Bruza

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Just listening to him on the 1xtra Aftershock UKG mix show last night, awesome. "You're the equivalent to old rags", that's just a tremendous line, just poetry. There's also some good gags- "you need to go and talk to Tricia, you've got some issues".
 

mpc

wasteman
trisha now has a show on channel 5, entitled trisha goddard. meanwhile, itv are repeating old trisha shows, so you get to watch trisha twice every week day morning!
 

Woebot

Well-known member
cooper said:
can one of you london folks explain more about this whole mockney-cockney thing? as an american i find it somewhat bewildering... like i know wiley will affect a "posh" accent sometimes, which i guess is funny because it's meant to be a product of upper-class (white) upbringing, private schools and all? but what are the stereotypes that go with cockney in this day and age - is it an accent that goes with football hooligans and going to the pub, eating sausages and all that? "my fair lady" is not helping me here.

cockney is just east london indiginious pure and plain. nobody really does the rhyming slang thing

i wouldnt say there are stereotypes associated with the cockney accent beyond (i suppose) designating the speaker as working class and (more often than not) white.

in the rhymes of black MCs i guess it's just a marker for the zero-degree street-level unexotic and is rubbed up against the more dread/glam patois (jamaican dialect) for comic/dramatic effect.
 
ahhhhhhhh man lol........

Diggedy Derek said:
I was gonna do a big Bruza post today ["get me!"] but I'm merely going to talk about how the Bruza-philosophy is a robust outline of the principles of Cognitive Behavioural psychology. "What You Waiting For" is, as the title suggestions, a self-help treatise on avoiding procrastination. Cognitive behavioural therapists would agree with his motivatinal message of "don't say you're gonna do it, do it and then say it's done", where decisive action is used to overcome the procrastination what usually accompanies a difficult task. Also, as Bruza says, if it's important for you to do something , it's worth reflecting that you don't want to end up "watching someone else doing what you want to be doing".

Those neat conceptual turn-arounds and word-plays, although they're simple, are executed with such glee and humour that it creates these lovely, tight rhymes.

why must all these aspiring journos and such like use so much hyperbole when talking about garage and african/british musical and social experiences? thats one thing that gets me mad when reading this board sometimes but its cool I guess....

I never felt Bruza and I remember Nii-O (a member of BreakBeat) told Terrah that to his face once lol (but not in a disrespectful way). Apparently Cameo was there and said "..but he's so fresh...listen to his flow...he's sounds drunk..who does that?" Nii-O replied "howabout Ol' Dirty Bastard?" and then there was silence LOL.

Cameo's speech and the reaction to Bruza as a top MC, to me, is evident again of the hunger of ppl in this city especially to claim something as THEIR'S against the African-American musical experience. Didn't the original poster compare Bruza against Kano? I mean come on man. As an MC he's really not that great. He should jus also stay on garage tracks as his 'flow' CANNOT fit on Hip-Hop tracks - its jus not fluid enough. The unfunkiness of the vast majority of garage does suit him

Beside my pov, I think if he sticks with Terrah he can be made a star. He's not very threatening, is humorous, co-opts the English experience fully w/ the Mockney tone and always saying "its all British!!" plus Terrah is amazing lol.
 

cooper

Well-known member
Tactics said:
I never felt Bruza and I remember Nii-O (a member of BreakBeat) told Terrah that to his face once lol (but not in a disrespectful way). Apparently Cameo was there and said "..but he's so fresh...listen to his flow...he's sounds drunk..who does that?" Nii-O replied "howabout Ol' Dirty Bastard?" and then there was silence LOL.

oh come on now. this is a stretch... slurry delivery is probably the only thing odb and bruza have in common and they share it with about a million other rappers (50 cent/biggie/shit, everybody)

Tactics said:
Cameo's speech and the reaction to Bruza as a top MC, to me, is evident again of the hunger of ppl in this city especially to claim something as THEIR'S against the African-American musical experience.

but, um, it really is yours. take it from me, i'm american. african-american people who are into hip-hop largely do not get grime at all; they think it's some kind of techno but certainly not an imitation of rap/rnb. now this speaks to their insularity, but it also means that grime is distinctive enough to not sound like the dominant music genre yet popular enough to have a huge following in london as well as through the internet. you're selling it short.



oh yeah - thanks for the primer woebot!
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
why must all these aspiring journos and such like use so much hyperbole when talking about garage and african/british musical and social experiences? thats one thing that gets me mad when reading this board sometimes but its cool I guess....

