rolling uk urban pop thread

apologies in advance for not titling this "would you risk it for a chocolate biscuit". anyway, here is the thread to address an ilx blindspot - post away your love, hates and observations and all things being well we can have a nice ruck about something or other.

i'll start with a easy one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN-MD6yo6yg

labrinth (of tinie tempah 'pass out'and 'frisky' fame) is signed to simon cowell now - perhaps he will be interesting.

here also is the newish one from the already-underrated dotstar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-ei_JcKM34

and yes he did just rhyme promethazine with denim jeans.

*WAFFLE ALERT* one underlying theory of this thread, i would like to think, is assaying the particular uk sensibility at play in what people are sure to point out are nominally generic traits in global 2010 pop; another (more secretly) is to perhaps try to map out the effect of uk funky as an grassroots re-establishment of this sensibility rather than seeing it one-dimensionally as a specific structurally-based strand. and finally, yes, it can just be a place for lex to put sodding 'katy b on a mission' or whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxe7v4Yfcxs

you should all know this, but for the sake of it. croosh track right now obv.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyCEO4k3BXU

video is not helping me think i'm not in my own little world with this stuffz btw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmF_xN2AKMk

Has this come out yet?

Good idea for a thread by the way, as 'bandwagon' increasingly becomes 'status quo' you'd imagine we'd get increasing amounts of good stuff.

the ongoing roll deep/ill blu symbiosis is interesting - after the success of 'good times' the release of ill blu's mix of this new one ran practically parallel to the release of the original poppier version. not sure i can recall a similar two-pronged attack organized to this level. possible future chart blueprint ahoy?

schoolboy error from sway there - everyone knows if you're gonna make it in the uk charts you need to get you some crazy sun protectors. tune's bollocks but i like it, good take on the nu-hip-house etc etc

Not strictly relevant to the thread but you could argue that La Roux did it with In For The Kill and the Skream remix - initially I think the remix was selling more than the original. It's like releasing the street single and the pop single at once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D3_gkDTUxM

this is obv more your str8-up funky on the face of it but the truly, truly brilliant stroke of genius of recasting eastenders killah priest nutjob lucas as pulpit house dictator has guaranteed its brief moment of crossover success.

by the by funkystepz are the clear heirs to sticky (as you can no doubt already hear) and this won't be the last time they crop on on this thread.

OMG.

yeah matt kinda but wasnt that a tiny bit after the fact of the original? - in that sense it's not a new thing at all. but wrt 'green light' they near enough came out at the same time, equally anticipated, on the basis of the success of the previous iteration. obv its a win-win for the pair of them.

true story: i was once told by a bloke early back in the beginnings of funky, that he was out one night and in the midst of your donaeos and crazy cousinz the dj dropped - to a rapturous reception - the theme tune to DESMONDS. i have never retold this tale until now in appreciation for its preciousness.

to this end i have sent umpteen letters to roska begging him to do a refix of the football italia theme but he must not have got round to replying yet.

actually that's a million quid idea i've just given away there isnt it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3__XM--uqRE

i kinda think of this sample as housey but i'm not sure why. otherwise if it says anything i think it's that the uk still has an appetite for regular light 90sey pop rap - your shelltoe retro element.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3__XM--uqRE

also cf this last year, i suppose

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A62YvdQ_eg

balls! sorry if a mod could replace ta

true story: i was once told by a bloke early back in the beginnings of funky, that he was out one night and in the midst of your donaeos and crazy cousinz the dj dropped - to a rapturous reception - the theme tune to DESMONDS. i have never retold this tale until now in appreciation for its preciousness.

