Can UK Hip Hop/Grime Blow Up In The States?

[SIZZLE]

re: grime being 'pure' and 'un-coopted by outside influences'

huh? Grime wouldn't exist without outside influences! Hiphop and bashment being two big obvious ones. Look at the 12" of Eskimo 1, Harry Toddler was the vocalist. One of the great things about grime is the way it synthesises and appropriates other styles and ideas so fluidly. Why is 'purity' a desirable goal? One of the reasons I fuck with Grime now and have pretty much given up on underground hiphop is because it is much more free from this kind of essentialist dogma and there is still a lot of freedom to bring in other ideas and have it still be 'real' grime. It's not over determined to the point of becoming narrow, homogenous and reactionary like underground hiphop these days. So many people are stuck dreaming of 'the golden era' or 'the true school' that they haven't noticed that they're looping and chopping the same records, making the same drum patterns and spitting the same lyrics to a bored and dwindling audience. If I want to hear that stuff again I can go put on Mecca and the Soul Brother, it's a beautiful record but it doesn't need to be made again in 2006, it already exists.

Also I think that it's reckless to ignore the role that people INSIDE hiphop played in commercialising hiphop. I don't know if you like Jay-Z but it'd be pretty hard to argue that he's an outside influence and he has made a BIG impact in bringing hiphop into the pop mainstream, for better or worse. I do agree that hiphop has lost something in it's commercialisation but it's also turned into something new and more wierd. Look at Missy + Timbaland, they are seriously pop but have contributed a lot of ideas to underground music as well, especially grime. Hiphop like everything else changes as it gets older, for better or worse. Just because she's no longer a cute naive little child you don't love her anymore?

 

[Logan Sama]

Harry Toddler did a version of Eskimo about 18 months after it was made.

But yes, I would not argue grime is not a bastardisation of about 7 other styles of music.

 

[Poisonous Dart]

Corporate Influences....

re: grime being 'pure' and 'un-coopted by outside influences'

huh? Grime wouldn't exist without outside influences! Hiphop and bashment being two big obvious ones. Look at the 12" of Eskimo 1, Harry Toddler was the vocalist. One of the great things about grime is the way it synthesises and appropriates other styles and ideas so fluidly. Why is 'purity' a desirable goal? One of the reasons I fuck with Grime now and have pretty much given up on underground hiphop is because it is much more free from this kind of essentialist dogma and there is still a lot of freedom to bring in other ideas and have it still be 'real' grime. It's not over determined to the point of becoming narrow, homogenous and reactionary like underground hiphop these days. So many people are stuck dreaming of 'the golden era' or 'the true school' that they haven't noticed that they're looping and chopping the same records, making the same drum patterns and spitting the same lyrics to a bored and dwindling audience. If I want to hear that stuff again I can go put on Mecca and the Soul Brother, it's a beautiful record but it doesn't need to be made again in 2006, it already exists.

Also I think that it's reckless to ignore the role that people INSIDE hiphop played in commercialising hiphop. I don't know if you like Jay-Z but it'd be pretty hard to argue that he's an outside influence and he has made a BIG impact in bringing hiphop into the pop mainstream, for better or worse. I do agree that hiphop has lost something in it's commercialisation but it's also turned into something new and more wierd. Look at Missy + Timbaland, they are seriously pop but have contributed a lot of ideas to underground music as well, especially grime. Hiphop like everything else changes as it gets older, for better or worse. Just because she's no longer a cute naive little child you don't love her anymore?

People inside hip hop showed other people who were in other underground worlds/cultures/movements outside of hip hop the culture, but they didn't do it to make it commercial. Even when Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant stumbled across graffitti and b boying they didn't try to commercialize it...even though they worked in the media. Neither did Sally Banes and Charlie Ahearn, it didn't happen until businesses, companies and outside corporations decided to use the culture to sell their products and then took what they could spin and market and left the rest. That HASN'T happened to Grime as of yet...unless you can buy Jamster ringtones featuring Lethal Bizzle, Wiley, Skepta and Jammer, Roll Deep has a deal for trainers and gear with their name on it with Adidas, Kano and Mike Skinner are doing Aero ads and Lady Sovereign is doing the new Tango campaign in the UK as I type this..One.

