Grime-where did it all go wrong?

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
boomnoise said:
i think dubstep could stear it'self out of this danger.
I don't. I think dubstep will experience the problems of a widening audience and rising expectations that will be similar to grime. Though I think the big producers are a lot more humble and clued-up than many grime artists.
 

THA VERDICT

New member
I'm American and I think "Grime" is bullocks. I'm into the underground rave scene, but when I listen to "Grime" all I here is the same old, shit-sounding british rap we all know and love. Let's face it, british rappers will never make it big outside the uk underground scene. They like to legitamize themselves by calling their music something different than Hip-hop, but it's not going to fool anyone.
 
polynesian kiwi rappers outta NZ, hot little white chiccas, exotic looking brown chiccas, black chiccas with attitude and skills have a better chance of cracking the global hiphop scene than most young black frustrated male UK grime artists.

for example scribe, lady sov, MIA, ms dynamite

they just gotta be real and not sell out or water their stuff down for the market
 

Badmarsh

Well-known member
THA VERDICT said:
I'm American and I think "Grime" is bullocks. I'm into the underground rave scene, but when I listen to "Grime" all I here is the same old, shit-sounding british rap we all know and love. Let's face it, british rappers will never make it big outside the uk underground scene. They like to legitamize themselves by calling their music something different than Hip-hop, but it's not going to fool anyone.

Agreed - you either gotto be a Tricky or a Massive Attack and come thru as a rapper like that, or Slick Rick who actually moved to the States.
 

Poisonous Dart

Lone Swordsman
Oh man...

THA VERDICT said:
I'm American and I think "Grime" is bullocks. I'm into the underground rave scene, but when I listen to "Grime" all I here is the same old, shit-sounding british rap we all know and love. Let's face it, british rappers will never make it big outside the uk underground scene. They like to legitamize themselves by calling their music something different than Hip-hop, but it's not going to fool anyone.

I'm American and you're entitled to your opinion (it's your right as an American...for now). I think you are ABSOLUTELY wrong. I think the problem is that we as Americans are too damed arrogant and think that just because someone has an accent that they're morons, retarded or weird sounding. In Hip Hop/music in general SKILL, ORIGINALITY, AND CONTENT are what's important...To tell me that Kano, Klashnekoff, Sway, Kyza, Rodney P, Bashy, Durrty Goodz, Dizzee Rascal, etc. suck because their not American is BULLOCKS. Will British rappers/Grime emcees ever make it in the US? If Americans stopped being so damned ignorant...possibly. Grime artists/producers are trying to fool anyone and they especially didn't come up with this music form as a damn Trojan Horse to break into the U.S. market...it was all of the music journalists who asked that question first...I really DOUBT that when all of the Grimers were doing sets on pirate radio and breaking this music that they thought "I hope the Americans like this!"...they were only concerned that their people in the section of LONDON heard them merk the track! Read a book, Verdict! One.
 

ryan17

Well-known member
Poisonous Dart said:
I really DOUBT that when all of the Grimers were doing sets on pirate radio and breaking this music that they thought "I hope the Americans like this!"...they were only concerned that their people in the section of LONDON heard them merk the track!


just like to say about a year or so ago everyone was hard pressed to get to NYC and Europe before they even bothered going to most places in the U.K. i can count on one hand how many grime artists/groups have even bothered to come up to Scotland, which is such a shame cause it is a lot cheaper to get here then to catch a flight to the states.

the other major problem has been record distribution (maybe mentioned already?), only within the last year has rubadub in glasgow managed to be consistent in getting their hands on grime vinyl. when i asked them about it they said that the labels did want to distribute outside of london or were very slow about it. i was a bit shocked because even though london is a big place, it is clearly not big enough to support the scene that is filled with a load of inflated egos. if 'cashmoney' is the problem (someone cited this i believe as the MAIN problem right now with grime. re: the lack of) then get those vinyl distributed throughout the U.K.

this kind of brings me to my last point, in line with what sizzle (update your blog more often fool, its good) was saying that the egos have kind of come down a bit. he didn't use those words exactly but thats what it is. its good that mostly everyone has kind of taken a step back and rethought their approach. making music is a fucking job just like everything else you got to fucking work to get paid, all of the money the 'current' crop of hip hopers make is from all of the hard work and effort people put into it for years before out of love. if you aren't doing grime cause you love the music, do something else.
 

Logan Sama

BestThereIsAtWhatIDo
Ok, let me tell you about outside of London.

We give our records to distributors. The distributors are SUPPOSED to distribute the records for us around the UK, and sometimes beyond.

More often than not a lot of places do not want to have an account with the distributor.

Record shop owners who want to stock the music can easily get hold of the artists in this day and age especially with the advent of Myspace.

Putting on shows in Scotland? You would need a promoter to actually book a show for that. I only know of Roll Deep and Kano having played there.

Find us a promoter or a shop owner willing and we will go there. That's why people go abroad. There are people willing to reach out and contact us and get us out there. And more often than not we end up going for a very small amount of money because it is all for exposure.

