Just going to make a few points not sure if they are all connected. But they are things happening in my world atm.
We started Butterz the label in 2010, and between then and now no new MC has produced anything memorable in my opinion. We started with the angle of not needing an MC at all, and we have barely needed to incorporate them at all into our releases and events because they haven't really been doing anything worth celebrating in my opinion.
So much generic stuff about flows and empty concepts just makes it easy to exclude. Most people are either saying the same thing they have already said, or just saying the same thing someone else has said a long time ago. I saw this happening and
wrote about this in 2008, not much has changed.
We did a release with P Money and Trim who I'd say have been the stand outs over the last 3 years. The other MC's I'd still want to work with now have been around from ages ago.
Production wise atm I'd break it up like this.
People trying new things with old sounds.
People trying old things with new sounds.
People trying new things with new sounds.
People making music without specific 'genre' or 'scene' in mind and getting picked up on.
So a typical radio show from me atm sounds like a mixture of all of those from guys like Royal-T, Terror Danjah, Mr Mitch, Swindle/Silkie, Joker, Preditah, Champion, D.O.K, P Jam, Starkey, Bloom, Baxta, DJ Q, Bok Bok, Moony, TS7, Notion, Arkane Soul, Darq E Freaker, Faze Miyake, Flava D and a few more.
Stylistically they are quite all over the place, thats why it still makes it difficult for anyone to put their finger on 'how to make a grime tune'. Thats what keeps it fun for me and anyone that listens I guess. That's why I find it baffling when people on the Grime Forum a really dismissive of what is grime and what isn't.
The reason we haven't released as much as we did last year is we don't want to cover the same ground we have covered before, and we have this kinda non rule of nobody having two solo releases on the label to make things a bit more of a challenge.
Was good bringing in Champion for the one off release, and Crystal Meth has gone down really well. Incorporating the 'current Funky' stuff into our club nights has worked too. I've never got any negative feedback about
Champions sets at Cable. That kinda hard funky stuff in that environment is what a lot of people have been screaming out for ages. It works well as a break up to what we do too.
Working with a couple of people we haven't worked with before atm, trying a few different ways of presenting the tracks too. That's as important to us, to do something we haven't done before in terms of promotion. I've got a marketing degree so that's part of the fun for me personally.
In terms of the clubbing scene, this year for me has been up and down, ive seen my profile rise as a DJ but there isn't really much of an infrastructure to support someone explicitly calling themselves a Grime DJ. I don't even want there to be really. I like playing at nights where they have a mixture of DJs playing. It just makes things harder as House & Dubstep is usually the priority aside from the Rinse events where it gets a good balance of everything.
I've seen some really strong nights pop up over the past year, and I hope they continue, as long as this happens, more clubs will give it a chance, and more nights will happen. The return of Eskimo Dance has been massive too, giving a generation that were too young to experience an MC led night a chance.
Right now people you are likely to see on line ups semi regular are Royal-T, Preditah, Terror Danjah, Spooky and Swindle. The more producers that take the craft of Djing seriously, the more you will see out at a variety of nights.
Putting together the Butterz tour this winter has been difficult, but at the beginning of 2011 we didn't even have a regular club night so to take it to a few different cities with no management or anything is something we are all proud of.
It's funny when any Grime report goes out on any website, it always begins with a Grimes not dead part to it. Been happening for years. Heres a perfect example:
Read the descriptions
Royal-T XLR8R Podcast 2012 -
http://www.xlr8r.com/podcast/2012/08/royal-t
Elijah & Skilliam XLR8R Podcast 2010 -
http://www.xlr8r.com/podcast/2010/11/elijah-skilliam
Nearly exactly the same sentence at the start, even though they are two years apart. Surely we can't be dead then?
Anyone checked the Royal-T album by the way? I'd say thats a good representation of where things are at right now.
Reading back through the thread its spooky. Its like a list of all the reasons why I do what I do now.
Flick to page 6 and someone is talking about how 'Duppy' is awful. So strange. that tune is still going off today. That's actually one of the best.
A lot of people didn't enjoy some of the best music this country has ever seen while it was peaking. The amount of talent that came through in a short space of time was ridiculous. I don't think it will ever be repeated. Maybe one or two acts will stand out every couple of years from now on, but to have that amount of production and MC talent that came through between 2002-2005 is a tall order.
Lastly Grime has operated since its inception under the fact that there is next to no financial input or economic gain to be had from its 'industry'. Acid House to UK Garage had a financial infrastructure that it relied on. Take that away and it becomes detrimental. Grime has operated since its inception with little to no reliance on finance, partially due to its ability to operate in the virtual, that is the un-regimented and democratic realms of cyberspace. If record shop closes, it's no skin off of grimes back (watch out for server crashes however.) You just a willing kid/MC/producer (creates the mode) need pirate copies of fruity, (method) and a radioshow or a forum. (medium) Taking personal taste into account is irrelevant.
This is still true 5 years later.