Kiss and Tell
POP GOES THE MC 27 July 2008
Dizzee, Wiley, Calvin and Timmy (Mallet) - Observer Music Monthly’s Emma Warren on grime as populist innovation.
Welcome to grime 2008, where Dizzee Rascal hits number one with Calvin Harris in the same week as 20-year-old DJ Ironik goes top ten with his grime ballad ‘Stay With Me’; where Wiley plays Glastonbury with Hot Chip; and where JME and Skepta invent a Macarena-style dance for their refit of Wiley’s ‘Wearing My Rolex’ – and get Timmy Mallet to host a YouTube special inspired by the song.
Incidentally, the clip has kickstarted a new aspect of Timmy Mallet’s career: he now appears in the background of DJ Q and MC Bonez’s forthcoming bassline house single ‘U Wot’. It might have started as a definitely street-up underground sound but five years after Boy In Da Corner was released, grime worked out how to talk to the mainstream – and have fun doing it.
Since Roll Deep released the trenchantly pop The Avenue in 2005, MCs have been making grime pay by more than just shifting vanloads of Lords Of The Mic DVDs. These days (unless you’re unrepentantly gully new boy, Giggs) British MCs are more likely to be making neon-spattered videos for songs with big squelching electro basslines than skittering, icy PlayStation beats that characterised the early days.
Grime’s pop embrace is partly powered by the natural progression of hybrid British sounds from the underground to more mainstream success (see Dreem Team, Goldie or Pete Tong for some historical precedents) as well as a simple desire to make money. MCs have long had the kind of ‘on yer bike’ attitude to success that would make City Boys blush – but it also taps into grime’s roots in UK Garage. UKG hits like Shanks And Bigfoot’s ‘Sweet Like Chocolate’ and Pied Piper’s ‘Do You Really Like It’ might have grown from the grimy instrumental underground but were purposefully accessible to everyone. Grime also benefited from the way nu-rave insisted on the mash-up: three years on, The Ting Tings, mainstream indie heirs of nu-rave have just announced that they’re going to be working with Dizzee Rascal. Whilst the internet’s dispersed those old ideas about the underground and the mainstream, grime’s new pop colours (and the grimier acts on the margins) prove that the most interesting British pop music is still focused on that interface between upstart innovators and the mainstream. The phrase ‘grime massive’ never sounded quite so apt.
To hear the UK's only legal grime show tune into Logan Sama on Kiss 100 every Monday night at 11pm. Visit totalkiss.com/logan to view track listings, exclusive video interviews and to listen back to the show.
To find out about all things grime check out rwdmag.com and to download the latest tracks visit ukrecordshop.com.
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