And I will tell you now it is a lot easier for people to reach out to us than it is for us to reach out to them, Grime is a poor grass roots music which hasn't got a long history of artists to follow, or a particularly organised infrastructure. People are building from the ground up, so for people in industries that know better, ie: putting live events promotions or record stores, it shouldn't be hard to get hold of music if needed. Hell I have had more people from Eastern Europe contact Wiley about his recent records and getting them into stores, than there has been in the UK. That's why it's difficult for these guys.

i'm not asking for sympathy or what have you, and yes there are many arrogant and lazy people around, but that doesn't mean the whole scene is like that.

If anyone wants to know how to get in touch with someone or how to get hold of something feel free to email me and ask: info@logansama.com

It's there everytime I post in the signature, so use it.
 
Logan Sama said:
If anyone wants to know how to get in touch with someone or how to get hold of something feel free to email me and ask: info@logansama.com

It's there everytime I post in the signature, so use it.

sweet...

...so hook us up a wiley accapella and lets have ourselves a global remix competition :D

It's mostly the beats that let grime down, just a bit too harsh for my delicate ears...
 

Precious Cuts

Well-known member
I feel as though the turning point with grime came fairly early on, around the spring/summer of 2004 - although my chronology might be a bit off, as I followed it from north america via DC++. A few things seemed to happen around that time that made grime a lot less exciting.

Deja stopped doing grime. As great as Rinse is, Deja vu will always be the premier pirate station for grime in my mind. Stumbling accross the Conflict DVD is what made me really get into grime, and I think its still the best DVD of any that have been released, and that the recorded sets from Deja are the best sets around.

Eskimo Dance going on hiatus. Although this didnt really effect me, it seemed to be a pretty big blow to the live events side of things. Also, later on, the Sidewinder events being consistently bad a few times in a row (cameo's birthday bash for one) had a lot of people complaining last year.

N.A.S.T.Y. dissolving. No one has replaced them as the undisputed top crew, and their new incarnation is obviously inferior. In general, the crews these days just don't really compare to the old crews like nasty, boyz in the hood, east connection, or meridian in terms of having a cohesive, unique sound and vibe when they are on the radio or on stage.

Half-time tracks. "what" was cool as a contrast to a lot of the faster stuff like "golly gosh" and "stomp" that was being played, but once half-time or that plodding sort of sound became the norm rather than the exception, everything got really boring, in my opinion.

finally, to respond to one of Logan's points: "Find us a promoter or a shop owner willing and we will go there. That's why people go abroad. There are people willing to reach out and contact us and get us out there. And more often than not we end up going for a very small amount of money because it is all for exposure."

This was not the case in North America. In the spring of 2005 there was a lot of momentum for grime here, a very generous offer from an organization that wanted to fund monthly tours throughout North Amerca, and a number of promoters that were dying to make it happen throughout the eastern states and canada. Yet the terms demanded by the agency that represents most of the top grime artists were SO unreasonable, and their expectations SO overblown that it was completely impossible to work anything out. Also around the same time matt shadetek (sizzle) moved to europe. He held it down in NY and did things properly, so when he left, a very necessary linchpin in NYC was missing. That void was filled by corporate organizations like the Knitting Factory that were not suitable promoters of underground music, but had money to throw around (and straight up lose) in order to book what was then a fashionable music trend that would help the image of their venue and get the venue's name in a glut of newspaper articles.

Strangely, this same Knitting Factory situation is set to happen here in Toronto, with a new $3 million dollar mega-club called Circa being opened by Peter Gatien next month. Apparently they have booked Skream for June 30th, and Wiley, JME and Maximum sometime in July. I'm really looking forward to these shows, although I don't know what to expect. Junior Vasquez is doing the grand opening, and parts of the venue are decorated with floor to ceiling Bruce LaBruce photos. I'm curious to see how they will fit grime into that type of environment.

anyways, sorry for the rambling post, I've been a longtime lurker here and firsttime poster, so I guess I have a lot of pent-up commentary on grime.
 

shudder

Well-known member
Precious Cuts said:
Strangely, this same Knitting Factory situation is set to happen here in Toronto, with a new $3 million dollar mega-club called Circa being opened by Peter Gatien next month. Apparently they have booked Skream for June 30th, and Wiley, JME and Maximum sometime in July. I'm really looking forward to these shows, although I don't know what to expect. Junior Vasquez is doing the grand opening, and parts of the venue are decorated with floor to ceiling Bruce LaBruce photos. I'm curious to see how they will fit grime into that type of environment.

wow.. i'm out of Toronto for a few months, and... wow. Floor to ceiling Bruce LaBruce posters??????? Holy shit!
 

Logan Sama

BestThereIsAtWhatIDo
Precious Cuts said:
I feel as though the turning point with grime came fairly early on, around the spring/summer of 2004 - although my chronology might be a bit off, as I followed it from north america via DC++. A few things seemed to happen around that time that made grime a lot less exciting.

