Today I was introduced to a music genre that I had no idea existed. Upon hearing Wiley's "Wearing My Rolex" and conducting further research led to my discovery of the England exclusive genre of grime music. Although you can trace part of my ancestry back to the English countryside, I would hardly describe myself as even remotely in-touch with the plethora of British underground music cultures. So, for all those living on my side of the pond, what the hell is grime music?!
According to the academically acclaimed Wikipedia, Grime is a sub-genre of urban music which first emerged in London during the early 2000s, primarily as a development of UK garage, dancehall, and hip hop. Grime music is typified by complex 2-step breakbeats, generally around 130 beats per minute and constructed from unorthodox sounds. The lyrics and music combine futuristic electronic elements and dark, guttural bass lines. Described by writer Hattie Collins as "an amalgamation of UK Garage with a bit of drum'n'bass, a splash of punk and a touch of hip-hop thrown in for good measure."
Now that most of us are on the same page we can dive into Wiley's, a British rapper pegged as one of the genre's founders, sizzling track "Wearing My Rolex". The song has been surging through England & the States over the past few months, been remixed a ton of times, and been a nice precursor to Wiley's forthcoming album Grime Wave which became available Saturday exclusively on Avalanche. Below is the original track, an awesome Hot Chip cover that Heather recently featured, and a hilarious video using the song as a parody to McCartney's recent £24.3 million split with Heather Mills.
[MP3] Wiley - Wearing My Rolex (Radio Edit)
[MP3] Hot Chip - Wearing My Rolex (BBC's Live Lounge; via I Am Fuel, You Are Friends)
Perhaps our British readers could lend us some cultural insight into the grime scene?
14 comments:
Seriously, you're a music blog and you don't know "grime" music. wow, my faith in this site just dropped a ton. In the US some ppl consider grime to be the same as "dub-step" though grime (to me) is more rap based than the latter.
Check out dizzee rascal for one of the best selling Grime artists and for Dub-Step I prefer Drop The Lime, but that is a personal preference. enjoy your new ventures into an exciting new arena of music.
Is this really unique enough to be considered a new genre? More categories, more food for the prententious...like Goober there in the first post. *Eye roll* for the little person.
This post raised my own "faith in this site" because it further shows the writers don't claim to know everything and anything about all things music. I don't feel talked down to here. Sorry if that's what you're going for ;-)
The so-called "goober" in the first post does strike a good point. Grime has been covered pretty extensively and even achieved some U.S. market success with Dizzee Rascal.
It's not like we're saying IGIF sucks because they haven't heard of something that was covered so much on Pitchfork and the like that I don't even think it's still an active fad.
We're just saying "wow, you haven't heard of that, really?"
man, you guys are so friendly!
2nd anon, thanks, Sorry for coming off so pretentious to the others. I guess some of us are older and have been reading blogs, magazines, other sources for more than a few years and remember all the big hype 5 and 6 years ago about Roll Deep, Dizzy, Wiley (Eskimo), and the others who we thought would come and go but seem to have stayed.
1st anon, you're right as well. The IGIF writers are just people and they don't know it all. But it's also surprising when this is a blog about buzz music essentially. what's big before it's big and Grime was soooo big before. But I guess we all miss some boats.
It's easy for others to point fingers and noses up, but when it comes down to it the writers are writing and we're just reading and judging and not writing.
IGIF, I'll still rss feed you..
I've heard the music, but I haven't heard the category 'Grime' before. So what. How anyone can keep up with all the electronic music genres is beyond me. I defy anyone who can give me a specific sample for each one of these categories:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electronic_music_genres
And what's the point, anyway?
FYI, Dizzee Rascal is much bigger in the UK than in the states.
Is it me, or does anyone else expect Chris Kattan to start bobbing his head as this song plays? Just sounds like lame techno-disco to me, albeit with a really clever video. And, you gotta admire someone who doesn't claim to know everything about every alleged music "genre".
I'll put in a little mention for the grime resurrection by Lethal Bizzle (formerly of More Fire Crew) a couple of years ago, which turned into 'grindie'. But I think most grime enthusiasts never accepted that as a genre anyway.
The Wiley promo stuff is pretty funny, I'm enjoying this vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-qbtm50epU
Some of the artists mentioned in that vid (e.g Tinchy Stryder) could be considered grime. Maybe.
I am shocked you havent heard of grime before and i am little more shocked that you actually think Wearing my rolex is a good intro the genre.
Wearing my rolex is an Electro house track, its dance music, just with a vocal from a grime artist.
Check out...
"Dizzee Rascal"- Pussyole, Fix up look sharp, Jus a rascal, Where's da g's, Sirens.
"Akala" - Shakespeare
"Kano" - P's and Q's, Typical me, Reload it
"Lethal Bizzle" - Police on my back, Pow, Babylon's burning.
"Wiley" - Wot do you call it?,Gangsters.
"Marvin" - I hate my job
"Sway" - Flo Fashion, Up your speed
"Skepta" - Sweet Mother
"Roll Deep" - The Avenue
"Tinchy Stryder" - Breakaway, Mainstream Money, Somthing about your smile.
Skepta - Inna Corner
Tinchy Strider...anything by him really..
Dizzee Rascal...his earlier stuff from "Boy In a Corner" is much better than his newer stuff..imho
an I kind of like the fact that you don't claim to be the "be all and end all " of musical blog land..
it's refreshing
no one has mentioned Trim!
Soul Food Volume 1-6, He's upto volume 3 atm, check them all out, theyre great
durrty goodz
once again, IGIF proves it has no place in any sort of blog roll except at the bottom, or in a trash bin. I might give a shit about this post if it was 2001 but seeing as you're about seven years too late, why don't you boys just put down the mac book pros and keep trying to throat-fuck Panda Bear? not only that, but saying that "wearing my rolex" is in any way a good representation of the genre is like giving some kid a hurricane chris CD and telling him it's real hip-hop. go home and fuck yourselves IGIF.
i will not stand for any hurricane chris hate in this comment section.
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