SO WHY *ISNT* GRIME 'UK HIP HOP'?

but i wanna know what people think about the points i have made above.

The only stuff I can think of is the grime which sounds like R&B - the female vocal tracks by Terra Danjah, Davinche etc. As I said on another thread, Ruff Squad are also moving in a bit of a different direction as well. Otherwise as grime becomes more musical, more pop, more songful etc. its increasing similarity to hip hop is largely inevitable.

Since you mentioned Slimzee, maybe you're actually looking for the more technoid/dub sound of Plasticman etc?

i heard rinse fm last night actually and the beats they were rapping over werent hip hop at all. they were totally garage tempos. which is a tempo id love to hear more new songs made in, as the MCs are best in my opinion over faster beats - i mean kano sounds good on ps and qs but compared to the freestyles ive heard him do over hyperspeed beats, its not half as interesting, ditto for dizzee...... (but ive gone on about that enough in that other run the road post so ill be quiet now).

Ha well that's me too.

If you listen to radio or go to raves you'll find that mcs are still spitting over like "War" or "DTI" or whatever, it's just that these beats sound better at a rave, and are more suited to MCs rave lyrics, it's all still "grime" just as "Take It To The House" is still rap.

(not that dipset + heatmakerz still doesnt = the greatest music ever made, go listen to 'this is jim jones'!)

i dunno perhaps if the mysterious mystery thread starter could explain what it is about rap, ie the absent centre in these discussions, he's dissatisfied by...?

Best Cash Money song ever! Maybe.

Yeah I was wondering what you thought of "Baby" Candour. I figured it would appeal to you but i'm not sure why. The colours maybe?

x

the colours? i don't understand, are you presuming my synaesthesia??

euro gang they might be called, theyre those SAS chancers on rocafella so... yeah they suck, jim jones is awful too but those tracks are hotness. 'crunk muzik' i dunno about. diplomatic immunity 2 is going to be 90% weird and horrible too, judging by the new juelz song.

anyway, candour, i dont understand your question about wanting me to explain what it is about rap i dont like.

but whoever it was that says that hot boys tune has drum patterns a bit like a grime pattern is sort of what i was thinking also, and also about a lot of dirty south type production. still, is that real by dizzee is dirty south influenced but hes done his own thing with it, cos its got those ravey airy synths on it and things like that.

whoever else said nigga what nigga who by jay-z (THE MAN) is a bit like a lot of grime programming is right also, although i would say that timbalands' beat for is that yo chick by memphis bleek is also ultra-influential. anyway, yeah, i dunno, i mean, theres no real straight rule that says what is grime and what isnt. its like what kano says, kanye west dont sound like dr dre but theyre both hip hop. actually, there are things they have in common. and if something in grime sounds more like hip hop, then thats it. what i have learnt from this post is maybe that we shouldnt generalise a whole scene (cos for one thing, not everything in grime is that hot), but we should take each song or artist on its own terms.

i still stand by what ive said above though, about grime needing to be its own thing, and MORE of its own thing, rather than making things that could be called hip hop. cos the last thing ppl want is another load of 2nd rate american copies. weve seen enough of that in uk hip hop. another thing kano said that i thought was interesting was that he doesnt call it grime, he just calls it garage. which is diff to raskit who just calls it uk hip hop. maybe he is a bit of a sell out cos he just wants to be hip hop and sell himself as hip hop the americans, but half of the americans dont care about any international hip hop! he is fooling himself.

also, SAS crew are fucking total wackness. i dont know why they are on rocafella unless maybe one of them is sleeping with someone damon dash knows and he wanted to do someone a favour. but he is an idiot anyway, i hope wiley doesnt sign with him cos he will ruin wiley's career.

sorry if this reads totally random and makes no sense.

this question to me is about what you use to define a genre. if it's just the music, fine, yes they're both rapping in UK accents and they're both inspired by US hip hop culture.

but grime is quite different to UKHH. to me it never tried to be an extension of US hip hop. tried as much as it did, UKHH never defined a distinctly original sound (even tho Rodney P, Roots Manuva etc made excellent LPs). it was always a US offshoot.

grime has its own set of unique sounds, expressions/language, tempos, rituals, patterns of behaviour etc. and while some of them exist in other genres (primarily dancehall, UK garage, jungle and hip hop) none of these traits all exist in one of it's influences, making grime a new genre/hybrid.

but to me the crucial differences between grime and UKHH is the fact that grime's a grassroots movement. go to schools in hackney or Tottenham and kids want to be the next kano, crazy titch or d double e. UKHH never inspired this kind of uprising, it's a bolt-on to fans discovering US hip hop culture.

secondly while grime's big in london, UKHH is much more regional: Dynamite in Bristol, Nottingham MCs, Taskforce in Bedford etc etc.

to me these two reason are differences that will forever separate the genres, no matter how much i hear that Jammer is working with Klashnekoff or Sway is working with Terror Danjah and Wonder....

id also add the MCing is a bit different too, both cadence-wise and in terms of inflexions and tones. im not sure if you can say that every single grime track ascribes to the elements you just described above. there's a few on the run the road cd that could quite easily slot into the type of underground UKHH stuff i sometimes hear DJ 279 play on choice fm. in a way though, i wish it WAS all different so no one could say that grime was the same as UKHH.

as you said yourself, the other factors you mentioned arent connected to the music, so for someone outside of london, that added context isnt going to be there for them to strike a clear line between UKHH and grime.

Yeah, as a dilettante (albeit enthusiastic) in both grime and hip-hop it's the MC styles which really mark each genre out for me. Partly due to massively differing accents of course, but the entire vocal approach just isn't the same at all.

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