Deja stopped doing grime. As great as Rinse is, Deja vu will always be the premier pirate station for grime in my mind. Stumbling accross the Conflict DVD is what made me really get into grime, and I think its still the best DVD of any that have been released, and that the recorded sets from Deja are the best sets around.

Eskimo Dance going on hiatus. Although this didnt really effect me, it seemed to be a pretty big blow to the live events side of things. Also, later on, the Sidewinder events being consistently bad a few times in a row (cameo's birthday bash for one) had a lot of people complaining last year.

N.A.S.T.Y. dissolving. No one has replaced them as the undisputed top crew, and their new incarnation is obviously inferior. In general, the crews these days just don't really compare to the old crews like nasty, boyz in the hood, east connection, or meridian in terms of having a cohesive, unique sound and vibe when they are on the radio or on stage.

Half-time tracks. "what" was cool as a contrast to a lot of the faster stuff like "golly gosh" and "stomp" that was being played, but once half-time or that plodding sort of sound became the norm rather than the exception, everything got really boring, in my opinion.

finally, to respond to one of Logan's points: "Find us a promoter or a shop owner willing and we will go there. That's why people go abroad. There are people willing to reach out and contact us and get us out there. And more often than not we end up going for a very small amount of money because it is all for exposure."

This was not the case in North America. In the spring of 2005 there was a lot of momentum for grime here, a very generous offer from an organization that wanted to fund monthly tours throughout North Amerca, and a number of promoters that were dying to make it happen throughout the eastern states and canada. Yet the terms demanded by the agency that represents most of the top grime artists were SO unreasonable, and their expectations SO overblown that it was completely impossible to work anything out. Also around the same time matt shadetek (sizzle) moved to europe. He held it down in NY and did things properly, so when he left, a very necessary linchpin in NYC was missing. That void was filled by corporate organizations like the Knitting Factory that were not suitable promoters of underground music, but had money to throw around (and straight up lose) in order to book what was then a fashionable music trend that would help the image of their venue and get the venue's name in a glut of newspaper articles.

Strangely, this same Knitting Factory situation is set to happen here in Toronto, with a new $3 million dollar mega-club called Circa being opened by Peter Gatien next month. Apparently they have booked Skream for June 30th, and Wiley, JME and Maximum sometime in July. I'm really looking forward to these shows, although I don't know what to expect. Junior Vasquez is doing the grand opening, and parts of the venue are decorated with floor to ceiling Bruce LaBruce photos. I'm curious to see how they will fit grime into that type of environment.

anyways, sorry for the rambling post, I've been a longtime lurker here and firsttime poster, so I guess I have a lot of pent-up commentary on grime.

Please don't get me started on Agents and Managers.
 

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
Precious Cuts said:
Strangely, this same Knitting Factory situation is set to happen here in Toronto, with a new $3 million dollar mega-club called Circa being opened by Peter Gatien next month.

Peter Gatien is still alive?

Is he opening a club in Canada because he can no longer legally operate one in the US?
 

Precious Cuts

Well-known member
Freakaholic said:
Peter Gatien is still alive?

Is he opening a club in Canada because he can no longer legally operate one in the US?

I think the story is that he's not physically allowed in the States anymore because he was deported for tax evasion.
 

Precious Cuts

Well-known member
one other thing that I always thought was a problem with grime:

The idea that blogging is some sort of integral, productive part of the scene. Although there are journalists in every scene, I think that in the past the limited number of publications kept the number of people writing in proportion to the need for commentary. With blogs and forums, everyone can have one and theres no business side to it, so there's no market mechanism to demonstrate when the field is way over saturated. I think the mentality that writing commentary (even great commentary) is a bona fide position in an underground music scene caused the same people who have the analytic and interpersonal skills to be label bosses, label employees, distributors, promoters, station owners etc to sit back and discuss rather than do something productive that helps music come into existence. With jungle, people who were not artists (and had more money, connections, presentability and business know-how) made up a small, solid infrastructure that has maintained the drum and bass scene for over a decade. I know that for years Plasticman has been saying that this is what everyone should be striving towards. In hindsight I think he's been right all along, despite my initial misgivings about following in the footsteps of the drum and bass scene.

Basically I look at all the energy that has gone into documenting grime and arguing about it (blogs, DVDs, RWD forum) and can't help but think that if half of that energy went into establishing the actual physical businesses that support the creation of new music and organization of live events, the grime scene would be in great shape. The music would be better, because artists could just concentrate on making tunes for established (albeit, small)labels and smashing the next rave rather than updating their myspace and chasing around album deals. I really don't think people should be criticizing the grime MCs for being lazy and arrogant. The MCs I have worked with have had strong work ethics and friendly attitudes, if you approach them the right way (Ears, for example. even Crazy T was really down to earth and eager to collaborate when I met him). They just can't do everything themselves.
 
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