Grime-where did it all go wrong?

[benjybars]

lets face it, grime is shit. it didn't used to be, it probably doesn't have to be, but it is.

what went wrong?

was it MCs realising there wasn't millions to be made? that the scene wasn't going to break through en masse and revolutionise the british music industry? that beleif they could make it seemed to fuel a lot of the belief and drive and fervour of the scene.
was it trying to be hiphop? the sub hiphop stuff really is intolerable. gangsterz? no thanks mate. know we was much better. what a regression. wiley lost it years ago,at least as an MC.
is it that beef bollocks? no raves? no record sales? hipster acclaim?
how come NO MC EVER GOT BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ? how come everyone just stayed on the same level or deteriorated?
what happened to new talent? how come no one has come along (apart from a couple,doctor for example) who is on the same level or better as the first stars like shark major,dizzee and d double? how come the nasty crew sets from de ja are still the best thing to have emerged from the scene? why are the youngers all so bad? what went wrong?

OH MY DAYS.... what are you on luka??!! wiley's about a million times better than he was a couple of years ago... no new mc's??.... scorcher, fuda guy, dolla. No good youngers??... devlin, ears, lightning. Nearly EVERY mc is better than they were a few of years, some massively so.. Slicks, Stryder, Footsie, SKEPTA & JME!!!! and how can you still be stuck on the nasty crew deja vu sets.. haven't you heard any ruff sqwad sets from the last 18 months?? ok, there's loads of shit mcs around, but there always were.. the good ones are much better though.

ok, the beats have changed quite a lot, and there is something great about hearing the minimal, bass heavy riddims from early grime... BUT there's still LOADS of great beats being made.. Duppy and shangooli (scratchy's one) are as good as anything done from 2002-03..

i dunno, maybe you suddenly felt ridiculous listening to teenagers spittin about shankin eachother in the ribs. fair enough. that doesn't mean grime has suddenly become shit though.

 

[Poisonous Dart]

I've lived through this before!

that is crap, isnt it simon? grime's decline has nothing to do with dubstep. And people can't have it both ways - argue for years that grime's next level in terms of production and then blame dubstep for it the moment grime sound plateaus. frankly nothing on a playstation ever beat Boy In Da Corner, and that was made on Logic and a big fat outboard desk.

As much as i'd love there to be more, there's only limited overlap between grime and dubstep beyond the interest from jammer/skepta/tubby/wiley in FWD and skream beats. and skream uses Fruity...

but anyway i'm still into the scene but my issues with grime at the moment are that the new MCs think war and slewing is the whole purpose of grime MCing, whereas when say Trim, Doctor or Bearman drop bars, they're a joy of content and wordplay. so with so many newschool MCs all you get is this wall of reflexive hate or quick reload bars like 'Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing/Bang him!!!!' - Which is fine as the exception but not as the rule.

also the wow factor isn't there but that's to be expected. grime felt so fresh compared to 2step and was growing so quickly, but now it's comparing itself with its past glories, something that's harder to compete with.

finally the spirit of hope from the MCs to blow in contrast with the realities of their commercial prospects is starting to become depressing for me because the reality is if someone like Skepta can't get a deal, they're all doomed right now. add to this the depression that the scene can't colaborate with itself enough to start businesses because of all the warring, and the ugly major label machine has locked its doors tightly... well it just makes me sad .

Grime is in the same place now that hip hop was in 1981, 1985, 1990, 1997 and RIGHT NOW. Where is the next evolution? Who will step up and carry the flag, now? Why aren't the new, younger emcees any better? Why are they so influenced by outside cultures and not respecting the originators? Does EVERYTHING have to beef/street tales/drug songs/threats of physical violence over a beat for 16+ bars over a beat that sounds like a thousand you've already heard before? The answer is DIG DEEPER! There are LOADS of new emcees and producers making remarkable Grime right now...even I know that and I'm NOWHERE NEAR LONDON! You're clearly overreacting, man. One.

 

[the undisputed truth]

hiphop got exported and assimilated by local cultures grime can't do that cos it's very much a UK thing...

...does grime eat it's young like hiphop does ???

 

[Poisonous Dart]

Huh?

hiphop got exported and assimilated by local cultures grime can't do that cos it's very much a UK thing...

...does grime eat it's young like hiphop does ???

