while i can understand gareth's (and other's) reluctance to hear sonic carryover from rave/jungle/ukg in grime, i have to agree with paul that i can clearly hear all of them still. for example:
- you heard mentasms in "garage rap" right up through (at least) early 2003, and i doubt we've heard the last of them (you hear them in us rap now, which means the feedback loop is only going to continue.)
- tracks like "i luv u", "tingz in boots", "raw 2 the core" and others clearly owe at least some of their beats to gabba/hardcore. (as well as the more butcher's block-y end of techstep.)
- sped-up vocals (it's really silly to pretend this is because they're all rap fans listening to kanye)
- "vocal science"
- bass (the way grime handles bass is totally sourced in jungle and ukg and has very little to do with us rap's either jazz-funk "live" bass or 808 bass...something like wonder's "what?" clearly owes some of that doomy oozing sound to stuff like "shadowboxing"...it seems really obvious to me that a lot of the grime MC's/producers go their start in that late-era dnb. wiley's octave jumping is pretty jump-up, if you ask me. and you still hear lots of plinky xylobass stuff.)
- a lot of the melodies seem designed, queerly, to be heard on ecstacy. the drugs have changed, but the sound is part of the collective memory...maybe they just like it.
- a lot of grime is just sheery nuttiness. that "because i'm dirty" track on the ruff sqwad mixtape is all bells, whistles, and dynamics, very acen/hyper-on.