This I can totally believe, although the only bit of the Desmond's theme I can remember at this moment is the "don't scratch my soca... til the party's over" bit.

mild shade of ll cool j 'doin it' to that enza too

to an onlooker i'm sure this all looks like "a country likes all kinds of stuff SO WHAT" but i cannot stress - barring a few breakout underground-representative hits - how rock bottom the uk's sense of identity was in years preceding. since as far back as maybe ukg even.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K5ZK2bUETU

see its hiphouse but with proper breakbeats - telling slight difference. this guy has the best name since hard house banton btw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6IN62TMG_4

repost - redlight division. also see the lame stush-catting 'selecta' by mz bratt.

right, gonna shut up for a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn3yh7T2-8o

I am all about this track at the moment, which given that Wiley has given it away probably means it will never be released. Proper hands-in-the-air second summer of love vibes but also it makes Mz Bratt sound something other than utterly uncharismatic.

if that track comes out titled loose and not lose then i will kill everyone and everything in sight.

that one reminds me of the bad old desperate days of the uk. filter-disco just doesnt strike me as relevant modern canon now.

and please believe when i say fuck dizzee for 'dirtee disco' i speak as the #1 supporter of tongue n cheek and everything on it without exception.

if that track comes out titled loose and not lose then i will kill everyone and everything in sight.

I.K.R.

why is "dirtee disco" any more egregious than "holiday" or "dance wiv me"?

"love drunk" is good but as with "frisky" suffers from being a bit of a "pass out" retread. i really hated aggro santos's debut single with one of the non-scherzinger pussycat dolls that his PR bugged me about endlessly. surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE8P3iCcrIc

love how this thread has so far studiously avoided dubstep even though it's magnetic man in the actual top 10 this week. i'd like to see funkystepz or ill blu do that. (not being sarky, i really would.)

(i don't actually love "i need air" that much, i don't find dubstep beats exciting in and of themselves, and autotuned angela hunte doesn't elevate them in the same way that katy b does.)

though i may as well dump all the katy b tracks here then - LOVE "katy on a mission", really like her track w/magnetic man, and on one listen i think i'm feeling "louder" (produced by zinc, it seems). pretty interested in where she'll go for what appears to be her solo career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNhPYj-5rIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93AU5IkvDPY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Ynf2ScKiA

These dubstep dudes should stop attempting to write songs and concentrate on working on that enormous bombastic doomladen remix of Shakespeare's Sister's 'Stay' that will surely be the zenith that will followed by the genre's immediate decline.

i think it's katy b who's writing the songs there

Just a general observation, I haven't actually heard Katy On A Mission yet.

i suppose you've got me there on the dubstep, but there always were and are always gonna be la roux vs skreams and whatnot and i'd like to think we were tracking something more interesting than simply the whims of annie mac and the student dubstep massive. and besides what is distinctive about that magnetic man besides its producer roster?

youtube is shifty sometimes i swear, the 'dash down' official didnt come up at all when i looked. i'm not a fan really but it does the job and i accept its popularity.

tbh i quite enjoy the ruder horrible ones like 'are u gonna bang doe' and that new 'oi you who's that lighty'. sorry ladies. it's a small tragedy however that a new breed of strange innovative mc house along the lines of 'skank calm down', 'got my beads on' or even rapid's 'report to the dancefloor' has flickered and died apparently.

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

i quite like this btw but cant be bovd to explain its meaning.

ugh all those katy b's are rank. budget lily allen wiv the enun-ce-a-shun is where her career's gonna go if you're really wondering.

actually sorry i dunno what i was talking about with 'dash down' it's clearly the rudest one of all! think i was just going doo doo doo dash down, oh how lovely

Haha Pastor Lucas is terrific. Also discovered via that link - "Lethal Bizzle remixes" of various Eastenders characters hitting each other in the face, soundtracked by Pow!

got any crisps?

Katy On A Mission is a pretty good song but I'm really not sure about the whole Mockney thing, if I was being even more uncharitable than RTC I might say "dubstep Kate Nash".

Louder is probably the best of the three, for the groove at least. Gonna reserve judgement on the songs themselves but I've got the feeling she's going to be huge.