 

[cooper]

People inside hip hop showed other people who were in other underground worlds/cultures/movements outside of hip hop the culture, but they didn't do it to make it commercial. Even when Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant stumbled across graffitti and b boying they didn't try to commercialize it...even though they worked in the media. Neither did Sally Banes and Charlie Ahearn, it didn't happen until businesses, companies and outside corporations decided to use the culture to sell their products and then took what they could spin and market and left the rest. That HASN'T happened to Grime as of yet...unless you can buy Jamster ringtones featuring Lethal Bizzle, Wiley, Skepta and Jammer, Roll Deep has a deal for trainers and gear with their name on it with Adidas, Kano and Mike Skinner are doing Aero ads and Lady Sovereign is doing the new Tango campaign in the UK as I type this..One.

i have always found the "big business commercialized/cannibalized music scene xxx" to be patronizing at best, like the artists you're talking about aren't as bright as YOU are and so those poor innocents got taken for all they were worth by fast-talking whitemen in expensive suits. consider that more than 10 years ago wu-tang were bright enough to get themselves a record deal that is now the standard for large hip-hop groups and tribe were making songs about how shady the music industry was - why do you find it so impossible that today's artists, particularly those from close-knit local scenes, would not have learned better than to whore themselves out so blatantly?

people from the grime scene have seen up to 3 cycles of industry feeding frenzies: jungle in the mid-90s, 2-step at the turn of the decade, and now people like wiley and lethal b who are obviously very talented but can't get the sales they should from their labels. there's the westwood interview where wiley is like "well, obviously the best thing is your own thing" telling him "don't big up relentless too much!" it's really not very hard to avoid selling out in the grossest ways - rock bands are all good at this now, at least the ones that don't go on mtv.

(i find it kind of annoying that you close all your posts with ..One)

 

[Poisonous Dart]

Hey

(i find it kind of annoying that you close all your posts with ..One)- Cooper.

It's short for One Love. It's what we say here in the Northeast US at the end of conversations/letters. Happy Holidays To One And All! One.

 

[Poisonous Dart]

Same Shit, Different Country

A friend of mine from the UK emailed me this article:

Too fast, too furious

Grime is one of the most exciting sounds since punk in the 1970s: it should not be silenced

Natalie Hanman
Tuesday December 27, 2005
The Guardian

It has been the year of live music - 2005 has seen gig-going, guitars and live recordings firmly back in fashion. But the most exciting genre of music's youthful rebellion, grime, ain't getting a look in. And many suspect it is because the bands are black.

An offshoot of garage, hip-hop and electronica, grime burst out of London's East End in 2002. With the success of its most charming star, Dizzee Rascal, and the acclaimed Run the Road compilation, grime was poised to leap from pirate stations into the mainstream. But last October a gig by Kano, the genre's rising star, at the Scala in King's Cross was cancelled after the local council and police were said to have deemed it a safety risk. What was a burgeoning live grime scene has since skidded to a halt, and sales of new releases have slowed.


From the UK rapper Sway being banned from the Jazz Cafe, in north London, after a fight which it is claimed had nothing to do with the artist, to the police advising promoters to remove "dangerous" acts from line-ups, it is not looking good for grime. "There'll be a riot," the police told Vice magazine about a planned November gig that had three of grime's biggest names - Kano, Lethal Bizzle and Roll Deep - playing alongside famous white faces of indie rock. According to Vice's editor, Andy Capper, the police said: "That Lethal B has fights at his gigs and the police shut down Kano's Scala gig because of gang violence." It's odd, then, that those familiar with grime say there have been no such fights.

Some think the radical nature of the scene scares the uninitiated. Grime gigs attract crowds of black youngsters who come as part of a crew or collective, and jump around with their hoods up, getting rowdy. It's not the sort of thing you see at a U2 concert - one promoter says it reminds him of footage he watched of the first punk gigs: raw energy being channelled in a creative environment.

As grime is a genre that works best live, cancelling gigs means negative coverage, and even less of the positive press that comes from live reviews. Preventing these artists from performing is a form of censorship.

But the bigger question surely is: why isn't grime more popular? If it were, there would surely be a riot at any attempt to stop kids getting their fix of live grime sounds. Instead, the music-buying public are put off by the unfamiliar fast and furious tone and aggressive-sounding lyrics rapped over a beat. Maybe grime is unpopular because people have a problem with working-class black kids organising themselves to do something creative. Or is the music just not that good? Well, you won't know if you don't listen. The charismatic Dizzee Rascal is the only act to break into the mainstream, but he was championed by the more recognisable likes of Basement Jaxx, and by the NME.

