Kuma said:
I picture it crossing over locally with the whole IDM/Ragga angle more than I do with the local hip-hop and reggae crowds..
that's the problem in a nutshell. grime in the states will be a middle-class, student phenomenon. idm cottoning on to the criticism set against it . . . . early jungle had a significant west indian immigrant following in the states, but despite the analogous position of today's grime i'd bet the store against grime making it big here among anyone other than student types . . . . as far as my personal assessment of grime goes, i haven't heard enough to form an opinion. certainly much of it is way too technoid for my ears, the sub-bass more bludgeon than undertow -- stuff that i imagine is from croydon -- and i've heard the remarc/virus syndicate stuff in shops, and i do not like it -- but much of the stuff that i take to be from east london rocks better than anything out of england post-94 . . . . so i guess i'm riding the fence on grime . . . .
to my ears dj/rupture has the right instincts. he needs only to drop the turntablizm schtick and get down to business. his track selection no less than his mixing was off the charts last week at rothko. crunk, dancehall, 2 bad mice, kelis. one or two grime tracks, one or two ragga jungle. and, if memory serves, some islamo-mediterranean music . . . . in a certain sense an update of eclectic balearic djing, but with far more rhythimic intensity
after dj/rupture left the stage, one of the shadetek djs (not zach) took over. he played dancehall 7s, and, despite his goofy exuberance, moved the crowd . . . . i left about 30 minutes before closing and stopped off at lotus, where the djs play dancehall on fridays. completely different vibe. thugs, drugs, rastas, skanked out girls in dreads. the djs nod and sway, they don't gesticulate. and one of the djs, born jamaica, now brooklyn or queens, uses the head set as a microphone, toasting into the ear. this is the crowd that rothko needs to get if things are to truly happen there, for things to be mixed and jumping (like a miniature version of volume on the dizzee rascal night) . . . . but the odds are they never will. the lotus djs have been down with the program their entire lives, just as the east london junglists and grime-ists were and have been. and people like that just don't give it away . . . . and no matter how packed out rothko gets, there'll be the creeping suspicion that it's all vanilla
so that's how matters stand with the reggae crowd. as for the real-deal hip hop crowd, no chance whatsoever that they'll embrace grime . . . . grime may get the undie hip hop crowd, but that's roughly the same crowd as idm, which is roughly the same crowd as post-98 d-n-b
and no, i'm not a dj. more like a very amateurish record collector. rode the 90/93 rave train and then rendevoused with dance music at various points thereafter . . . . ended up at dissensus by reading simon reynolds, which had in turn led to woebot, k-punk, stelfox, etc . . . . i also tend to frequent dj bars where nobody really dances, albeit on the east side of town . . . . however attractive i find "rave frenzy" intellectually, and however suspect i find "cosmopolitan sophistication" intellectually, i tend to favor in practice the kind of cool club culture that uk rave had initially revolted against ----- but in this as in all things, the u.s. is not the u.k. . . . . even so, i've heard a lot of boring broken beats and negroclash in recent years, opting for vibe at the cost of other nightlife values . . . . or rather, at this stage of the game i treat bars and venues as antidotes. lotus as antidote to rothko, rothko as antidote to nublu, nublu as antidote to rock music joints, and so forth
