I may be late on this one, but I'm going in anyway.
On a recent trip to cold weather mecca, Ithaca, New York, I was exposed to more than drunk townie groupies and keg stands. Sitting in a random dorm room smoking a 3 foot bong (see: Asher Roth, "I Love College"), 92WICB's ex-Urban Programming Director and I were busy trying to one-up each other on our hip hop lore, until he bodied me entirely.
"You ever heard of grime?" He said smugly.
"Fam, I grew up in NYC, I AM grime. What do you mean?" I replied.
"Nah, kiddo, the music...."
After a brief YouTube search, he found what he was looking for. It was a 10 minute freestyle on Tim Westwood's UK radio show featuring 3 of grime's heavyweights, Wiley, Chipmunk, and Ice Kid. Aside from having wild names and being underage, these dudes go hard. Start from 2:00 and enjoy.
More on grime after the jump...
As much as I hate pigeonholing anything, especially music, I realize things need to be classified for the sake of classification. That said, grime can only be defined by its relation to and influence from other genres. It's a mix of UK garage, reggae, dancehall, hip hop, and dubstep, with a drumn'bass element as well. Grime came out of the hood of London in the early 2000's, and has been building as an underground art form every since. There has been little international success for the genre. The most notable artist who emerged from grime is probably Dizzee Rascal, signed to Def Jux. Although, his style differs from the style displayed by the three aforementioned young artists.
Peep "Where Da G's" feat. Bun B
Now, I'm not entirely sold on the genre. As dope as Chipmunk sounded while I was bent at 4am in Ithaca, I'm not sure if I could withstand an entire album. Maybe it's a form of music better experienced live (I heard grime shows are similar to raves in Ibiza, Spain - WOW). But with the recent influence of dance and electronic music on artists this side of the Atlantic, one is left to wonder...could grime be the next big thing?
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Grime Time
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
maybe you could have avoided said Ithaca bodiement if you had read the award winning post Vodkatron's Geography of Electronica Part 3, or even peeped the red hot entertainment videos i posted last month.
i think were in agreement that grime is difficult to get into because it is loud, melody-less and generally unintelligible. the most accessible grime album is D Rascal's boy in da corner and has a few gems including one song (Brand New Day) that inspired the famously elusive unreleased track 'Kids No More' by the Bad News.
January 1st...my head sort of hurts.
way too elusive, that song represents our generation, and everyone who has ever graduated college, or will graduate college, or got a job, basically every one. fags
or faints from massive coaine, alcohol and marijuana abuse and has no college graduation date in sight. fags
Post a Comment