viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Just echoing what Dan wrote, this sounds interesting but slightly preposterous in the extent to which you push it.
What about people like Geeneus and Slimzee who clearly have no West African heritage, yet played a huge role? I mean Slimzee was pretty much the most important DJ in the whole scene for two or three years wasn’t he?
What about the number of people in Grime who claim W. Indian heritage rather than African? Wiley going on about 'Trinidad bloodline' etc...
True, I have heard voices on the other side (Skepta - 'I'm a badboy from Nigeria/Not St. Lucia etc.) but i don't think these outweigh the other side that heavily. The times I have come across explicit or obvious Africaness in Grime it has usually been in a semi mocking tone – Afrikan Boy’s ‘One Day I Went to Lidl’. On RWD someone was calling out Dirty Danger I think for having a ‘straight of the boat’ accent.
And what about the clear evolution of grime from a genre so British it’s country of origin was contained in it’s name – UKG? How do PAUG and So Solid fit into your idea, they were clearing pushing the vocal side of (the admittedly hybrid genre) garage. At what point did the West African influence come in? I find it hard to believe that there is music in Africa that sounds like Wiley’s ‘Icerink’ or Slew Dem’s ‘Grime’. I would love to be proved wrong though!
Just because it doesn't sound like other British forms of music doesn't mean it doesn’t sound like some exciting hybrid British sound.
I would be really interested to hear some of the stuff you are talking about though! I just instinctively don’t trust the extent to which you are pushing the argument (no sendage).
WHOAH THERE!!!! happy hardcore had a TON of artistic merit
bassline = northern
funky/uk house = london
no? so by this reasoning there are no bassline nights in London (yet), but funky house raves. whenever i open RWD, Jon E Cash seems to be "hosting" at them all... MCs as hosts? feels like 2000 again.
I NEED to hear the Punjabi variant, as anyone who heard my FWD>> set might realise
but is it not the case that 'funky' house is more diverse, that it might include bassline, but also includes euro, funky, deep, soulful etc?
do people like Reckless and the Northern Line lot not get bookings down here?
to be fair i think for me it'd be best if it was bassline along with other house at a night, at this stage i think i'd struggle with a whole night of the non-stop rushing mentalism
do people like Reckless and the Northern Line lot not get bookings down here?
to be fair i think for me it'd be best if it was bassline along with other house at a night, at this stage i think i'd struggle with a whole night of the non-stop rushing mentalism
Logan Sama
BestThereIsAtWhatIDo
There's a couple people playing bassline in London. Target and Cameo both do, but they predominantly play it at northern or midlands based events. There's not a Bassline scene in London really.
Funky house is guys like Supa D, Kismet, Marcus Nasty, Hotsteppa etc
Funky house is guys like Supa D, Kismet, Marcus Nasty, Hotsteppa etc
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Some guy has done a mix here.
http://www.wordthecat.com/goku/2007/08/20/bassbin-4-bassline-house/
Cos of the troubles the namebrand 'Niche' itself has been banned I think, it's at Club Vibe now. And it has shifted homes quite a few times.
When i went the other week a pilled up mate of mine got into a slight tiff with someone who then started moaning to the bouncer who encouraged my mate to smack the guy in the face! And they were telling everyone to smoke in the toilets cos they didn't want to let the smokers out of the building haha.
http://www.wordthecat.com/goku/2007/08/20/bassbin-4-bassline-house/
Cos of the troubles the namebrand 'Niche' itself has been banned I think, it's at Club Vibe now. And it has shifted homes quite a few times.
When i went the other week a pilled up mate of mine got into a slight tiff with someone who then started moaning to the bouncer who encouraged my mate to smack the guy in the face! And they were telling everyone to smoke in the toilets cos they didn't want to let the smokers out of the building haha.
something from me about the mixing of house, bassline, grime and dubstep in the summer resorts this year, amongst a skepta interview.