Oh man, this was just a passing thought that has gone through my head with reference to Bruza. It wasn't meant to be taken entirely seriously. Most of the time when I'm listening to Bruza, I'm just having a ball, I'm not analyzing it. And because I think about grime a lot, humourous tangential thoughts like the above come into my head.
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
i got his mixtape, and found myself quite bored of 'the bruz' by the end of it. that gimmicky 'cheeky cockney' stuff is fun, hes got tons of charisma, a really identifiable voice, and i dont even mind the fact his flow kinda borrows from that mike skinner sort of 'drawling all over the beat'/not really flowing technique when its not all clipped and jerky, but hes just too one dimensional/limited. hes fun on fast braindead songs like get me but when he tries to be 'deep', he just fails miserably (anyone hear that track with dido?!). generally though, i find hes sort of like lady sov - bags of personality but the tracks dont quite match up.
 

benjybars

village elder.
I think he's a very poor mc but i'd hate to be the one to tell him cos he seems like such a safe guy...
 
'Get Me' has to go down as a Grime classic in my eyes. The video on Channel U was really good despite being pretty standard and most people who aren't into to Grime do seem to really like that track. I like 'I'm just doing me' or whatever its called but mainly coz the beat is good I think. I think Bruza has the potential to be big but needs to broaden his style a bit as it is a bit one trick. He often gets labelled as a 'coconut' which he actually addresses on one of his tunes. Think this has to do with the accent he spits with and sounds like the usual Grime schoolkid jibes that should be encouraged but not always listened to.
 

SIZZLE

gasoline for haters
I think bruza deserves credit for being his own thing. I've listened to ODB for years and I don't think theres much to go on between the two. Pretty different vibe. I didn't like Bruze until I saw him live here in Berlin where I have to say he pretty much stole the show. 'Get Me' is hugely effective as a sing along catchphrase even for non-english speakers and he just was dancing and MCing crazily, like he didn't give a fuck at all which was really infectious and good for the party. Don't think I would listen to his whole mixtape but he definitely has his moments. That Sway 'new york' tune was one that kinda changed my mind as well. When he comes in with his 'cuz I'm from Laaandin!' terrible off pitch singing it's really strong. If he could be the flavor flav to a lyrical MC that would be a great combo, I think he could work really well in a group or something like that. He does have some funny lines as well tho, as ppl have mentioned.
 

micmack

My Little Pony
I love doin me cd. Really uplifting and entertaining (an adjective I've heard before in connection with Bruza).

The track with Dido is particularly entertaining.
 

big satan

HA-DO-KEN!
the comparison of ODB to bruza is daft, can you ever imagine ODB doing a tune like What You Waiting For, or bruza doing a track like Dog Shit? I can understand the drunk thing, but the difference being bruza seems like someone you actually might want to go down the pub with, whereas if one of your mates started behaving like odb it would be a nightmare.
my brother and i decided bruza's the only grime MC to be awful and brilliant at the same time. i think he could be huge, and i thought of all the MCs they could have picked for that radio 3 thing bruza is the most capable of bringing grime to wider & non-grime audience. aside from bear man (who i reckon might disappear pretty fast) bruza's the only grime mc i can think of to use humour regularly and effectively, and when most MCs are taking themselves a bit seriously bruza has an air of self-deprication which i think could be pivotal if he or grime are ever going to get big in this country.
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
he was really good at that 'urban classic' thing last night. the best MC there. he seems to have started varying his flow quite a bit- it was very fast, almost drum n bass speed at points last night, then slowed down back into his typical see-sawy style.

and he knows how to entertain a crowd- he forced the orchestra last night to do a rewind!
"when it sounds nice, WE PLAY IT TWICE!"

!
 
C

captain easychord

Guest
simon silverdollar said:
he was really good at that 'urban classic' thing last night. the best MC there. he seems to have started varying his flow quite a bit- it was very fast, almost drum n bass speed at points last night, then slowed down back into his typical see-sawy style.

and he knows how to entertain a crowd- he forced the orchestra last night to do a rewind!
"when it sounds nice, WE PLAY IT TWICE!"

!

oh man you went to that! maybe you could give us a little more of a recap eh si?
 
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