Why is it called GRIME and not UK RAP?

G

gumdrops

Well-known member
Logan Sama said:
Some of those So Solid records are absolute classics that will be remembered for the entire duration of the Grime scene's existence.

And some of them are dreadful.

Same for some of Wiley's tunes and Dizzee's tunes really.
Click to expand...

true enough, not even all of PAUG's records were perfect
 
P

petergunn

plywood violin
gumdrops said:
im quite aware of the differences between grime production and hip hop, or at least the diffs between grime when it IS grime (say, footsies scars) and not when its stuck in between trying to be hip hop and grime (wiley's gangsterz, ruff sqwad's guns n roses), but everyone saying it sounds nothing like hip hop seem to have an odd notion of what hip hop is. its not all traditional stuff that sounds like tribe called quest or de la soul anymore, and it hasnt sounded like that for about a decade. you can pretty easily make a connection between southern rap, as well as timbaland, swizz beats and neptunes-type stuff to grime. not saying grime has no sonic trademarks of its own (or that it doesnt have any relation to british dance music), it does, but hip hop stopped being about crusty old samples years ago and all those cheap and nasty low budget, high end sounds and FX used in grime are obviously influenced by hip hop producers to a pretty large degree.
Click to expand...

exactly what i was gonna say... stuff like Timbaland's stuff or stuff outta houston sounds a lot closer sonically to grime than it does to Eric B and Rakim... i've had people come up to me when i was playing "wot u call it" by wiley and ask if it was a houston track...

the difference, to american hip hop ears, is that the grime artists came up doing raves, so the energy is a lot more important than the lyrics... listening to pirate radio tapes, you'll hear people repeat the same bars over and over... US hip hop is more "song" oriented, so people tend to repeat bars less often than grime mc's... i put this down to garage heritage, where (most of the time) the mc is more about hyping up the song and the audience, than being a real artist himself... grime seems to swing the pedulem towards the MC...
 
G

gabriel

The Heatwave
what makes 'the uk's hip hop' a more appropriate title for grime than 'the uk's dancehall' ?
 
Last edited:
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
cos despite riko, gods gift and a few others either rapping in a JA-cum-UK accent, most grime MCs are rapping in english, not in heavy jamaican patois.
 
G

gabriel

The Heatwave
gumdrops said:
cos despite riko, gods gift and a few others either rapping in a JA-cum-UK accent, most grime MCs are rapping in english, not in heavy jamaican patois.
Click to expand...

ah, so it's all about accent and language is it? like that brooklyn drawl employed by jme, or wiley's atlanta twang - or is it the distinctive LA street slang that peppers all of dizzee rascal's lyrics? is that why grime is 'the uk's hip hop' ??
 
G

gabriel

The Heatwave
gumdrops said:
i take it you disagree - tell us why grime should be 'the uk's dancehall' then...
Click to expand...

it's not that i think it should be called 'the uk's dancehall', i just think that the primacy of hip hop is overstated. grime is grime. yes it's like hip hop, yes it's like dancehall, yes it's like 2-step - but it's not any of these things

anyway - still no answer to the question, what makes 'the uk's hip hop' a more appropriate title for grime than 'the uk's dancehall' ?

ps as to why it could also be called the uk's dancehall: rewinds, riddims, clashes, counteractions and versioning - all coined in dancehall, all massive parts of dancehall culture, all massive parts of grime. more to the point, when people talk about how grime in the uk operates in a similar cultural/social/economic way as hip hop does in the us (i'm sure i read something like that in this thread or in the thread about why has nothing replaced hip hop), surely all of that applies to dancehall as well? like logan said, are we just to say that dancehall is jamaican hip hop? when dancehall has been around longer than hip hop?
 
Last edited:
D

droid

Guest
gumdrops said:
cos despite riko, gods gift and a few others either rapping in a JA-cum-UK accent, most grime MCs are rapping in english, not in heavy jamaican patois.
Click to expand...

I dont really think this is a fair point at all. As Gabriel says - apply the same criteria to the hip hop = grime idea and you quickly come to the same conclusion.

In light of this thread, can anyone explain to me why reggae isnt called 'Jamaican Soul/R+B'?
 
G

gabriel

The Heatwave
droid said:
In light of this thread, can anyone explain to me why reggae isnt called 'Jamaican Soul/R+B'?
Click to expand...

the offbeat

also - at first it was called Jamaican R&B - after jamaican soundmen like coxsone dodd starting importing US R&B to jamaica in the late 50s, jamaican musicians began imitating it and it was called jamaican r&b cos that's what it was - r&b played by jamaicans. check, for example, Clue J & The Blues Busters.

but then they made it their own, adding the offbeat and making songs that were local in lyrical content and vernacular etc - that was ska, which wasn't jamaican r&b...
 
Last edited:
B

Buick6

too punk to drunk
Grime's kinda innaresting the first time you hear it..The hysterical lyrics and broken, chopped up beats, but it wear thins quickly. Very much in keeping with that 'instant bliss ejaculation' type music where it sounds great first time and then you throw it away by about the third.

Personally the Poms never bettered the whole drum n' bass/jungle thing. THAT was the most revolutionary and innaresting Pommy music since My Bloody Valentine and the Sex Pistols.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top