Even though people always argue that Grime has been drawing too much from rap/hip hop like the Dipset and DubStep and venturing into Grindie, etc? Isn't that similar to when hip hop starting mixing and collaborating with GoGo, Rock, and Reggae in the mid to late 80's and early 90's?

As for the last part, the question remains to be answered....One.

 

[the undisputed truth]

the difference is if it doesn't have that sort of UK nasal twang, staccato flow and quickfire delivery is it grime ???

...cos I can't see any other country accurately reproducing that. It's so much harder to fake than a jamaican patois chatter thing si methinks grime is destined to be just a UK novelty

how does grime differ now from so solid and oxide/neutrino when they was going off ???

surely if it can't be distinguished from that, then UK mainstream pop has already had it's filthy way with it and has now kicked it back to the kerb...

...it probably needs its safe white posterboy geezer ala streets before getting another drink from the mainstream

 

[carmen]

a lot of things went wrong

Playing Nasty Crew Crazy T Durrty Doogz on Deja(2003).MP3.

kano's quirky and jumpy in this. right before the devolution into trying to be an american hiphop artist.. lets face it, you made that boys like girls like boys track, clever, unique - and twitchy. this emphasis on 'major labels' as somehow being key, and then styling your output to try to pander to what was successful for THEM in the past, is ridiculous. why reward them with good stuff to release if theyve been so blind? and even worse, why stoop to their levels?

one look at JME's myspace and you cant argue that the 'new economy' aint real.

if wiley's mixtape sucks, he sucks . end of story i havent bought it. i guess Boy Better Know had me thinking they were all going to be good but after buying the DogZ/Devlin thing which turned out to be a bunch of shouty crap, theyve done way better stuff on radio. especially dogz, why try to be syer when i know i heard a show aobut a year ago that was all sorts of pensive crap pontificating on life and other stuff, and none of it was yelling mind you. obviously some people would hate this but at least its unique.. Tinchy, same story. ridiculous ruffsquad set from last summer, proably a half dozen of these awesome smooth i almost want to way 'Warren G' regulate-style G-funk tunes and of course none of them were on his CD either. if theyre saving these tunes for real album deals, thats fine. otherwise i think they could benefit from the guidance of someone with some A&R skill, if those people still exist. im beginning to think they don't..

i do remember a mixtape that was even better than radio. an East Connection thing from 2003. it sounded like a bunch of elves in the studio hopped up on some kind of bizarre woodland root extract mixed with tweak constantly whipping out new tracks every 30 seconds and weaving it all together with lyrical spiderwebs which ended up more like some haphazard application of ductape in between falling-apart boxes of grime..

at the very least, Grime needsa new name. i think the last time anyone besides maybe a pitchfork journalisnt or the bi-ennial article in the Guardian used this term to refer to the music was when dropping a dub of Pulse X, circa late 2001. the word virtually ensures that its always going to sound like a scientist examining some bizarre culture with a long-range
microscope and barring it from the classier boutiques and areas of town

or wait, Dirty South, where dirt == grime. that's not it either. maybe its because everyone is on the dole?

 

[MATT MAson]

I'm not sure I buy grime being held back because it's called grime. Punk did pretty well even though punk was a derogatory term (I'm not saying people never tried to hold back punk bands - they did - but it didn't seem to make a difference in the long run).

I would even go so far as to say grime has done better in the press because of its image. Like Luka said, funky house is dominating the pirates and clubs now and has been for a while, but most music journos don't want to cover it because they can't think of anything interesting to say about it. And as much as I like house, there isn't loads to say. Grime on the other hand was a journalists wet dream - the links back to hip hop and the rave scene, post-postmodernism comparisons to punk and reggae, the rise and fall of So Solid and all the other violence, there was so much to harp on about. It was a story.

But the story is getting kind of boring. There are still loads of talented artists in the scene and a some good records, just like there are still good records in every genre, but no one is taking much notice because for whatever reason, grime hasn't struck a chord with a wider audience. I understand the way Martin feels about it, it does grind you down and start to feel kind of hopeless; watching talented artist after talented artist get nowhere. But as Logan (sort of) put it, maybe it would be better if the mainstream lost interest and those serious about the scene could just get on with it.

