giggs

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
in the same way that grime isnt hip hop

i get what blackdown is saying, i think gigs picks up on the grime audience/tagline by association, the people who listen to gigs are likely to listen to grime aswell i.e. this hasnt emerged out of the uk hip hop scene, its underground in the same way grime is without being grime

an odd mix, but i quite like it - im not sure whether i like him or the hype around him more...

Hmm, I'm not sure that I know what you mean.

Sonically there are some differences between grime and hip-hop, usually in terms of time signatures on the beats, but in terms of fashion/style, marketing, "urban" orientation, MCed vocals, etc. many many music listeners/fans and music industry types would probably see grime as a sort of diasporic reaction to U.S. hip-hop. Remember the hip-hop ethos (mix-tapes and pirated samples, independent labels, graffiti, hoodies and nikes, ganster posturing, etc) of yore was basically exactly the same as the one that seems to rule grime...

I don't think Grime is very underground at all, especially not in the U.K. in terms of marketshare and popularity. But then I don't believe anything is "underground" anymore...
 
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Sef

Wild Horses
Giggs is just sick. Great voice and flow give him that charisma on the mic. There's some proper esoteric wordplay/references in there as well. How he talks about what he talks about is like nothing out there either and it's compelling.
 

luka

Well-known member
old compton street is the gay hub of london. he's probably an extremly pretty boy and fears sexual assault, irrational as that may be.
so in a word, no. its not like compton in LA. as to whether there are ghettoes in london, no, not in the racial sense of the word. but you presumably are aware that the us does not have a monopoly on poverty.

i don't feel compelled to evangelise for giggs in the way i felt compelled to evangelise for wiley and nasty crew at the start of the decade. if you don't like it i can understand why. i like his beats, i like the voice, i think he does have presence as others have said and i think that part of his popularity is based on the desperate paucity of compelling US hip-hop, so the fact he doesn't 'fit' into the contemprory american scene is hardly a criticism.
 
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he's probably an extremly pretty boy and fears sexual assault, irrational as that may be.

Now that was funny.

i think that part of his popularity is based on the desperate paucity of compelling US hip-hop, so the fact he doesn't 'fit' into the contemprory american scene is hardly a criticism.

I agree wholeheartedly with this, and I think this probably also contributes towards the very existence of the South rap scene in itself. It's refreshing, to me, to hear rap coming out of London that isn't "UKHH" and everything alongside it.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Giggs is the first UK rapper to take on the paucity of the US's contribution to music at the moment and own it; he's the first one to take US hiphop and make it UK hiphop, and as such is important as well as sick. Takes alot to own a Dre beat. He's essentailly just Young Jeezy but from Peckham; or the first of a line of rappers round the world that will own what Jeezy did to hiphop.

I really like it - but I like alot of the dirty dirty stuff - plus he sounds hard and fey. I bet he makes alot of money in Compton, you know all that Peckham lot run Soho when they're not being fucked by the Maltese.
 

luka

Well-known member
its a weird little zone south. its less hybrid than east which was the driving force behind jungle and grime and so on. and if you think about it when everyone was lobving their fitted clothes in the 90s , nice neat things, youd go south and everyone seemed to be in baggy jeans still. loads of the uks hiphop has been from south from london possee and hijack to black twang to giggs.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Giggs is the first UK rapper to take on the paucity of the US's contribution to music at the moment and own it; he's the first one to take US hiphop and make it UK hiphop, and as such is important as well as sick. Takes alot to own a Dre beat. He's essentailly just Young Jeezy but from Peckham; or the first of a line of rappers round the world that will own what Jeezy did to hiphop.

I really like it - but I like alot of the dirty dirty stuff - plus he sounds hard and fey. I bet he makes alot of money in Compton, you know all that Peckham lot run Soho when they're not being fucked by the Maltese.

I really really like the amateurishness of the production values on this, and it has that nice grit to it, but I would say it reminds me more of pre-Jeezy/50 Cent, pre-superslick pop production hip-hop a la early Dr Dre and such. That said I do like how instead of making post-rave music with hip-hop elements he's just making straight up British hip-hop and unapologetically. (I remember when I went to see Dizzee Rascal at Irving Plaza I was really surprised at the sort of raver energy that emenated from his entire performance--most Americans I think heard that first Dizzee album as cool prog-hop not jungle-hop or whatever...)

Fear of seeming like a "copycat" when it comes to genres seems unfounded to me. That's how all music progresses, isn't it? People hear something they like and build on it.

