Grime Times: AN INTRODUCTION.

 

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PLEASE NOTE; IT’S OFFICIAL:

OBJECTIVITY (doesn’t exist) HAS NO PLACE HERE. THIS SERIES IS TEN TRILLION PERCENT AN OPINION PIECE.

(To put it more accurately, this series is a hyper detailed microcosmic “TOP ___ GRIME MC’S EVER” list. Like the ones often found forever populating the comment sections of nearly all grime-based YouTube videos.)

IF YOU DETECT ANY ROMANTICISED PANGS OR LONGINGS FOR A CULTURAL NARRATIVE (within, for example, the UK’s music industry) THAT PRIORITISES AND PROMOTES NICHE EXPRESSION, HIGHER TECHNICAL ABILITY///PROFICIENCY AND EXPERIMENTATION IN BOTH FORM & CONTENT OF AN ART FORM (for example, mc’ing and producing within grime music) THEN YOU WOULD BE CORRECT IN DOING SO.

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It dawned on me a few months back that I have been listening to grime for over nine years. That is over a third of my life. The total amount of time that I have spent listening to this singular, yet multifaceted, genre alone warrants a personal retrospective account, but it isn’t simply the longevity of my listening that calls me to write about this: it is the impact that this genre has had on me from the get-go. Not only did I form part of my identity around my love of this musical genre, it also allowed me to form my first ideas around what being an artist and what creating a work of art, is.

As such, it is a genre of music held very close to my heart that has brought me hours and hours of joy over the many years and thusly I want to give something of substance back to the scene. You could even call this series of articles my love letter to grime (if you are so inclined feel free to take the time to pull up another tab, open up YouTube and put the instrumental version of Scorcher – My Diary on, so you can read this article with the tone set correctly).

But all those reasons and sentiments pale in comparison to a deeper and baser motivation:

I’M FUCKING FUMING.

It is 2016 and grime, as a genre, has never been bigger. It is being played by more commercial radio stations than ever, more MC’s are getting booked for festivals around the country than ever before and even man like Wiz Khalifa are collaborating with grime artists: it is safe to say that grime has finally made significant inroads into the mainstream, in a way that has been unprecedented since Wiley made Rolex.

So why am I so vexed?

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Before I get into the whiney-grimey let me give, at the very least, a tertiary description of what grime music is. Grime, when heard for the first time by the uninitiated could be, and is very often, mistaken for English hip-hop///rap, or worse, as a sub-genre of hip-hop///rap. This, to a degree, is an accurate way to describe the sound of grime music (at least in a contemporary ahistorical context): someone talking into a microphone over a semi-repetitive electronically created beat.

The best way to simultaneously recognise the similarities and differences between the grime and hip-hop is by first looking at their common cultural ancestor: Jamaican sound system culture. As you might have guessed, this sound system culture from the 1950’s involved big fucking speaker systems and a lot of fucking people, equaling a big fucking party. But there is more to it than that. Within this culture are the archetypal musical roles that we now know as MC///rapper and DJ: only at this time the Deejay (different to the hip-hop DJ or disc-jockey) was the one who “rapped” or toasted over the beat laid down by the selector, who chose the beats.

Toasting is the precursor for what is referred to as rapping (within hip-hop) and MC’ing (within grime). We can go back further still, and talk about the griots of West Africa that spoke or chanted stories over drummed beats with sparse instrumentation, if you like, but the point is clear: Americans were clearly not the first to talk over a beat and as such, grime is as much a sub-genre of hip-hop as hip-hop is as much a sub-genre of sound system, as much as sound system is a sub-genre of fucking griot tradition.

Moving on from their almost identical backbone, the differences between grime and hip-hop become obvious when you look at the musical genres that sound system fused with when Jamaicans moved to England and America. In America, sound system mixed with funk and disco, and in England it mixed with house and breakbeat. In America this mix created hip-hop and in England this mix not only birthed grime, but also jungle, garage, dubstep and bassline.

From this juncture, I feel it is easy to recognise the aspects of grime (in its music, culture and history) that make it distinct as a totally English creation. High(er) tempo///BPM beats, the affectation of hype and its connection to the rave scene (before the police effectively outlawed Eskimo dances). There are, of course, similarities between hip-hop and grime that extend beyond a shared cultural ancestry, but a lot of these stem from the conditions of production – the “hood”. All the greezy chat, all the rampant, proving masculinity, all the really realness – all this was pertinent first in hip-hop and then in grime. Does this content stem purely from the conditions of production? Or is it combination of both the conditions of production and pervasive Americanisation?

Much like the aforementioned other genres that came from the rave scene, grime was initially all about the live experience. This manifested itself in “clashes” (a 1 vs. 1 lyrical face-off between two MC’s in front of a live audience) that often took place at specially organised events called Eskimo Dances. Eventually, however, grime migrated from being a purely live experience and MC’s in the scene began recording tracks to be released on compilations – mixtapes.

This little evolution allows me to bring up a point that is central to my decision of who to include in this article series. Musical genres evolve and change and grime is as open to that as any other. As such, grime is a multifaceted genre with different MC’s exemplifying differing aspects. Due to this, my selections are not the result of a “paint-by-numbers checklist” where every MC ever is compared against the same standard – those selected are chosen on their own individual merits, of which I will divulge in the specific articles.

So, why am I vexed?

I just think that there are certain man that deserve to be championed and celebrated, more than others that currently are. Most of the people I have in mind deserved to be championed from way back, after their first couple years in the scene, and I know that I’m not the only person who feels this way.

It is nothing new to be annoyed and exacerbated at the vast discord and disparity between your own point of view and that of others. This series isn’t about that difference – it is about celebrating those who have yet to be publically recognised as some of THE BEST EVER, and those who are only just now being recognised as that.

It is about bringing impassioned, personal, critical analysis to a scene that has a rich history and hopefully a richer future.

These are my love letters to grime.