re: grime being 'pure' and 'un-coopted by outside influences'
huh? Grime wouldn't exist without outside influences! Hiphop and bashment being two big obvious ones. Look at the 12" of Eskimo 1, Harry Toddler was the vocalist. One of the great things about grime is the way it synthesises and appropriates other styles and ideas so fluidly. Why is 'purity' a desirable goal? One of the reasons I fuck with Grime now and have pretty much given up on underground hiphop is because it is much more free from this kind of essentialist dogma and there is still a lot of freedom to bring in other ideas and have it still be 'real' grime. It's not over determined to the point of becoming narrow, homogenous and reactionary like underground hiphop these days. So many people are stuck dreaming of 'the golden era' or 'the true school' that they haven't noticed that they're looping and chopping the same records, making the same drum patterns and spitting the same lyrics to a bored and dwindling audience. If I want to hear that stuff again I can go put on Mecca and the Soul Brother, it's a beautiful record but it doesn't need to be made again in 2006, it already exists.
Also I think that it's reckless to ignore the role that people INSIDE hiphop played in commercialising hiphop. I don't know if you like Jay-Z but it'd be pretty hard to argue that he's an outside influence and he has made a BIG impact in bringing hiphop into the pop mainstream, for better or worse. I do agree that hiphop has lost something in it's commercialisation but it's also turned into something new and more wierd. Look at Missy + Timbaland, they are seriously pop but have contributed a lot of ideas to underground music as well, especially grime. Hiphop like everything else changes as it gets older, for better or worse. Just because she's no longer a cute naive little child you don't love her anymore?
huh? Grime wouldn't exist without outside influences! Hiphop and bashment being two big obvious ones. Look at the 12" of Eskimo 1, Harry Toddler was the vocalist. One of the great things about grime is the way it synthesises and appropriates other styles and ideas so fluidly. Why is 'purity' a desirable goal? One of the reasons I fuck with Grime now and have pretty much given up on underground hiphop is because it is much more free from this kind of essentialist dogma and there is still a lot of freedom to bring in other ideas and have it still be 'real' grime. It's not over determined to the point of becoming narrow, homogenous and reactionary like underground hiphop these days. So many people are stuck dreaming of 'the golden era' or 'the true school' that they haven't noticed that they're looping and chopping the same records, making the same drum patterns and spitting the same lyrics to a bored and dwindling audience. If I want to hear that stuff again I can go put on Mecca and the Soul Brother, it's a beautiful record but it doesn't need to be made again in 2006, it already exists.
Also I think that it's reckless to ignore the role that people INSIDE hiphop played in commercialising hiphop. I don't know if you like Jay-Z but it'd be pretty hard to argue that he's an outside influence and he has made a BIG impact in bringing hiphop into the pop mainstream, for better or worse. I do agree that hiphop has lost something in it's commercialisation but it's also turned into something new and more wierd. Look at Missy + Timbaland, they are seriously pop but have contributed a lot of ideas to underground music as well, especially grime. Hiphop like everything else changes as it gets older, for better or worse. Just because she's no longer a cute naive little child you don't love her anymore?