's music section out of Hornsbyville. It's certainly taken long enough, even by the magazine's notoriously slow standards.

― C0L1N B3CK3TT (Colin Beckett), Thursday, 12 August 2004 08:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Seems a reasonable enough article to me. Re. DR's relationship with American hip hop: well, one of my theories about Showtime is that it acts as something of a throwback to that weird late '86/early '87 period when hip hop was getting more fractured and abstract - the first Schoolly-D album and the first Just Ice album sprang immediately to my mind as good comparison points - esp. with regard to the latter, did Chip Nunez help lay the cornerstones for grime with his epileptic edits (listen particularly to "Put That Record Back On" - there's a lineage going on somewhere)?

What's also interesting to me is that DR is going down the same in-it-for-the-money road as per recent Wiley quotes in Silver Dollar Circle but his music is if anything becoming more abstract as it simultaneously becomes more mainstream. Take off the vocals from the first two or three tracks and you might as well be listening to I Care Because You Do (N.B.: in my book this is A Good Thing).

Boy In Da Corner I played maybe half-a-dozen times in six months. Showtime I've played about half-a-dozen times in the last two days. So far it sounds like a masterpiece to me, not that I'd recognise a masterpiece if I trod in one.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 12 August 2004 12:43 (twenty-one years ago)

i used to like sashas hip hop coverage best. he just confuses me with his reviews of led zep and whoever.

― splooge (thesplooge), Thursday, 12 August 2004 12:50 (twenty-one years ago)

x-post about dizzee wanting to be like nas and jay-z, didnt he come up through drum n bass??? wasnt that his first love?

x-post 2 - werent D&B and rave linked to start with?

― splooge (thesplooge), Thursday, 12 August 2004 12:53 (twenty-one years ago)

im a brit and i have no idea how can people say dizzee/grime and hip hop arent related.

― splooge (thesplooge), Thursday, 12 August 2004 13:01 (twenty-one years ago)

djdee2005 right otm.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 12 August 2004 13:17 (twenty-one years ago)

aren't related != aren't exactly the same thing. The argument is more that, fer the audience that the article was intended, Dizzee sounds very different from what the Hip-Hop that they know; I think that's a fair judgement.

I think Lazza has a point, tho - "Boy In Da Corner" *does* have a fair amount of talk about pliant women and bottomless pride (no amphibious vehicles from what I can remember tho.) It's just handled in a very different way than the one mainstream US Hip-Hop usually adresses these issues with (tho of course there too there are tons of diferent approaches.)

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Thursday, 12 August 2004 13:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Some useful side-commentary?: Are NPR's music reviews inscrutable?

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 12 August 2004 14:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Sasha didn't say that Dizzee and the Streets don't sound like Jay-Z or that they don't sound like mainstream hip-hop - he said that they aren't hip-hop full stop. I think the fact that his defenders on this thread are so furiously back-pedaling from this statement is evidence of how implausible it is. There's plenty of artists out there that don't sound like Jay-Z (cf., the Anti-Pop Consortium, Dalek, Cannibal Ox, Aesop Rock, El-P, etc.) and yet no one, except for perhap the purists, have seen fit to deny that they are hip-hop.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 12 August 2004 14:32 (twenty-one years ago)

dizzees far closer to def jux than jigga and co.

― splooge (thesplooge), Thursday, 12 August 2004 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

where my real hip hop heads at?!

― splooge (thesplooge), Thursday, 12 August 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I think most ILM hip-hop heads would rather deny that Dizzee is hip-hop that admit he has anything in common with Def Jux.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 12 August 2004 15:02 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry, that should have read "...than admit he has anything in common with Def Jux".

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 12 August 2004 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

he obviously does though. what i would do to hear dizzee work with el-p.

― splooge (thesplooge), Thursday, 12 August 2004 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I've said this before, I think, but Dizzee is much closer to No Limit/southern bounce than he is Nas/Jigga. In both cases, ('grime' & 'bounce') the beats showcase a proximity to caribbean rhythms, albeit distilled over time and distance. I'm not sure why Dizzee isn't famous in the U.S. Oh yeah, it's b/c his rhymes are subpar and his beats sound like they were made "from cell-phone ring tones."

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Anyway, I thought SFJ's piece was about perfect. But then I've got a New Yorker subscription.

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

SFJ is a good writer. Arrogant (as per his Nick Hornby attack) but still a good writer.