While R'n'B and hip-hop have made it big thanks to backing from major record labels and advertising, grime is having to compromise to keep up. Roll Deep is said to have released music their peers are ashamed of to get into the charts. Others remix indie-rock tracks to reach a wider, whiter audience. But that audience sticks on the whole to the predictable comforts of Coldplay or Kate Bush.

What is it are we afraid of? When it comes to music, we should be taking risks and accepting the challenge of unfamiliar sounds just in case - God forbid - they have something important to say. And grime does. Like punk, it is the voice of a minority questioning society. Punk sounded scary at the time, too. But it set a precedent for decades of musical innovation, and its influence is still felt. Let's give grime the same chance - so it can prove if it really is worth it.

natalie.hanman@guardian.co.uk

 

[AshRa]

(i find it kind of annoying that you close all your posts with ..One)- Cooper.

It's short for One Love. It's what we say here in the Northeast US at the end of conversations/letters. Happy Holidays To One And All! One.

Really? I'd never heard of that before (well obviously i'd heard Bob Marley singing "One Love") Will it take over from people writing 'PEACE' at the end of e-mails?

 

[AshRa]

It has been the year of live music - 2005 has seen gig-going, guitars and live recordings firmly back in fashion. But the most exciting genre of music's youthful rebellion, grime, ain't getting a look in. And many suspect it is because the bands are black.

Talk about stating the bleeding obvious!

 

[Poisonous Dart]

Late Pass

Really? I'd never heard of that before (well obviously i'd heard Bob Marley singing "One Love") Will it take over from people writing 'PEACE' at the end of e-mails?

It's been common slang now for about 12 or 13 years...watch Belly...they say it about 50 times...there's even an imDb.com thread about on the Belly page. The Wu used it to death. One.

 

[Logan Sama]

I always find I don't get any bookings due to being black as well.

 

[mpc]

everyone who isn't that familiar with grime thinks you're black, logan.

(i don't even mean that as a joke...i'm being serious)

 

[SIZZLE]

Good article I'd say, from what little I can see it seems it's true that the scene is hurt by the lack of venues. And one definitely could make an argument for this being a jim crow type of situation, locking off the non-white artists by saying that they're dangerous and so on. The situation is pretty difficult since some of the kids ARE bringing knives and guns to parties and there are violent incidents that don't happen at shows for other genre's of music, or at least more often. I'd say that the promoters have a certain responsibility here if anyone does to invest more heavily in security and publicise that fact and to try and have violence free raves to the best of their abilities. The truth is it'd probably be a good business opportunity to overcome this fear as it definitely would draw in other people who were previously too shook to go and with the right marketing venue owners could be made to understand this as well. Not a great situation though when you're counting on promoters to pick up a community burden, as often they can't be relied upon to pay the artists, djs, etc. Still, it's likely the only people who will be willing to pick that up or take that risk at all will be lovers of the music, people from within the scene. Lord knows there are easier ways to make money.

Poison Dart: re: Henry Chalfant et al, I wasn't exactly talking about them, I mentioned Jay Z. Henry Chalfant was an older white guy who went and smoked dust with the writers and climbed into yards with them, documenting the scene. And he and his peers were instrumental in the spread of the culture worldwide but only indirectly in it's commercialization. Someone like Jay Z would fly with Lyor Cohen to Walmart Corporate HQ and give talks to their brass and do meet and greets, take snapshots with them etc. THAT is what I am thinking of when I think about commercialization. A respected artist in the scene who also aggressively markets himself at a corporate level. Him going and doing 'Hard Knock Life' and some of those REALLY saccharine cross over type of things are more what I am thinking of, and obviously it worked, he got super rich and joined the global pop mainstream.

Also, you can get grime ringtones, although maybe not from Jamster or Jamba or whatever it's called in UK. And Jammer and Lethal B both have shoe deals with Addidas, as it seems Lady Sovereign does as well (witness her 'Hoodie' tune). Don't think any of them are getting much more out of it than free gear and trainers but it definitely appears in lyrics, Jam and Lethal both mention Adidas by name in their bars. Whether that is a good or bad thing I have no idea. Addidas did sponsor the gig we did for Jam, Ears and Double in NY, which was helpful, and they didn't try to assert any creative control. They didn't put up money the next time when we wanted to bring Roll Deep though, so go figure.

 

[Logan Sama]

everyone who isn't that familiar with grime thinks you're black, logan.