Aggro Santos is shit, like, Fatboy from Eastenders releasing an inevitable novelty single shit, but I hope he sticks around because he's bound to lead to some good football headlines if nothing else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RBtB_vkI_o

Am I alone in thinking that slowing down to hip-hop tempo actually suits Tinchy pretty well? Like, he no longer sounds like he's desperately starting down at the lyric sheet on the ground at all times.

i suppose you've got me there on the dubstep, but there always were and are always gonna be la roux vs skreams and whatnot and i'd like to think we were tracking something more interesting than simply the whims of annie mac and the student dubstep massive.

Populist dubstep is to "uk urban" circa 2010 as big beat was to "uk urban" circa 1998 perhaps.

Endorse this thread but can't check any youtubes until I get home tonight.

Populist dubstep is to "uk urban" circa 2010 as big beat was to "uk urban" circa 1998 perhaps.

I know it's our duty to compare every populist strain of dance music we don't like to big beat but I'm not feeling this one. Magnetic Man 2010 = UNKLE 1998 maybe?

'Dash Down' is a shocker as well, not heard it before so no idea how big it is but the inevitable self-congratulatory conscious response featuring JME and Skepta may actually turn out to be preferable.

know it's our duty to compare every populist strain of dance music we don't like to big beat but I'm not feeling this one. Magnetic Man 2010 = UNKLE 1998 maybe?

I like big beat!! I simply meant that in the late 90s people just loosely following popular urban/dance music would have been forgiven for thinking people were being perverse for talking about Doolally rather than "Praise You" or "Hey Boys, Hey Girls" (or Basement Jaxx for that matter). Actually the Jaxx is a good reference point in that - as long as you ignore what the music sounds like - you could totally do the kind of "Katy B On A Mission" IS funky basically argument makes using a random Jaxx single and uk garage.

Big ticket post trip hop is actually a much nastier comparison I reckon.

argument Lex makes, obv.

Really like that Dynamite track - feel that there's resistance and texture there but it never loses its prettiness.

Love this thread! Great work everyone

Not keen on that Dynamite single at all - it falls victim to the twin modern malaises of trying to please everyone at the same time and of slowing an MCs flow to a few chants and removing everything that makes them special in the first place.

wretch #1 eh!

much like with 'traktor' i've been so spoiled on the garage mix the original just sounds bizarre

interesting hit song tho all the same

rizzle kicks @ 8 is funny as well

there must be so many failed dudes across the board from like 5 years ago thinking wtf generally these days

the original "traktor" was a perfectly enjoyable post-"pass out" thing, the original "don't go" is dreadful. i have no idea why wretch 32 is at no 1.

Is it a Cocteau Twins sample in the background of the Wretch(ed) thing? I've just listened to it for the first time, was surprised when it finished because I expecting it to actually go somewhere.

not sure it really warrants the vitriol, i think it's kinda cute? if turgidly so

certainly better than the ploddingly obv 'heaven'

oh josh whatsisname's awful bluntian voice though, like we needed a cut-price ed sheeran

as i've said elsewhere i didn't think much of "heaven" until bang one day it clicked, but i'd take sandé singing pretty much anything over ever hearing the "don't go" guy again

These new battlelines reaffirm my belief in an essential order to the world.

Now what was it I was listening to the other day that sounded like a sped up version of "Heaven".

http://soundcloud.com/truetiger/ed-sheeran-you-need-me-i-dont

yaaaay

"Ed asked us to remix his second single with Dot Rotten & Scrufizzer"

lol just came here to post the Sheeran, since i was amused to see it on a Flava rundown just now, it being like an arctic monkeys side-project. maybe more rhythmically more kinetic than you'd expect for that, and obv informed by rap/r&b self-referentialty, but still

more more more howdyalikeithowdyalikeit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u87_y3E61ro

SOMEHOW... this is still kinda cute

have u guys heard this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAN779kN718

being irish can i just say that "stadium heights with damien rice" is the most depressing and bizarre lyric to hear a young singer/songwriter utter, especially while he's getting funky

that rascals is a banger imo. could lose verse 2 tho.

