Yeah, Scotty D is actually the example the keeps popping into my head as someone I feel deserves to be made a fuss of - more "musical" than Lil' Silva, and yet also more ravey somehow, similarly wringing the absolute best out of a grime sensibility, yet with exquisite production values.
He's not on his own tip like Cooly G is but he exemplifies what I love about funky.
"Dream" in particular is totally massive.
But yeah... I guess not having anything easily available is a big stumbling block here!
(if anything, much of my apparent curmudgeonliness is simply based in the fact that a lot of the time the producers I think are super super talented never get around to getting stuff widely released, and applauded, and instead make anonymous but awesome bangers for DJs - this is not Cooly G's, Kode9's or Fact Magazine's fault obv)
she's definitely not the first to breakout though, cos krazy cousins etc have had loads of press for do you mind, as has hands shoulders knees etc.
This is right but I feel that the media sort of breaks down in the 2-step mould of Crazy Cousinz=Artful Dodger/Cooly G=MJ Cole (though if you were talking about retrospective praise the 2-step equivalent would actually be El-B)/K.I.G.=Oxide&Neutrino.
Like we need to have a tripartite structure of populists/innovators/spoilers.
I don't see things as (eg) dubstep vs MisTeeq.
(In fact most of my favourite UK garage vocal tracks had housier vocals - the Dreem Teem remix of Amira's "My Desire", TJ Cases' "One By One", the Club Asylum remix of Kristine's "Love Shy"... Ironically when it comes to vocal funky tunes I prefer the ones which sound more R&B-ish, previously mentioned recent examples being the funky mixes of J-Will's "Deja Vu" and Addictive's "Domino Effect".)
If anything what I long held against dubstep post-2001 was that its self-conscious seriousness made the issue seem oppositional, as if the choice
was between grim halfstep dirges on the one hand and MisTeeq on the other (and then grime as a third option). What this tended to sideline was that history of 2-step which negotiated a path between these three options, charting a kind of dark, occasionally muscular sensuality. Tunes like "Mash Up Da Venue", "Down Down Biznizz", "Madness On The Streets", "Booo" and "Ramp" (all, I either know or suspect, big anthems for the proto-dubstep crowd)... Again, it's not dubstep's fault that that sound disappeared for the most part (though echoes of it would occasionally be heard in the best work of Pinch, Mala and Target/Danny Weed), but of all the post-garage genres, at that point dubstep was in the best position to exploit its potential, and I resented the fact that it mostly chose not to.
Now, of course, a big part of my love for funky is grounded in the realisation that it is this vibe that a lot of the best funky seems to resurrect.
On a happier and not unrelated note, Martin Kemp's "No Charisma" on Cooly G's Fact Mix is fantastic - as is the Sami Sanchez anthem that follows of course.
In a similar spirit of reaching across the aisle, is the funky track Ramadanman plays on his Apple Pips podcast set his own? The one with the rolling stop-start tribal beat and the brilliant cut-up female vocals - Marcus Nasty's also played it recently. If dubstep producers start making tracks like this (as opposed to like the last Kode9 single) I'm all for it.
