favourite wiley non-sequiturs

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
plus two bits I forgot before:

you can't find me I am like Nemo (a line I swear is in like 40% of his bars)

also, the whole tiger bit at the end of Goin Mad, you can't slew this tiger/not this tiger/I am the hungriest tiger etc. made even better by Goodz's "you're a big man and you're rapping about tigers"
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Wiley's got much more in common with George Clinton than any of the hiphop producers, and has certainly taken Clinton's business model and run with it.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
hopefully he hasnt got clinton's lack of royalties...

Well, he went solo a lot sooner than George did. Roll Deep is royalties split 9/10 ways, which is pretty much "Yeah, good luck", but he's put out almost what... Four, or five decently selling records, a couple of charting singles, tours a lot, has only one child to support to my knowledge. I think Wiley's doing OK.
 

Patrick Swayze

I'm trying to shut up
this one is bewildering, for multiple reasons (like, is a 70s U.S. cop show really that famous to Wiley's audience? I dunno). anyway:

don't get happy cos you get a few pairs of free shoes/I'm famous like Hill Street Blues

they used to show repeats in the daytime on channel 4 maybe, not sure

/

not sure on this lyric exactly but:

not thinkin of lyrics when im in my yard chillin watchin madagascar, half my scene's starched like I am a plasterer (? lol), I am a rasta
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Wiley's got much more in common with George Clinton than any of the hiphop producers, and has certainly taken Clinton's business model and run with it.

Not too familiar with George Clinton's story apart from the music - what kind of business model did he have?

Obvious point, but I'm always struck by how savvy RZA was at the beginning of the Wu-Tang, with attaching each solo member to a different label.
 

woops

is not like other people
Obvious point, but I'm always struck by how savvy RZA was at the beginning of the Wu-Tang, with attaching each solo member to a different label.

This book is amazing, all of you go and read it, I'm looking forward to the Wiley equivalent, it would be the greatest
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
think youre all giving wiley too much credit. hes more like lee perry, a genius, but a bit out to sea. maybe hes making major ps with all his various deals, i wouldnt know, but hes not really like clinton or rza - if he was, hed be getting roll deep members individual solo contracts, starting his own labels, and creating a whole mini cottage industry around himself and his affiliates. all hes doing is signing deals, getting out of them (is he getting booted or leaving?) as they all seem short term anyway, and moving onto the next one. hes lucky that he can just move from one to the next, that he has that option, most grime mcs dont have that, but hes a one man operation. clinton and rza looked after and created mini empires. wiley could never be like the rza as he doesnt seem to know how to produce an artist. i cant ever see him crafting an album around roll deep members like wu-tang had in the 90s. shame, cos id love to have seen albums from riko, trim, and so on that really brought out what they were about. wiley does care about grime, the scene and the music and helping other artists, maybe he just doesnt have the option to do what rza did, but ultimately hes pretty much about himself.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Yeah Lee Perry is more on the money actually.

Clinton signed and resigned himself and various groups under different names for single album deals across a spread of labels - I think he was the first to do that - and therefore gave himself more creative and artistic freedom. That only came after he'd been knocking around for about 15 years though, so give Wiley some time yet.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
true. wiley has had since nicoles groove though! i think if he was going to do a wu-style thing i think he wouldve done it by now. actually, megaman was much more modelled around rza/the wu, just cos wu tang were still in peoples consciousness at that time, with crews being big and all that. the crew era has passed though. i think wiley knows its all about him and wiley just isnt a business minded guy (he has more important things to concentrate on, like hoovering on a webstream). roll deep still make albums and are doing ok, but the dream of doing it like ruff ryders, wu tang, or even so solid did back then i think has gone from the grime consciousness.
 
