ambrose said:
ok well, in the aftermath of the roll deep/kano shows in NYC last weekedn (the pics on 1xtra determinedly dont show much of the crowd), im listening to the danny weed remix of jermaine dupri and wondering a) is this an official thing? or just a remix they cooked up? b) what with the twista/low deep tune, whats happening? is grime slowly moving in to US hiphop circles? how are these associations coming about? are they that tight?
you can listen to the jermaine dupri mix
here on the aftershock pirate sessions show
it's something the "tastemakers" are aware of... i.e. dizzee going to the urban music conference in the bahamas and meeting Lil' Jon, etc... i think he's met Bun B. from UGK, too... i know Wiley's met Dame Dash... i think ever since that Jay Z/Punjabi MC track (jay heard the original in a club in, switzerland, i think...), the big name US guys have had their ears open... basically these guys (jay z, lil jon, timbaland, neptunes, etc) are jetsetters and keep their ears open... remember 10 years ago, southern rap was just a regional thing, when Jay Z got on the remix of "ha" by Juvenile, that legitimatized it to a lot of people (new yorkers and assorted media snobs)...
grime in it's pure form (i.e "eskimo" "pied piper" ) is just TOO WEIRD for US ears... but, for example, if that Pitbull remix of "Pow" got pressed on wax and released in the US, that could have been a huge hit (i think...)
in general, Jammer and Terrah Danger's stuff sounds closest to US tastes to me, as their stuff sounds NOT THAT DIFFERENT from Three 6 Mafia or other southern hip hop...
it's tough tho, b/c all of that stuff that breaks thru (dancehall, reggaeton, crunk) has a build in core audience, however small, in the US that supports in until it breaks thru. there is NO audience for grime here...
i think it will take someone like Jay Z or 50 doing a verse on a grime track or having a grime producer do a remix for him to break grime in the US... and it def. COULD happen...