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Good looking mix here (with a Jamakabi tune).
http://forum.uptownrecords.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=1;t=47541
Bassline on the radio -
northernline shows on the fm dial
mondays with dj gs shine 87.9fm 8-10pm
tuesdays with reckless rinse 100.4fm
wednesdays with djundecided and keynos subjam 104.7fm 6-8pm
wednesdays with mystic matt true 100.2fm 8-10pm
http://forum.uptownrecords.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=1;t=47541
Bassline on the radio -
northernline shows on the fm dial
mondays with dj gs shine 87.9fm 8-10pm
tuesdays with reckless rinse 100.4fm
wednesdays with djundecided and keynos subjam 104.7fm 6-8pm
wednesdays with mystic matt true 100.2fm 8-10pm
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likely old hat to most of you, tho this particular mix haunts my house like a herd of fat phantoms lately:
DJ Fiskin UK Garage Mix
01 : Omar - Nothing Like This (Duncan Powell 'Alternative Intro' Remix)
02 : Nina Jayne - Circles (Delinquent 'Nu-Soul' Refix)
03 : MJ Cole & Karl 'Tuff Enuff' Brown ft. Vula - Our Destiny (Original Mix)
04 : Artifact - Touch Me
05 : Amy Winehouse - Pumps (MJ Cole Remix)
06 : Paleface ft. Nina Jayne - Like A Feather (Delinquent Remix)
07 : Top-T & Danny C ft. Jade & Supplier MC - Magic (Original Mix)
08 : D.I.Y ft. Kaya - Feelin' High
09 : Delinquent ft. Shad - Ghetto Queen (Nu Skool 2-Step Mix)
10 : MJ Cole ft. Shea - Never Say Never (Original Mix)
11 : Jon B - Lately (Wookie Vocal Remix)
12 : Jodeci - Cry 4 U (Afrodeziaks Vocal Remix)
13 : John Legend - Ordinary People (Wookie Vocal Remix)
14 : DJ Fabion - Bass 2K (FiSKiN Special Mix)
15 : Low Deep - Straight Flush (Original Mix)
16 : IMP Batch - Gype Riddim
17 : D&G - Superdub
18 : Bossman - Bongo Eyes
19 : Lethal Bizzle ft. Fire Camp - No
20 : Lethal Bizzle - Uh Oh! (I'm Back)
21 : Dr Venom - Whisper (Scandalous Unlimited Remix)
22 : Bogeyman - Smelly
23 : Sunship ft. Warrior Queen - Almighty Father (Vocal Mix)
24 : Dexplicit - Bullacake
25 : Roll Deep - When I'm 'Ere
26 : Sparks & Kie - Fly Bi (DJ C 2005 Mash Up Mix)
27 : Antonio - I'll Take You There
28 : The Beloved - 1000 Years From Today (Todd Edwards Dub Mix)
29 : Strickly Dubz - Realise
30 : Antonio & Lee - Touching You (4 2 Da Floor Mix)
31 : Cloud 9 - Do You Want Me (Original Club Mix)
32 : Box Clever ft. Elizabeth Troy - Treat Me Right
http://www.madefordjs.co.uk/audio/mixaudio/fiskin_&_nv_-_promo_uk_garage_mix_05.mp3
DJ Fiskin UK Garage Mix
01 : Omar - Nothing Like This (Duncan Powell 'Alternative Intro' Remix)
02 : Nina Jayne - Circles (Delinquent 'Nu-Soul' Refix)
03 : MJ Cole & Karl 'Tuff Enuff' Brown ft. Vula - Our Destiny (Original Mix)
04 : Artifact - Touch Me
05 : Amy Winehouse - Pumps (MJ Cole Remix)
06 : Paleface ft. Nina Jayne - Like A Feather (Delinquent Remix)
07 : Top-T & Danny C ft. Jade & Supplier MC - Magic (Original Mix)
08 : D.I.Y ft. Kaya - Feelin' High
09 : Delinquent ft. Shad - Ghetto Queen (Nu Skool 2-Step Mix)
10 : MJ Cole ft. Shea - Never Say Never (Original Mix)
11 : Jon B - Lately (Wookie Vocal Remix)
12 : Jodeci - Cry 4 U (Afrodeziaks Vocal Remix)
13 : John Legend - Ordinary People (Wookie Vocal Remix)
14 : DJ Fabion - Bass 2K (FiSKiN Special Mix)
15 : Low Deep - Straight Flush (Original Mix)
16 : IMP Batch - Gype Riddim
17 : D&G - Superdub
18 : Bossman - Bongo Eyes
19 : Lethal Bizzle ft. Fire Camp - No
20 : Lethal Bizzle - Uh Oh! (I'm Back)
21 : Dr Venom - Whisper (Scandalous Unlimited Remix)
22 : Bogeyman - Smelly
23 : Sunship ft. Warrior Queen - Almighty Father (Vocal Mix)
24 : Dexplicit - Bullacake
25 : Roll Deep - When I'm 'Ere
26 : Sparks & Kie - Fly Bi (DJ C 2005 Mash Up Mix)
