Here, this is perfect, let me play the game.
I have two eternal gripes with the Joker saga which is Joker obviously being a Grime guy (supposedly he even had a production mixtape of his tunes with vocals that exists... SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD) and was discovered both by the Grime and Dubstep scenes. Obviously a time when the both were very closely related and not too disimilar; I think in fact I heard "Gully Brook Lane" with a JME vocal on a Plastician set not too long after hearing Joker on Mary Anne Hobbs which was my 'discovery' of him. Kode was of course the Champion for him and rightfully so because he easily proved more important than anyone else that set showcased. Without a doubt one of the last truly great Grime producers alongside Maniac, Dot/Zeph and Rude Kid.
But then there's the problem in that he's already been co-opted by Dubstep, which itself is not Grime. Grime had taught itself to function like the rap industry and load up the MCs with Beats for occasional pay/credit, maybe put out tunes featuring the MCs. Send your stuff to the DJs to play and have people spit over... Was that gonna work for a kid from Bristol? Hell, even guys who aren't coming out of East London are more or less fringey. But then you have Dubstep with its great money as a DJ, the remix work, etc. etc. It was a no brainer but it essentially robbed Grime of a vital star producer with a distinctive sound at a time when the scene needed an influx of distinctive production voices.
And then after that you get James Blake who takes so much of what made Joker great and makes it... as a lot of the thread is already saying, 'arty' and studious. Clean a little bit. The Rudeness of the G-Funk and the harsh tear-out baselines are now replaced by screeching synths with a treatment closer to those 'wonky' synths beloved by Flying Lotus fans and distorted gospel harmonizing. It's incredibly self-consciously too damaged to be a banger, but also just the right amount of not being too tasteful, he didn't make say Jazzy dubstep per se. And to this day the fact that people don't recognize The Bells Sketch as being wholly indebted to Joker is baffling to me.
Anyway the cool irony is the only producer in grime's last wave who did right by Joker & his 'purple' friends and reintroduce that sound to Grime was dark0. He clearly Got It (and that's also why he was one of the best in this retrospectively bad instrumental grime resurgence)
