Lady Sovereign - the Grime test
- Thread starter Melchior
- Start date
Red Rooster
Well-known member
I'm not hating on Sov, I simply think she is not very good.
It's not to do with her background. I know for a fact some of my favourite grime MC's are at university - I don't care if they were born in the gutter or born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
And as for marketing her on her looks - personally I don't see anything attractive about her.
It's nothing to do with her looks or her background - like i said. Not feeling her sound at all.
And it's not to do with her being signed. I think Dizzee Rascal is amazing. Roll Deep are now signed to Relentless - amazing. Lethal B had a top 20 single - still quality to me.
It's not to do with her background. I know for a fact some of my favourite grime MC's are at university - I don't care if they were born in the gutter or born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
And as for marketing her on her looks - personally I don't see anything attractive about her.
It's nothing to do with her looks or her background - like i said. Not feeling her sound at all.
And it's not to do with her being signed. I think Dizzee Rascal is amazing. Roll Deep are now signed to Relentless - amazing. Lethal B had a top 20 single - still quality to me.
bassnation
the abyss
outraygeous said:
how does she behave exactly? from where i'm standing this is about judging people because they wear certain clothes associated with the underclass.
even if you are from a similar background (i doubt it, somehow, but what do i know) do you really want to be joining in with the people like well-to-do students having ironic chav parties and guffawing at the pikeys and scum?
ucl had a "chav party".
needless to say, i was otherwise engaged that evening.
http://www.uclunion.org/play/entertainment/photogallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=5
needless to say, i was otherwise engaged that evening.
http://www.uclunion.org/play/entertainment/photogallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=5
nomos
Administrator
I say, John, have you been having a larf at the expense of the pirates? 
http://autonomicforthepeople.blogspot.com/2005/02/cheeky-mpc.html
http://autonomicforthepeople.blogspot.com/2005/02/cheeky-mpc.html
Last edited:
Red Rooster
Well-known member
Big up the people who run this forum. It's fantastic.
(Not being sarcastic at all, this is top class conversation which I always find hard to find online!)
(Not being sarcastic at all, this is top class conversation which I always find hard to find online!)
outraygeous
Well-known member
bassnation said:
check ukgww for previous behaviour antics and also her face-pic on the nets pretty sweet.
we are from a similar background, yet i dont follow the council estste shepard. im alot older than her so maybe im being unfair. but at the end of the day, she looks like someone who dropped outa skool 2 breed.
thats prolly a harsh comment.
and the ucl party looks joke.. its a shame that the opposite of chav is not so popular.
you know who you are, you converse wearin, mullet sportinh, stripy polo tshirt or tshirt with blazer combo or shall i leave my scarf on indoors type of person.
were all victims of it... wheter your a chav or a 'tarquin' (still lookin for the female equivilent) we can all be slotted into groups.
by the way, her bars are big.. i like the way she spits like shes lived in kingston jamacia for the last 4 years.
Clubberlang
Well-known member
Wow. Ya think?outraygeous said:
outraygeous said:
nah most people don't care enough to get into clothes wars.
the difference between a chav and a stereotypical indie kid type wearer, is that the idea of chavs, being a section of poor people defined by their clothes and consumer habits are a universally targetted and mocked group. The reasons they are targetted are of course the shallowest reasons in the world.
sterotype indie kid dressers on the other hand look like they've only half learnt to dress, still half in public school with their blazers and jeans. it's just not very exciting, and looks crap. especially the ones that are a bit too old for it but still do it.
Poet for Hire
Well-known member
bart mpc simpson
blissblogger said:
yes, I completely agree with this...there's definately a correlation between the number of novelty tunes and the quality/vitality of the scene. the time when these tunes get frowned upon is also the time when things are getting 'proper'/formulaic and heading up a cul-de-sac
I like her fine. Right now, a little goes a long way, but I'm enjoying it..
Being a dancehall fan, I can't really speak to hating "gimmicks." Chiming in with the "bring on the gimmicks." A little fun is a good thing, and it works for me (and on the dancefloor).
Also, I think the point about where and how women get up in the scene/on the screen is really, really good. Female artists often have different paths to fame or success than male ones. And are usually caught in discussions of their looks as well.
But in terms of grime (or elsewhere) However you rate judge or describe someone, when you look at the list you've created
is "authentic" or "dues-paying" basically male? if so, why is that?
djripley
Being a dancehall fan, I can't really speak to hating "gimmicks." Chiming in with the "bring on the gimmicks." A little fun is a good thing, and it works for me (and on the dancefloor).
Also, I think the point about where and how women get up in the scene/on the screen is really, really good. Female artists often have different paths to fame or success than male ones. And are usually caught in discussions of their looks as well.
