All roads lead in circles
The big noise on the blogs that I often check in with is a big messageboard quarrel going down between noted DJs and journalists about the reviews of Run The Road, a new comp featuring many unknowns (Earz,No Lay, Dutty Doogz {cited for some reason as "Goodz"... OBD-style rechristening? Contractual obligations?},) and some more established folks (Wiley, Dizzee, Lady Sovereign) that's kind of the Flex Your Head of grime, I guess. And, as used to happen in punk/HC 10 years ago whenever someone raised their head above the DIY rung, people are bent out of shape over whether it's a good thing for the movement.
For the uninitiated, I will attempt to define Grime as such: a jerky, energetic blend of hiphop and ragga, definitely influenced by drum and bass and industrial. Lots of sine wave bass lines, lots of menacing tones, vocals that cross the line between US-styled MCing and JA-styled voicing, and typically a level of cleverness and wordplay in the lyrics that generally redeems the subject matter (which is more often than not the worst of both the US and Jamaica - lots of tough-guy posturing, lots of talk of gunplay (which seems odd for a country with what I thought was good gun control)).
Earlier, I had mentioned that one of the things I liked about Grime is that it is still at the point of being diverse and active and alive to me in a way that punk used to be; there aren't any rules yet, and this is the magical years where things are allowed to blossom and evolve on their own, like hip hop was until it became the dominant American music and subsequently the music industry's cash cow. I don't think Grime is going to make it out of the various neighborhoods it exists in London to national awareness (here or there) any time soon, but every time I turn on the radio and hear the newest crunk jams, I have to admit that it's not too far fetched. Crunk and Grime are definitely painting from similar palettes, but while Crunk seems to focus near-exclusively on intoxication, sex and violence as its major motifs, there's an inescapable English goofiness in even the most nihilistic grime tracks that keep it from being overwhelming. Admittedly, this interpretation may be fueled by both my uncompromising hatred for the Southern US and my soft spot for Cockney accents.
Regardless, in the US at least, hip hop seems to go through weird production phases; a year ago, Indo-Asian textures were all the rage, and now it's all monosynths and low-bit drum samples. In this ADD-addled age, who knows, maybe some enterprising grime MC will embark on a My Fair Lady-esque quest to hide his accent and take the US by storm. It is weird how small the world has become, though - I downloaded a mix of Roll Deep live on Rinse FM from Ghetto Postage that, out of nowhere contains a riddim culled from Britney Spears's "Toxic". Right up there on the cross-cultural contamination charts with the Billy Squire sample on the first Dizzee record, really.
Anyway. Too much music talk. More Pittsburgh talk soon. I've been working and staying in of late, making my new experiences mostly focused on the internet, and thus music. More real life experiences that are not my reactions to things taking place on the other side of the Atlantic shortly.
For the uninitiated, I will attempt to define Grime as such: a jerky, energetic blend of hiphop and ragga, definitely influenced by drum and bass and industrial. Lots of sine wave bass lines, lots of menacing tones, vocals that cross the line between US-styled MCing and JA-styled voicing, and typically a level of cleverness and wordplay in the lyrics that generally redeems the subject matter (which is more often than not the worst of both the US and Jamaica - lots of tough-guy posturing, lots of talk of gunplay (which seems odd for a country with what I thought was good gun control)).
Earlier, I had mentioned that one of the things I liked about Grime is that it is still at the point of being diverse and active and alive to me in a way that punk used to be; there aren't any rules yet, and this is the magical years where things are allowed to blossom and evolve on their own, like hip hop was until it became the dominant American music and subsequently the music industry's cash cow. I don't think Grime is going to make it out of the various neighborhoods it exists in London to national awareness (here or there) any time soon, but every time I turn on the radio and hear the newest crunk jams, I have to admit that it's not too far fetched. Crunk and Grime are definitely painting from similar palettes, but while Crunk seems to focus near-exclusively on intoxication, sex and violence as its major motifs, there's an inescapable English goofiness in even the most nihilistic grime tracks that keep it from being overwhelming. Admittedly, this interpretation may be fueled by both my uncompromising hatred for the Southern US and my soft spot for Cockney accents.
Regardless, in the US at least, hip hop seems to go through weird production phases; a year ago, Indo-Asian textures were all the rage, and now it's all monosynths and low-bit drum samples. In this ADD-addled age, who knows, maybe some enterprising grime MC will embark on a My Fair Lady-esque quest to hide his accent and take the US by storm. It is weird how small the world has become, though - I downloaded a mix of Roll Deep live on Rinse FM from Ghetto Postage that, out of nowhere contains a riddim culled from Britney Spears's "Toxic". Right up there on the cross-cultural contamination charts with the Billy Squire sample on the first Dizzee record, really.
Anyway. Too much music talk. More Pittsburgh talk soon. I've been working and staying in of late, making my new experiences mostly focused on the internet, and thus music. More real life experiences that are not my reactions to things taking place on the other side of the Atlantic shortly.
posted by dmg at 7:44 PM
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