I heart Grime. Not what Grime has become, but original Grime, from between 2002 - 2005, when it really was a fresh sound and a scene to stand alongside Hip-Hop, rather than underneath it. Somewhere along the way it got lost and turned shit. It's pathetic that the best Grime album released is from 2003 (Boy In Da Corner), and pretty much is the only Grime album that's been released. All other Grime artists haven't released Grime albums. And which is the best selling album? Boy In Da Corner. Most MCs release horrendous Pop and wanna-be Hip-Hop, which is not the reason that they were signed. Roll Deep, Kano, Wiley, Dizzee Rascal (Maths + English was an abomination), Newham Generals (Generally Speaking is not really the type of thing that got them signed in the first place) have all released anti-Grime. The mixtapes are generally even worse. How much I've wasted in the hope that one will be good. It's easy to see why people download, why spend £8 on a CD you want to throw in the bin? The only MC who really has kept the Grime flow is Durrty Goodz when it comes to CD releases. Ghetto on some tracks, Wiley is sporadic, Kano on one or two, but Goodz is the only one consistent.
This mix is what Grime is all about, and should be about. When it was the shit instead of being shit. Stuff to play in your car and go mad to.
Tracklisting
01 Trim/Bang Bang Freestyle
02 Big $hot/Monster
03 L.A.S./V.I.P.
04 Ghetto/Mountain
05 Macabre Unit/Dem Na Ready Yet
06 Lewi White/Graveyard (What Refix)
07 Wiley/Graveyard Freestyle
08 Hazard/Killahertz
09 Ghetto/Intro
10 DJ Wire/All Alone
11 Trim & Scratch/Trim & Scratch
12 Youngsta/The Formula
13 Roll Deep/Eskimo 3 Freestyle
14 DJ Wire/Missing Mind
15 Ghetto/I'm Ghetts
16 DJ Narrows/Legacy (Nah Guy Tes Dis)
17 Dizzee Rascal/Seems 2 Be
18 Alias/Blapps
19 TNT feat. Dynamite MC/Rush The DJ
20 Alias/Warriors
21 Wiley/No Qualms
22 Wiley/Eskimo (Devil Mix)
23 The Surgery/More Weed
24 DJ Narrows/Saved Soul Remix
25 Musical Mob/Pulse X
26 Trim/The Lowdown
27 TNT/Transmission
28 Dizzee Rascal/Live O
29 Wiley/Bow E3
30 Scott Garcia/Waiting
31 Durrty Goodz/Switching Songs II
That mini-rant has really got me thinking about Grime. For one thing, I cannot fathom what gets into an MCs head when it comes to releasing a mixtape. Instead of thinking "Hmm, listeners seem to really like it when I ride over riddums, maybe I should just MC over the best ones out there", they seem to go mental and decide to rap horrendously over Hip-Hop (Kano, I am looking at your first mixtape as an example of something being so shit when it should have been amazing) or suddenly find a deep lyrical capability on some shitty riddum their friend has produced. News flash to MCs (and I think Grime is too late to save, oh well): Grime is about flow. If I want deep and meaningful art, I will read poetry. If I want to hear some fuck up a track with some sick lyrics, I listen to Grime. I don't read a book expecting to go "Oh shit, that was sick" and rewind the page, likewise I don't buy a CD of yours to hear some poor attempt at something deep when the majority of your lyrics are about guns. And don't lie either. If you are rapping about guns, how can you seriously turn around and say that you are all about love and unity. That's bullshit.
ReplyDeleteIt's very simple. If you are a Grime MC, when you make a CD that you want your fans to buy, put lots of Grime on it. If you are in a crew, get the DJ to spin some tracks and just chat over them. If you know Wiley, ask him if you can spit over some of his old sick beats from 2002-2004 before they started going a bit wonky. If you are Wiley, put out a mixtape with you actually MCing over your old tracks. I don't care if it's 20 different versions of Ice Rink, it's better than half the shit being put out there today. Don't accept any old beat from your mates. If you want to experiment by dropping 50 bpm, do it with your friends, not on people who are shelling out expecting to hear some Grime. If you are Roll Deep... WTF happened? You were the hottest thing out there, sick beats, sick MCs and now it just sounds stale. You missed the boat there, when you were big you could have made a studio mix cd once a month and it would have sold bucket loads. If you are Rinse FM - you have the biggest crews still, start making CDs with them, and doing crossovers with Dubstep and MCs on CD, and start doing studio CDs with Marcus Nasty and Mac 10 DJing Funky House with Rankin and some other MCs chatting on top. Give Slimzee a mix CD with the PAUG MCs.
It doesn't seem too difficult... but I am baffled (and bitter) how Grime threw it all away...