It's endlessly surprising to me that this is only just being noticed by people now. When I was in school in the late 90s (well, before I ended up in London late '02, effectively), this shit was everywhere- it has been for fucking years. It's never changed, always been shite, and these MCs have always had the same weird half-american voices and awful lyrics.
That prancehall column (and the new Reynolds blog) are just scanning the surface. This stuff really has been around forever.
Look, these songs are from what, 97-98;
quality's shit but whatever.
etc;
I only wish there was a scousehousetapes.com now. There's also an MC culture of loads of young MCs in school etc.