Maybe it's just me but it feels like it's time for something new. There are so many things to rebel against in Britain (and everywhere else) right now, so much stuff that isn't being said and no scene/movement is collectively doing it. It's a shame.

 

[Blackdown]

I would even go so far as to say grime has done better in the press because of its image. Like Luka said, funky house is dominating the pirates and clubs now and has been for a while, but most music journos don't want to cover it because they can't think of anything interesting to say about it...

Free the oppressed funky 'ouse mandem!!! winebar crew dis one you, oi oi!

only joking matt. seriously for a second, i think grime got a lot of short term press because of the novelty factor but now as we get into the longer term magazines are all 'sorry we did a grime feature this year already!' They dont say that about indie!

but you're right, the narrative is starting to grate or at least bore. ok yes you want to shank and bore every one... oh and your mate does too? i think that's why doctor and bearman rhyming about various animals and eating goldilocks on the Tru Tiger tape was such a breath of fresh air.

 

[luka]

paul meme, if you want gangsters,theyre into funky house too so you can relax about your dubstep nights.

bruno, if i could put the tapes on the internet i promise i would. simon silverdollar can. he'll do it. i hope.

as far as no mcs getting better,alright, that was an exaggeration,ruff sqaud have got better, but remember how bad they were to begin with,it would be hard not to improve from such a low base. kano got better. skepta.

i don't think devlin and lightning are as good as sharkie and dizzee and d double e. you might.

i don't think grime is dead, i just think it needs a next ends to take control,like south london or nottingham or something,take it in a new direction.

 

[simon silverdollar]

that is crap, isnt it simon? grime's decline has nothing to do with dubstep. And people can't have it both ways - argue for years that grime's next level in terms of production and then blame dubstep for it the moment grime sound plateaus. frankly nothing on a playstation ever beat Boy In Da Corner, and that was made on Logic and a big fat outboard desk.

.

i'm not 'blaming' dubstep for anything. i actually think that the recent dubstep i've heard is really exciting. i was just saying that recently there's been a tendency for darker, richer, more 'textured' grime tracks, and i think that partly due to grime producers listening to dubstep, or listening to grime producers who listen to dubstep, like Tubby, or Footsie, or Jammer. it may be due to other factors as well, of course.

compare jammer's recent productions to the old sino-grime sound he used to have, and now he's much darker and less obviously melodic. i think this is also true of wiley, to an extent.

sure there's still people like slew dem banging out that raw, frantic grime sound, but it is becoming less common, particularly on the big pirate shows- roll deep, newham generals, even mac 10.

i'm not even sure that it's as simple as saying that this is 'grime's decline'. it is a progression, and it is pushing the sound into new areas. that's interesting and exciting, and definitely preferable to grime staying the same year after year. i really admire it, but i just don't love it.

 

[SIZZLE]

It does seem that the first burst of music hipster interest has petered out as the scene has become less of a novelty. And that certainly will have an effect, I see the grime backlash happening in different places and the same 'oh, we had those guys last year we don't want them again' thing happening. However, I think that this may actually be a helpful moment of the scene. The hyperbole is dying down, the artists are starting to get a realistic look at the playing field and are starting to move accordingly. Most importantly they're starting to realize that they have to act and be independent, and do things for themselves. This is a long slow process but I think it will work for them, and it will shift the focus away from 'getting signed' and outsider approval.

I think with both Boy Better Know and The Movement moving to the front of the scene there is no question about whether there are good producers and MCs about. And I am still finding plenty of good new records coming out, and I know about a few things in the pipeline that are really great, like Jammer's album.

But yes, I have no problem with the scene going back underground, dissensians losing interest, etc. I think that this last hype period was pretty premature due to the lack of infrastructure and now people are finally starting to get their acts together and start effectively from square one. The good thing is that since Grime is so intensely local it doesn't really matter that much if we listen to it, it will continue to bubble on the underground as it has done till now.

 

[simon silverdollar]

. frankly nothing on a playstation ever beat Boy In Da Corner, and that was made on Logic and a big fat outboard desk.

As much as i'd love there to be more, there's only limited overlap between grime and dubstep beyond the interest from jammer/skepta/tubby/wiley in FWD and skream beats. and skream uses Fruity...

.

yr right, i was too quick to link changes in sound to changes in production techniques.