So now I want to check out more of these UK hip-hop artists...who is the UK's Jay-Z?
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
old compton street is the gay hub of london. he's probably an extremly pretty boy and fears sexual assault, irrational as that may be.
so in a word, no. its not like compton in LA. as to whether there are ghettoes in london, no, not in the racial sense of the word. but you presumably are aware that the us does not have a monopoly on poverty.

i don't feel compelled to evangelise for giggs in the way i felt compelled to evangelise for wiley and nasty crew at the start of the decade. if you don't like it i can understand why. i like his beats, i like the voice, i think he does have presence as others have said and i think that part of his popularity is based on the desperate paucity of compelling US hip-hop, so the fact he doesn't 'fit' into the contemprory american scene is hardly a criticism.

but like the thing i think is really really lame about music criticism and a lot of attitudes about hip-hop is the idea that it should never have passed into the popular consciousness and become, basically, just another sub-genre that falls under "pop" on the charts/in the marketplace.

i like classics like NWA and Nas and Tribe but I also like Jay-Z and Lil Wayne and (some) Kanye and hell Rick Ross. i really don't think there's a "desperate paucity of U.S. hip-hop", especially given that hot hip-hop tracks (that even get remixed by grime and dubstep and bassline artists) make up a HUGE portion of top-40 music marketshare the world over, not to mention dancefloors and car stereos, etc.
 

luka

Well-known member
ha! im not sure i was having a go dan (i know oyu're from south) just pointing out something. look at the south london pirates. they're all hiphop reggae r&b. look at the east pirates. kool, rinse, deja, magic, ad infinitum. there is a different ethos there.
 

luka

Well-known member
i feel reluctant to engage with you nomad cos you're so obviously being antagonistic but there is no uk jay-z. if you follow the discussion you'll see giggs is being treated as something new, boradly speaking. theres been other people doing simialr things, for example g-force from forest gate but no one who has made the impact giggs has made. the best mcs to come out of the uk have been grime mcs. (not including top cat, ragga twins etc) the one closest to jay-z stylistically is kano.

also if you are genuinely following the pop charts you'll know hip-hop sales have nose dived over the last few years. the lil wayne/jay-z/rick ross whoever is as worthy of attention as atcq argument was fought and one years ago also. you dont have to convince anyone of that.

UKHH that everyone is being (deservedly)disparaging about is things like this

or this, which im quite fond of
here he is with kano
 
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nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
i feel reluctant to engage with you nomad cos you're so obviously being antagonistic but there is no uk jay-z. if you follow the discussion you'll see giggs is being treated as something new, boradly speaking. theres been other people doing simialr things, for example g-force from forest gate but no one who has made the impact giggs has made. the best mcs to come out of the uk have been grime mcs. (not including top cat, ragga twins etc) the one closest to jay-z stylistically is kano.

also if you are genuinely following the pop charts you'll know hip-hop sales have nose dived over the last few years. the lil wayne/jay-z/rick ross whoever is as worthy of attention as atcq argument was fought and one years ago also. you dont have to convince anyone of that.

UKHH that everyone is being (deservedly)disparaging about is things like this

or this, which im quite fond of
here he is with kano

i'm not trying to be antagonistic at all. i've always noticed on Dissensus that the UK dwellers here seem to have what seems to me like a) some sort of weird bias AGAINST hip-hop and its overall importance to popular music over the last 25-30 years, but especially over the past decade and b) a somewhat skewed view of US attitudes toward hip-hop. I'm just trying to understand why..

and it's simply untrue that hip-hop sales have "nose-dived" over the past several years, at least in the U.S. check out basically any quantification (by billboard, whoever) and you'll see this is not the case. not only have i watched the pop charts but in college a spent quite a while working for credits at a record company and it was widely acknowledged that hip-hop was radio gold.

P.S. Also, what I meant by grime's "Jay-Z" was not which grime artist was stylistically the closest to Jay-Z, but which one was the generally acknowledged "king of all grime" in the same way Jay-Z is generally accepted as the king of hip-hop, both in terms of popularity and respect for his talent.

I don't blame anyone who's from the U.K. for being really into grime or thinking it's really new sounding and vital, but it's kind of strange to me that this HAS to be at the expensive of hip-hop somehow. It's fine if you don't like hip-hop but for the love of god it's pretty condescending to insist that grime fills some void that hip-hop's "paucity" left. I have to say living in the US this DOES sound ridiculous to me, since like very few people here except indie kids who read Pitchfork have much of an idea that grime even exists.

also Klashnekoff reminds me of DMX, esp in the first one
 
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luka

Well-known member
i think wires are getting crossed.
i wasn't saying grime exists becuase us hip-hop is shit, i was saying giggs' success is partly predicated on the current shitness of us hip-hop. giggs does straight hip-hop, no ones disputing that.
or, to avoid too much value judgements lets just say theres a lack of 'hard' us hiphop right now, partly as a result of it breaking the pop charts. and yes hiphop sales have been falling. this is not up for debate. you are stuck in a time about 5 years ago it seems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/a...op/Reference/Times Topics/People/S/Snoop Dogg
 

luka

Well-known member
although i shouldn't accuse anyone of being antagonisitic cos thats all i ever do....
antagonise to your hearts content.
i certainly don't have a bias against hip-hop i grew up listening to it. i have about 500 times more hiphop than any other type of music. what hip-hop have you been enjoying recently? which songs would you hold up as examples of the continuing vigour of us hip-hop or are you just striking rhetorical poses?

ps listen to the first verse on this
 
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nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
whoa whoa whoa...the internet shrank the ENTIRE market. hip-hop sales have not suffered any more than any other genre's sales have suffered

also some of this depends upon how narrow your definition of hip-hop is

I never said that YOU claimed the paucity of US hip-hop resulted directly in grime, I'm saying I hear that a lot around here. Period.
 
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