27 : Antonio - I'll Take You There
28 : The Beloved - 1000 Years From Today (Todd Edwards Dub Mix)
29 : Strickly Dubz - Realise
30 : Antonio & Lee - Touching You (4 2 Da Floor Mix)
31 : Cloud 9 - Do You Want Me (Original Club Mix)
32 : Box Clever ft. Elizabeth Troy - Treat Me Right
http://www.madefordjs.co.uk/audio/mixaudio/fiskin_&_nv_-_promo_uk_garage_mix_05.mp3
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Check out the Niche website - http://www.nicheallniter.co.uk/
Interesting that EZ is now on Bassline?
Got to love the tagline 'Naughty but Niche'.
Interesting that EZ is now on Bassline?
Got to love the tagline 'Naughty but Niche'.
Gabba Flamenco Crossover
High Sierra Skullfuck
First up I'm not claiming to be some expert on grime, this is just my 2c worth. I've never been into it on the level of individual artists & producers, so my take on it is macro.
I was at LSBU for two years with a lot of young guys from African backgrounds,and the music they listened to (and made themselves in a lot of cases) was in some hinterland between RnB, grime, bashment and hiplife, without being easliy characterisable as any of those. That got me thinking of grime in terms of a UK outpost of some international west African youth music.
Then I went to Ghana in the summer just gone, and I was hearing a lot of hiplife on the street that was darker and more aggressive than the hiplife you come across in the UK. From speaking to Ghanains who were into it, it seems this stuff is way underground because the money men won't go near anything with that nihilistic tone - hence most hiplife that gets released is sunny and romantic, and where it is political it's very earnest and conscious. So there's a kind of self-censorship going on, and the problems the underground hiplife artists have (misunderstood by the music industry, fear of compromise, trying to make money from a genre where the big fans won't or don't buy music) are similar to the problems the grime scene has in the UK.
This blog has some great info on the Ghanain music industry from someone who spent a lot longer there than I did.
Apparently they have big yard dances playing everything across the hiplife-ragga-RnB spectrum, but they don't seem to be into taping them. I tried to get tapes a few times but didn't have any joy
.I think the idea that grime evolved directly from UK garage is an orthodoxy worth challenging - which isn't to say that it didn't, just that people seem to say it without qualification. There's very little musical link between grime and UKG - to someone coming at it fresh, grime sounds much more like hiplife's dystopian twin. And there were few people of immediate west African descent involved in UKG, whereas in grime they form maybe the majority element, or at least a very significant minority (of course, there were far fewer west Africans in London in the late 90s than there are now).
PAUG and So Solid were MC-led garage that paved the way for grime, but the production is slick and centred around off-beat hi hats, and the MCing is smooth, it flows around the beats like honey. If I was to identify the most African elements of grime, it would be the jagged, sample-heavy production and the raucousness in the MCing , particularly the trick crews have of splitting the bar into a call-and-response, which maybe grime's single biggest vocal meme and had no precedent in any UK urban music before 2002-ish that I can see. It's got much more in common with African and Carribean music like hiplife, soca and Kuduru - and all of them in thier modern form involve people rapping across 4x4 beats running at around 125-140 bpm, hence maybe why people coming to Britain out of those subcultures felt an affinity with UKG.