 

[simon silverdollar]

It does seem that the first burst of music hipster interest has petered out as the scene has become less of a novelty. And that certainly will have an effect, I see the grime backlash happening in different places and the same 'oh, we had those guys last year we don't want them again' thing happening. However, I think that this may actually be a helpful moment of the scene. The hyperbole is dying down, the artists are starting to get a realistic look at the playing field and are starting to move accordingly. Most importantly they're starting to realize that they have to act and be independent, and do things for themselves. This is a long slow process but I think it will work for them, and it will shift the focus away from 'getting signed' and outsider approval.

I think with both Boy Better Know and The Movement moving to the front of the scene there is no question about whether there are good producers and MCs about. And I am still finding plenty of good new records coming out, and I know about a few things in the pipeline that are really great, like Jammer's album.

But yes, I have no problem with the scene going back underground, dissensians losing interest, etc. I think that this last hype period was pretty premature due to the lack of infrastructure and now people are finally starting to get their acts together and start effectively from square one. The good thing is that since Grime is so intensely local it doesn't really matter that much if we listen to it, it will continue to bubble on the underground as it has done till now.

i guess the big question is whether the loss of 'hipster interest' is due to grime losing its novelty, or the actual sound of grime changing. i think it's probably both.

 

[luka]

i'm the fickle sort. i stopped listening to jungle in 95 cos i thought it had got shit.

 

[luka]

its not just the hipsters losing interest.

 

[simon silverdollar]

.

As much as i'd love there to be more, there's only limited overlap between grime and dubstep beyond the interest from jammer/skepta/tubby/wiley in FWD and skream beats. and skream uses Fruity...

.

but you've just named the biggest producers in grime there. if the biggest producers are beginning to overlap with dubstep, i think it's fair to say that the grime sound is beginning to overlap in some ways witn dubstep (as i've said before, i think this overlap is less to do with sonics, and more in terms of what the tracks try to do- there's now a common focus on dark atmospherics and thick, heavy productions in dubstep and some grime)

 

[SIZZLE]

I think a lot of people in Grime are getting into the sub-pressure idea that dubstep places so much emphasis on, Request Line is definitely not dark but has a fucked up bass drop and I think that's drawing peoples attention as well, especially since grime went so far away from heavy sub for a while. As far as I can see the 'dark' moods of dubstep haven't been the ones that have hopped across, it's more Skream in his melodic mode and DMZ wobble stuff (which I don't find dark although it's not really melodic). Also some of the stuff with more reggae ideas in it as well, like Iron Souls Sleng Teng version, heard Jam go sick over that on a J5 set saying 'Hold tight my Dad, I know he'd like this' and bigging up all the Abashanti sound men saying 'this is where this comes from'.

 

[the undisputed truth]

Hey sizzle...

...how do you reckon some o dat grimey shit would sound over some HELL_SD beats ???

 

[Tactics]

sizzle you are so f****** big I swear...

*claps hands*

your replies are so spot on...I dunno what else to say as you've covered it all...jus thought i'd show some appreciation...were you the guy sitting on the stairs in jammer's basement on Risky Roadz?

ooh ooh actually I'll jus add this...general production levels have gone down imo...i can see things getting more of a reggae influence (which is good for my people cos we are headed in the other direction) and a generic sample led sped up hip hop influence (which is again good for us!)...the time of the weird innovation and sounds (which drew me to the music in the first place) seems to be dead...will i ever hear something like 'eskimo devil mix', 'I Luv U' or 'creepy crawler' again? well D.O.K is still going....

 

[Woebot]

I remember getting heavily slagged on Dissensus for my Stylus review of Run the Road 2. I think a lot more people might share some common ground with me now:

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/various-artists/run-the-road-volume-2.htm

(winces) not sure i'm gonna let you get away with that patrick!

that was a shit compilation from a time when there were good records being released.

also you made the lazy error of trying to use it as a guage of the entire scene.

----

to go to luka's point. i've been really wary of making pronouncements like this. partly because i gave up on jungle in 1996 and i reckon i may have missed out at least a year of quality music. i haven't bought a single grime record this year (from january 1st) but i cherish each and every one i did buy...actually REALLY enjoyed my first "Grime Scene" comp yesterday....

what went wrong? well, it matured didn't it. it fullfilled all its potentialities.