I've always been staunchly against Grime as a sub-genre ever since its explosion on the UK urban scene a couple of years ago. It is, in a way, a twisted younger brother of the garage scene that came to have great success at the turn of the century. Grime has now not only took over the UK urban scene, but it seems to have ushered in 'bassline' music to share their wider audience.
Now... I wouldn't have an issue with Grime at all usually, as there are one or two other genres I don't fancy much that I don't feel the need to 'hate' on as whole (yes, this is a 'hater' article, I'm a blogger, ranting is what I do). The reason the genre is such a thorn in my earhole is because it claims to be hip-hop. Cross-over artists such as Dizzee Rascal & Sway came from the early grime scene to make a name for themselves, and their music is palatable to my ears because they are talented emcees that embraced the hip-hop culture within their sound. Dizzee Rascal, more notably, featured UGK on his last album, and has even managed to break America (apparently, I'm sure one or two US readers can shed light on that).
The reason Sway & Dizzee have made a name for themsleves from the Grime scene is because they have lyrical skills in abundance. Grime really gets on my wick because it is chock-full of untalented artists who have no right to call themselves such because all they do is talk slang and make gunshot sounds over sloppy frantic beats. Artists such as Bashy or Tinchy Strider are now getting ridiculous exposure, yet their music is nothing more than our very own version of the Souljah Boy type rap that is coming to the forefront in the US.
This is my first post in about a month now, due to me moving house and being without the internet. In this month the biggest UK urban release has been the soundtrack to 'Adulthood', a film basically about a bunch of illiterate ASBO kids in London that I really would not want to meet because their version of English is a mixture of txt spk and weed talk. There you go, who needs Jonathan Ross when I can be both informative and stereotypical about inner-city youts in one sentence.
This first post is here for a reason. I need to make a distinction between UK hip-hop and Grime. The line seems to have blurred in the last year and it worries me. New scenes bubble up to the surface all of the time and its healthy for music as a whole, but this site is 100% UK hip-hop. Grime is nothing more than a educationally-sparse teenager's hobby. Job done.
Proper posts coming soon. Transitions are occurring at the moment but hopefully we can get this site up and running ASAP. For now, support hip-hop. Throw away anything that has the words 'Oh My Days', 'Seeeeeeen' or 'Brrrrrrat!' on it.
Please voice your opinions on whether you think Grime has had a good or bad effect on UK hip-hop since its arrival on the scene in the comments section. I'd be very interested to see if I'm by myself in my thoughts on the music as it seems a lot of people have embraced it with open arms.