In fairness to you and mos dan, the term 'grime' wasn't in currency with anyone I spoke to in Ghana. And Ghana as an anglophone country might be over-represented in grime compared to other west African nations because of the language connection.
And obviously the London-specific lyrics are, well, specific to London. But grime surely has to be about more than that, otherwise it's just urban Britpop (a concept that the more self consciously Lahhndan MCs skate dangerously close to IMO).
Grime is a hybrid music, but I stand by saying that it's roots are more west African than anything else. I'm not saying that Grime didn't develop in London, I'm just arguing for a recognition of it's international, African dimension. I'd like to see people looking at grime as African music influenced by UKG, rather than vice versa.
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viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Thanks for the wicked response mate.
Am at work so can't reply in full. Just wanted to point out
1. Loads of Grime is not sample heavy or indeed is totally sample free. Wiley has always used sound packs and has hardly sampled anything at all I don't think.
2. I think you characterisation of UKG - soft and glossy/Grime - hard and abrupt a little to easy. There were UKG tracks such as So Solid's 'Dilemma' that were incredibly sparse. And there are softer Grime tracks – e.g. the recent rash of ones keen to reassert their garage heritage by either resurrecting older UKG MCs or using deliberating older sounding garage beats (See Ruff Sqwads ‘From A Place’ Ft. Maxwell D, Skepta’s Duppy Ft. MC Creed and The Movements ‘Weighty’ Ft. Plaguelero).
3. Wiley. He get's his own point! Devoid of any immediate Africa heritage he makes tunes such as Icerink and Eskimo which do fit you stark/hard template. His lyrics from the dnb days (1997 on Rinse FM with DJ Trend and Riko) to the garage days (Say a PAUG set in 01/02) to the current days of warring with The Movement have been fairly similar - riding powerbikes, drawing gash, earning money, threatening opponent MCs. All classic stuff. His flow on dnb was quicker, but he sounds just as rough on ready on garage then as on grime now.
2. You say the call-and-response is taken from African music.
It could be argued that there is a clear precedent in US hiphop for this - eg the simply rhyming style pioneered by Run-DMC, for instance, which was then nicked by the Beastie Boys. This was a collaborative style with MCs finishing each others lines of etc. Of course you can say this originally came from Africa too!, from the Griots or what have you, but I guess we are talking about the shorter term. And pretty much every hiphop night i have ever been to has involved some call and response action. I know it's not exactly what you are talking about, but still....
In short, I think you are creating a false polarity between UKG and Grime. Whilst the ideas work really well as a theory I don’t think it holds together enough when examined in close detail. You are right to assert this African heritage and I am really curious and interested to hear more of this hiplife stuff. I just don’t think the position of ‘grime as African music influenced by UKG, rather than vice versa’ is reached. I still believe the Africa influence to be secondary to that of UKG.
Safe for posting mate, well interesting
Am at work so can't reply in full. Just wanted to point out
1. Loads of Grime is not sample heavy or indeed is totally sample free. Wiley has always used sound packs and has hardly sampled anything at all I don't think.
2. I think you characterisation of UKG - soft and glossy/Grime - hard and abrupt a little to easy. There were UKG tracks such as So Solid's 'Dilemma' that were incredibly sparse. And there are softer Grime tracks – e.g. the recent rash of ones keen to reassert their garage heritage by either resurrecting older UKG MCs or using deliberating older sounding garage beats (See Ruff Sqwads ‘From A Place’ Ft. Maxwell D, Skepta’s Duppy Ft. MC Creed and The Movements ‘Weighty’ Ft. Plaguelero).
3. Wiley. He get's his own point! Devoid of any immediate Africa heritage he makes tunes such as Icerink and Eskimo which do fit you stark/hard template. His lyrics from the dnb days (1997 on Rinse FM with DJ Trend and Riko) to the garage days (Say a PAUG set in 01/02) to the current days of warring with The Movement have been fairly similar - riding powerbikes, drawing gash, earning money, threatening opponent MCs. All classic stuff. His flow on dnb was quicker, but he sounds just as rough on ready on garage then as on grime now.