oh yahh i've seen that mad posse cut. chick at 2:17 is slomosupercool.

mike delinquent's mix of 'never soft' is once again both exactly what you'd expect and perfectly correct

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKXjPXqE5qc

don't like this song or anything but jeeeeez the lengths dudes will go to have any random indie kinda voice on their hooks these days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvAyBlTk6eA

ATTN LEX this is playlisted on 1xtra now so someone other than you might start to care for a change!

god that cameo ft kids tune upthread is so addictive. esp love the bit when scrufizzer inexplicably transforms into a seagull midbar

if ur on the radar, come chat to me den
come to the manor come chat to medidididistididididi SHUUU! SHUUU! SHUUU!

flirta d was a hero to most

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q949rFuVfHM

oh god the choral bridge

lol

really, really not necessary to have songs that say HEY SIMON at any point

anyone watching the mobos tonight?

ATTN LEX this is playlisted on 1xtra now so someone other than you might start to care for a change!

haha i love it, too

she's so ridiculously talented and charismatic, i have no idea why no one cares!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH8k9Sutw_0&fmt=18

<3

i love the new jme single

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

You’re not lord of the place
You jacked a couple guys before with your mates
You’re not a badman cuz you robbed someone, fam
You’re just poor and brave

Beef? Slam doors in your face
Uppercut leave your jaw in a brace
Man will draw for the hadak-dak-duken
Leave you on the floor snoring away
MCs think they’re raising the bar
By spitting on 14 genres a day
Safe!
Raising the bar makes it easier for me to score anyway

well then, rudimental's new direction is fairly shameless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oABEGc8Dus0

yet to work out whether it works despite being :/ or if it's just :/

listened to with "sexy sexy" or "spoons" in mind it's gross, but if it actually becomes a massive ubiquitous hit it might make me cave in through sheer unremitting force

meh on that personally but "shameless new direction" is a bit unfair i think - rudimental have always switched codes brightly and to a high level and if it so happens this is the one that sticks with the punters it's hard to begrudge them that really

i'm not 100% certain if black butter is their own label or if i've misread but that's similarly versatile and nicely curated too

i think it is yeah

while i'm here this rita ora song at No 1 is way more boring than even i was expecting

rudimental #1, hats off

p sure i'm fully allergic to hands in the air old man soul anthems generally? someone remind me of a classic one i might like before i note this down forever in the book of the dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lQa9X_WvR0

HAHAHAHA this little gimp covering this, TOO GOOD

oh man i'm crying srsly

what were they thinking!!!!!!!

http://smtdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/alex-thompson1.jpg

look at this next lil twinkwave guy signed to tinie tempah's label

i swear to god if i didnt know better the whole rita ora style uk pound shop ripoff pathology often has a savagely caustic burlesque quality

why isn't rita ora better? i don't know why it surprises me that she's not but is it that hard for britain to get things right

ora is kind of the one sad exception in that she's not a misbegotten brit sketch but a cold cynical franchise clone engineered by rihanna's handlers themselves

in a period when 100% of rihanna's own material sounds like hasty, shoddy c-rate rihanna, surely it's not that hard to trump her slightly

idk, riri ripoffs across the globe have made me appreciate her more than ever as an artiste and vocalist actually

oh i appreciate what she brings, even down to the unstinting robot work ethic, but lately the material is just so mediocre it's not even notably bad

The Rudimental song sounds like Seal

it's off-topic but I have totally succumbed to "Where Have You Been"

Rita Ora Live Lounge appearance on R1 was.... unflatteringly revealing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=902-SMEGDIg

awight laavv d'yer fink this ole lahndan enunciation lark's gone a bit too far latelee?

can a mod change this to rolling uk urban pop rubbish btw, i regret my prometheusising early posts only distract from proper appreciation of the misshapen remedial lovelies i now only care to submit