(i don't even mean that as a joke...i'm being serious)

Strange, because most people in the scene who havent met me think I am some middle aged white man.

 

[jasonh]

Dumb newbie reply coming up....

Just bought Run The Road Vol 1, which is really good. I have got the two Dizzee albums, which I think are great as well (yes, I know, the standard stuff, but there is so much great music out there and only so much time/money).

I don't know about the grime scene blowing up in the US - we've had so many false dawns on this before (Big Beat, techno, the list goes on). From a UK perspective, we forget how large a country/market the US actually is - it's the trad argument that an act can get big in the UK after an NME cover or review, but in the US nothing happens. I don't think its insularity so much as scale that defeats breaking music. It could take years.

One question - I have always loved the MC chatter on D'n'B, grime, The Bug's "Pressure" etc, which I assume is often dancehall artists being sampled or guesting. I don't own any dancehall stuff - where's the best place to start?

 

[mikeray]

Bashment

 

[SIZZLE]

re: best place to start: an easy place to start is the BBC's 1xtra service, check Robbo Ranx or Silver Star's shows for new dancehall with tracklistings, find some artists you like and go buy their recordings.

 

[Logan Sama]

I listen through to goldfinger and take notes on riddim tracks I like or particular tunes.

 

[atomly]

Run the Road at #13 in Rolling Stone's Top 50 of 2005.

I was a little surprised, to be honest.

 

[Light Touch]

First post here, forgive me for not reading the entire thread. Don't have that kind of attention span.

Can Grime/UKHH blow up in the US? As an independent genre? I think not. People here don't get all zapped into genres, except the sorts of insular genre/social clubs that spring up from time to time. (DnB is a good example of that, at least at the present time. Most DnB parties are by DJs, for DJs, and with only DJs attending.)

The question is where grime tunes "fit". I think the best fit for grime is going to generally be an open-minded urban audience. It's not going to be in the heart of the hip-hop movement, they have their heads so far up their own asses sometimes that they're not trying to hear shit from another city, let alone another country.

For grime to succeed here, there needs to be steady delivery of the sound and promotion of the artists. Dizzee has done well -- he's not mainstream by any stretch of the imagination, but he's getting decent placement (I hear "Stand Up Tall" was in some recent movie) and people know the name.

But that just helps Dizzee. To have a genre break, there needs to be a group of artists pushing that sound. And particularly with UK music, folks need to learn the lessons taught by the attempted crossovers of UKG artists. Americans do not want to hear another Usher, or another Missy Elliott, or whatever. Generally speaking, Americans want to hear something that's a little different, not weird, and has a rhythm they can shake their ass to. 95% of the people who buy music in America don't give a shit about who produced a tune or what "riddim" it is. They hear something they like, they find out who it is, and they want to hear it again.

All of this hyperanalytical nonsense about cultural differences and socioeconomic conditions is really a bunch of bullshit, and is irrelevant to the success of music. The success comes from intelligent and consistent marketing of a clearly-defined product, and helping people make associations between having a good time and some brand or name.

Can grime become well-known in the US? I think so. Will it? Probably not. Will certain artists break? Possibly, if marketed well.

It really comes down to what you're looking for. If you're looking for grime to reach the level of hip-hop or rock music in America, you're out of your mind. If you're looking for some talented musicians to find success in America making grime, that's a very real possibility.

 

[Poisonous Dart]

Kinda sorta....

Light Touch wrote:

All of this hyperanalytical nonsense about cultural differences and socioeconomic conditions is really a bunch of bullshit, and is irrelevant to the success of music. The success comes from intelligent and consistent marketing of a clearly-defined product, and helping people make associations between having a good time and some brand or name.

Not exactly...all of these factors have something to do about what kind of music gets made and where. Based on the times and social and economic factors, the music takes on the flavor of the times. The music of the 60's and 70's being perfect examples. Hip Hop started to come to prominence during a time when New York City was in dire financial straits, and it originated in the South Bronx, one of the poorest and most destitute areas in America...it looked like Beirut at the time Hip Hop music sprung out from there.

When the music really came to the forefront of American culture and then the world stage was during the Reagan/Bush Administration and when crack cocaine flooded the streets of the innercity centers of America...the country changed and the music changed with it.

The things that happened that helped shape the birth of Grime music in London also affect how and what the music evolves into...remember social and economic factors affect PEOPLE, PEOPLE IN TURN MAKE THE MUSIC...it all goes hand in hand. One.