TS: Dizzee Rascal Vs. Jay-Z!

Look, I'm not an America First-er. Brittish white people played the blues ten times better better than American white people, and it's a goddamned American idiom.

I think people hate on Jay-Z specifically BECAUSE he raps about partying and girls and whatnot, so people assume that he doesn't do "intelligent rap". But if you listen to his rhyme schemes, his flow, his multi-layered metaphors he trumps almost any rapper.

I didn't mean the two were connected. I was just disclaiming any general prejudice about whethere British artists can do an American thing better than Americans. In the case of blues and blues rock, they could. In Hip-Hop, they have yet to touch Americans.

I'm glad you respect Jay-Z's rhymes, but a lot of people still don't, especially a lot of the indie kids I hear shouting Dizzee and The Streets.

Isn't the second line "I only talk about jewels"?

WTF? Name a *single* Streets/Dizzee fan on ILM who doesn't like Jay-Z at all!

He tends to spit out his vernacular so ragga-garage perfunctory and his approach reminds me of all that early Shut Up & Dance stuff. Dizzee is only "unique" by his patois-by-association.

Having tried to understand WTF he is on about, he just comes across as a complete cop-out with no airs or graces in style, dialect, prose or delivery.

At least Jay-Z does possess a deft semblance of rhyming skills, some of the best put-down lines, metaphorically witty wordplay, though let down only by his purposeful dead-pan delivery when he's doing the pop thing.

Uh-oh, better go ... can hear the sound of crossbow fire from here!

Byzee!

A semblance?

I thought we'd established on another thread that only ILM likes these groups. And I could just as easily say "name one other person in real life who..." etc. but he'd probably just say "this guy I know called joe."

im legal may i stress
to the fool for the sake of
strident intelligence
go ahead check my files all day
bit of criminal damage and T-D-A
might be a little bit of violent disorder
but i aint never been locked away
got some mates that have been convicted
yer so what it's the hand life dealt them
we werent blessed with the systems T-L-C
government shoulda tried ta help them
any law breaker aint tryna hide it
as for the sentence aint tryna ride it
stop that so i could do this
im legit ya may as well kiss my
A-S-S P-L-E-A-S-E im L-E-G-I-T

But really, with DR it's all about the DELIVERY not the lyrics...

doesn't have anything to do with it but even then I don't think this is true. The form was taken on but something else, and not necessarily better either, was made out of it. Same with this stuff.

Er ... me?

Admittedly I know a lot of jay-z, but whatever I hear strikes me as the blandest of the bland.

I swear I recently heard some track where he says : "I'm a writer not a biter".Was that meant to be ironic or something?

I like them both, though.