2. You say the call-and-response is taken from African music.
It could be argued that there is a clear precedent in US hiphop for this - eg the simply rhyming style pioneered by Run-DMC, for instance, which was then nicked by the Beastie Boys. This was a collaborative style with MCs finishing each others lines of etc. Of course you can say this originally came from Africa too!, from the Griots or what have you, but I guess we are talking about the shorter term. And pretty much every hiphop night i have ever been to has involved some call and response action. I know it's not exactly what you are talking about, but still....
In short, I think you are creating a false polarity between UKG and Grime. Whilst the ideas work really well as a theory I don’t think it holds together enough when examined in close detail. You are right to assert this African heritage and I am really curious and interested to hear more of this hiplife stuff. I just don’t think the position of ‘grime as African music influenced by UKG, rather than vice versa’ is reached. I still believe the Africa influence to be secondary to that of UKG.
Safe for posting mate, well interesting
mos dan
fact music
my good friend Alex Bok Bok booked Rekless (I'm sure there's no 'c' in his name, though Rinse FM disagrees) for the Party of the Year night at Corsica with DJ Assault... the guy tore it up, seriously.
there's more to come - you will be first to know Ben! Okay maybe not first.. but keep checking dot-alt tho
****
all that stuff from gabba and vv looks fascinating but i gotta dash out now. later! (btw i worked at lsbu for two years - didn't really meet any students tho)
some video of a bassline club. it so is northern 2step!
my good friend Alex Bok Bok booked Rekless (I'm sure there's no 'c' in his name, though Rinse FM disagrees) for the Party of the Year night at Corsica with DJ Assault... the guy tore it up, seriously.
there's more to come - you will be first to know Ben! Okay maybe not first.. but keep checking dot-alt tho
nice one man, thanks for the info
wish i'd been there at Corsica :slanted:Made a mix to bump this thread. Link to download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?0xbxjbqejcm
Tracklisting:
'If I Ever Feel Better' (Todd Edwards 'Little Dub' Remix) - Phoenix
'Heartbroken' - T2 feat. Jodie
'Straight Up' - Virgo
'Optimus Prime' - Rossi B And Luca
'Can't Stop' - Wong
'Gotcha' - Plasticman
'The Rush' - Plasticman
'Best Of Me' - Virgo
'Every Word' (Vocal Club Mix) - Tyken
'Smelly' - Bogey Man
'Dupps' - Skepta
'Decoy' (Triple Bass Mix) - Agent X
'Smelly' - Youngstar
'Straight Down The Middle' - Wiley
'I Do Me' (Ft Nio) - Virgo
'Closer To You' - JME
'What We Do' (Remix) - Horsepower Productions
Haven't touched the decks since start of August. Went through my music collection tonight and picked out these tracks and ordered them in itunes before then mixing them using Serato..
*dunno if the Virgo tracks are by him - nicked them off his mixtape*
http://www.mediafire.com/?0xbxjbqejcm
Tracklisting:
'If I Ever Feel Better' (Todd Edwards 'Little Dub' Remix) - Phoenix
'Heartbroken' - T2 feat. Jodie
'Straight Up' - Virgo
'Optimus Prime' - Rossi B And Luca
'Can't Stop' - Wong
'Gotcha' - Plasticman
'The Rush' - Plasticman
'Best Of Me' - Virgo
'Every Word' (Vocal Club Mix) - Tyken
'Smelly' - Bogey Man
'Dupps' - Skepta
'Decoy' (Triple Bass Mix) - Agent X
'Smelly' - Youngstar
'Straight Down The Middle' - Wiley
'I Do Me' (Ft Nio) - Virgo
'Closer To You' - JME
'What We Do' (Remix) - Horsepower Productions
Haven't touched the decks since start of August. Went through my music collection tonight and picked out these tracks and ordered them in itunes before then mixing them using Serato..
*dunno if the Virgo tracks are by him - nicked them off his mixtape*
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