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petergunn

plywood violin
I dunno, to me Wiley generated so much good will from 2000-08 (Nicole's Groove through the end of Tunnel Vision) that even if he makes shitty pop records - it would be nice if they were better pop records (Ed fucking Sheeran? ugh), but hey - from now until the end of time it can't be overcome. I can't think of any producer besides RZA who can match his output, even w/lower quality control post-2005. and RZA, or Ye or Dre or whoever, was never half the MC he was, never simultaneous the best producer and at least in the argument for best MC (Goodz is the most lyrical, Dizzee made the best album, Trim prob has the best style, but for my $ Wiley at his best was the best). it's like RZA/GZA, or Ye/Jay, or Dre/Cube, rolled into one megalithic, unstoppable force. while trying to sort out my top 50 00s nuum list I spent the last couple weeks going through his whole back catalog again (I ain't listened a lot of it in yrs + yrs) and it's totally plausible, if you include PAUG and Roll Deep and stuff produced for other people, to construct a top 50 of just Wiley (well and Dizzee). that is crazy. I mean you can't say that for that the 90s. not for Goldie, or Remarc, or 4 Hero, or Grant Nelson, or whoever. for all they did not one owned that entire period like Wiley. I dunno. I'm probably not the best judge since I feel about Wiley's prime the way some people do about the Beatles, or MBV, but it's kind of unimaginable. so if he wants to chase the $ + celebrity (real celebrity, not king of grime celebrity), ok. plus, I find it amusing that like always he was on the cutting edge, even when it came to selling out

the Step freestyles were as good as any grime that came out last year, so he's still making good tunes...

you're right, when Wiley is ON, he's as good as any grime MC on the mic...

when he's making beats, it seems like something intuitive, how he uses odd time signatures and things, it just seems like a natural expression, whereas when he MC's, he doesn't seem as effortless as someone like Trim, it seems like hard work to him...
which makes the fact that's become famous as an MC and not a producer kinda interesting...
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Remember JME's "Pence", where the pattern actually falls in and out of time at a certain point? Speaking of surreal Wiley things.
 

petergunn

plywood violin
last night on rinse:

"i do it for real, that's why i'm still firing
i could bring a monkey and a lion in
that's who i am, i wear my own garms
and do my own ironing"
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
so here's what someone said in the grime forum thread on this very topic

this kind of weird yet on point ness is why wiley is the king of grime

"weird yet on point ness" is the best definition I've seen for what you might call the quality of Wileyness, the I am the meaning-ness

this is the specific bar the above quote was in reference to btw

"talk it, walk it, murkin wileys so awkward send your top soundboy forwarrrrrd, its you again the boy from unsurewood, not as confident you've got your face on the floorwood, wanna keep fire camp going need more wood, sure could do with a few more stars, i'll swing fire camp from stratford to northwood, i sure would, i sure would"
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
so in reference to Steps

definitely the best thing he's done in years (since the end of Tunnel Vision probably) and there are some nice moments but there's nothing comes close to ca 2006 Wiley. like, technically he's if anything more proficient, and he still has his ear for beats, but the shit he says, anyone could say it you know? it ain't got the weird angles or the depth. or the on-pointedness really. Wiley created this whole dense reality Wu-Tang style, first the eskimo/ice/blizzard thing but also then all the other weird shit he made into tropes - tigers, lemons*, drinking tea, Black Star Lines, wizards, Huaraches, eating various types of South Asian food - alongside the typical grime slewing/self-promotion etc. and steps don't got none of that, really. and none of is even in the same galaxy as Crash Bandicoot or WD25 or Nightbus Dubplate or what have you. tho tbf most MCs not named Trim have never even made one song that good.

tbc, I definitely ain't complaining about man releasing a ton of free, mostly great music. and he still got his ear for beats, clearly. and he can still kick out killer one-liners now + then. speaking of which.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
when he's making beats, it seems like something intuitive, how he uses odd time signatures and things, it just seems like a natural expression, whereas when he MC's, he doesn't seem as effortless as someone like Trim, it seems like hard work to him...

this is OTM

though i think he was much more effortless sounding as an MC in the PAYG days, and even early roll deep era. it started to sound harder for him, or like he was exerting himself much more to the point where you could hear him really straining to sound like he was 'going for it' almost around 2005/06 i would say. theres a difference in his voice on things like 2 far with dizzee which is pretty agile compared to what came after.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
some of my favorite lines from the Steps

"But I got a spear for you, it's called Britney"

"How you gonna belittle me when you never had a better vibe than a little me"

"and I fly like a eagle/marked for death, Steven Seagull" (ok I know he's saying Seagal but it really sounds like seagull, which is hilarious. if he actually is saying Steven Seagull that becomes one of my fave Wiley lines ever)

"big up my travel agents"
 
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