― spoony G, Thursday, 12 August 2004 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

What is america's problem with cell phone ring-tones?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 August 2004 20:28 (twenty-one years ago)

"The claim that drum and bass came from dancehall and rave for a start, which is just wrong. The dancehall influence was minimal - it was hip-hop kids moving into rave culture that came up with it (hence many of the early prototype rave/DnB tracks having Wu-Tang vocal samples through them), and a cursory listen to UK hip-hop from just before then (the Britcore era) readily backs this up."

C'mon, I've not read the restbof the thread (because I'm pissered) but this is wrong, wrong, wrong. Dude.... it's wrong. You're wrong. Wronger than wrong.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Thursday, 12 August 2004 22:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Julio, they're played out, yo. Rappers wuz using ring tones back when cell phones came on a rope and weighed 40lbs. Holla.

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 12 August 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought the piece was well-written but I wonder how many NY'er subscribers beside myself and a handful of others (like the ones reading this thread) have even a remote interest in the musical subject matter. Unfortunately, I think Mr. Hornby probably speaks for/to this magazine's readership. No matter how good SFJ is (very IMO) he's fighting a losing battle...sadly I doubt that ANY regular NY'er readers would check out the Streets/Skinner after reading this. Despite SFJ's valiant effort it just feels like DUTY, you can just hear some editor saying 'shouldn't we be covering something, you know, more cutting edge than Bruce Springsteen."
Better SFJ than his ANY of his predecessors. I just wonder how long he's gonna last.

― luvbug mc, Thursday, 12 August 2004 22:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Who cares what the reader wants, or thinks he/she wants? That's half the problem with journalism in the US today -- and not just music journalism. Too many editors second-guess themselves. Once upon a time publications wanted a scoop, but in the age of corporate media, breaking artists has become too risky. Sell the people what they already own, that's the ticket. Luvbug, I can see your heart's in the right place, but seriously - fuck what the people want.

(In my next rant, I'll be tackling participatory democracy.)

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Thursday, 12 August 2004 22:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree. The point of my blathering is that editorial second-guessing will eventually get SFJ hung out to dry. I hope this doesn't happen cause I enjoy reading him and dread the return of Hornby or Alan Light to the hallowed New Yorker pages. then again, I'm a bitter ex-magazine editor (though never got near the NY'er).

― luvbug mc, Thursday, 12 August 2004 22:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Seems to me that Dizzy has more in common with the particularly dirty types of the dirty south than def jux. Ying Yang Twins and Lil' John and 3-6 Mafia strike me as VERY much in Diz's vein. Wouldn'tve minded seeing THAT connection made, but I did like the article; I do love reading S/FJ (even when I don't agree, he turns the phrase well) and the Avedon pic was fuckin' ace.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Friday, 13 August 2004 04:09 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

"Whoever mentioned the 'grime' thing - I think that's pretty much just a style press fuelled flash in the pan (like speed garage and UK garage before it). I'm not sure even Dizzee Rascal or Wiley really see themselves as part of it - they're just kids making rap music and if people want to call it grime to get them articles in the mainstream and the new yorker then they're probably cool with that"

i dont know about this at all. wiley and dizzee came up through the garage ranks didnt they? from what i know, dizzee's fave MC is jay-z but his beats sure dont sound like anything jay has rapped over, except maybe some timbaland beats.

― splooge (thesplooge), Monday, 13 September 2004 00:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Doesn't really sound like Timbaland at all.

Dude I don't think either of them have any illusions about being down w/ hip-hop. They are heavily hip-hop influenced but it IS its own "thing" - the aesthetics are so different from hip-hop I'd have a lot of trouble calling it as much.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Monday, 13 September 2004 00:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually grime is very reminiscent of Timbaland circa Da Real World, "Is That Yo Bitch" etc. In fact Dizee first came up with the lyrics to "I Luv U" as a freestyle over "Is That Yo Bitch", and then came up with the music for it afterwards.

I agree with your general point though djdee.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 13 September 2004 00:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I relistened to Da Real World and what you've said makes more sense than I expected...haha it is sorta Grime-ish.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Monday, 13 September 2004 02:41 (twenty-one years ago)

timbaland is the only one who grime beats really sound like often. there's an interview on www.junkmedia.org where dizzee names all his fave producers and timbo is in his list.

― splooge (thesplooge), Monday, 13 September 2004 08:05 (twenty-one years ago)

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