But in terms of grime (or elsewhere) However you rate judge or describe someone, when you look at the list you've created
is "authentic" or "dues-paying" basically male? if so, why is that?
djripley
jeffthedeaf
Active member
I think why people are most annoyed, which seems to be avoided in this discussion, is that grime is considered by many to be "realer" than any other sound they know. Not to sound patronising but I doubt any of you (bar Logan) actually know what its like to live the life these people do - this is a scene that has emerged out of sheer rebellion, brawling and some of the rawest talent. It's one of the most direct forms of music to showcase talent since the emergence of hip hop - here you have an MC whose lyrics you can instantly learn, productions where you can hum the riffs and DJs who you will listen to every time just for the new dubs.
So when a short white "ragga chipmunk" (I believe thats the official title) turns up with some funding and some apparently important friends (what else do you call Radio 1 appearances off the back of nothing?) and gets pushed without any connection to the scene itself, the purists get vexed. Someone questioned her need to work hard to make it as a valid artist - grime is all about working hard, fighting to the top and getting some of the most critical audiences on your side: poor kids who want to put money in your pocket.
Let's face it, her support base is entirely located in boardrooms and not at street level - its the record companies way of presenting grime to the masses. Sharky Major's not signed because he's not even the biggest MC on the underground, and you couldn't market him - so where's the attraction? Sov at least presents a friendlier face for the shook kids watching Base and wanting to see Cassidy/R Kelly/Marques Houston's latest hit.
I'm just trying to present an even argument here - some people have to realise that record companies don't award record contracts for hard work and talent; that goes to people who can sell their records to the target market. So out to the purists, this looks like the first in many Cowell-esque "managed" grime acts, most of whom I'm sure will flop quicker than Clinton's boy after seeing Hilary in naughty underwear. But it will happen, so accept it. Face it, if you were her, you wouldn't turn it down would you?
So when a short white "ragga chipmunk" (I believe thats the official title) turns up with some funding and some apparently important friends (what else do you call Radio 1 appearances off the back of nothing?) and gets pushed without any connection to the scene itself, the purists get vexed. Someone questioned her need to work hard to make it as a valid artist - grime is all about working hard, fighting to the top and getting some of the most critical audiences on your side: poor kids who want to put money in your pocket.
Let's face it, her support base is entirely located in boardrooms and not at street level - its the record companies way of presenting grime to the masses. Sharky Major's not signed because he's not even the biggest MC on the underground, and you couldn't market him - so where's the attraction? Sov at least presents a friendlier face for the shook kids watching Base and wanting to see Cassidy/R Kelly/Marques Houston's latest hit.
I'm just trying to present an even argument here - some people have to realise that record companies don't award record contracts for hard work and talent; that goes to people who can sell their records to the target market. So out to the purists, this looks like the first in many Cowell-esque "managed" grime acts, most of whom I'm sure will flop quicker than Clinton's boy after seeing Hilary in naughty underwear. But it will happen, so accept it. Face it, if you were her, you wouldn't turn it down would you?
Clubberlang
Well-known member
Um do you know what it's like? Cuz this sounds like it's straight from some broadsheet on "realness" of grime to me. I can see why people in the grime "scene" are annoyed by her success (obv I don't agree with them, I think "Ch Ching" is great and I don't care whether it's just a great grime knock-off or the "real" thing.)jeffthedeaf said:
Bullshit. This charge of cronyism might MIGHT be valid if she was the best friend of Chris Blackwell's daughter or something, but seriously record companies don't give a shit about presenting grime to the "masses". She recorded a couple of very catchy singles and a record label think she can be sold as pop. That's it. . . she is not part grand record label conspiracy to repress "real" grime or any crap like that (and such a conspiracy may very well exist among the UK media--although perversely it has been helped along by the sheer willfull insularity of the scene.)jeffthedeaf said:
Red Rooster
Well-known member
jeffthedeaf said:
Here here
nomos
Administrator
There's an interesting discussion of this in Sarah Thornton's book Club Cultures. She develops the concept of 'subcultural capital' to describe who achieves authentic 'cool' and how they access that status (eg: pay their dues). She describes how this is founded largely on patterns of consumption and behaviour that are typically more socially and economically available to men (IE: because they can earn more, may have less family responsibility, enjoy greater physical safety, suffer less social scrutiny of their behaviours, etc.).ripley said:
So, by this logic, 'underground' is implicitly defined as male a priori. Conversely, the mainstream has been 'feminized' through both subcultural discourses about who's authentic and who isn't, and by the larger music industry which developed its Middle of the Road [MOR] catalogues as a way to appeal to female consumers who were presumed to be indiscriminate music buyers with no real taste. This last bit has been examined by Will Straw in "The Changing Space of the Record Shop." In the same vein, Thornton looks at how women in dance music subcultures have been viewed both within those scenes and in the popular press as not really having any 'real' taste or sense of what the music is about. Hence the extra bullshit that female performers end up dealing with.