| Grime | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | British hip hop, UK garage, dancehall, drum and bass, ragga jungle, hip house, video game music |
| Cultural origins | Early 2000s, Bow, East London, UK |
| Typical instruments | Rapping, toasting, music sequencer, personal computer |
| Mainstream popularity | Underground with some chart success in the late 2000s, large chart success in the early 2010s throughout the UK |
| Subgenres | |
| Sublow | |
| Fusion genres | |
| Grindie, rhythm & grime, electro-grime | |
Grime is a style of music that emerged from Bow, East London, England in the early 2000s, primarily as a development of UK garage, dancehall, and hip hop.[1] Pioneers of the style include Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Roll Deep.
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Grime is typified by complex 2-step, 4X4, breakbeats, generally around 140 beats per minute, or sometimes structured around a halftime rhythm, and constructed from different synth, string and electronic sounds.[1] Stylistically, grime draws on many genres including UK Garage, dancehall, hip hop.[2] The lyrics and music combine futuristic electronic elements and dark, guttural bass lines.
According to Sasha Frere-Jones of the The New Yorker, grime has developed a fierce sound by "distilling" rhythms to a minimal style resulting in a choppy, off-centre sound. Whereas hip hop is inherently dance music, the writer argues that "grime sounds as if it had been made for a boxing gym, one where the fighters have a lot of punching to do but not much room to move."[3] Frere-Jones also states that grime has maintained a style distinct from American hip hop, with clear Jamaican and Caribbean influences.[3] Hattie Collins supports Frere-Jones' analysis, asserting that grime is "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."[2] According to Alex de Jong and Marc Schuilenburg, grime music also samples sawtooth wave sounds from video game music and ringtones which had become part of everyday life in East London.[4]
Grime emerged from Bow, East London with its origins on UK pirate radio stations,[1] such as Rinse FM,[5] Deja Vu Fm, Freeze 92.7 & MajorFm.com were essential to the evolution of the genre. At this point the style was known by number of names, including "8-bar" (meaning 8 bar verse patterns), "Nu Shape" (which encouraged more complexed 16 bar and 32 bar verse patterns), "Sublow" (a reference to the very low bassline frequencies, often around 40 Hz[6]), as well as "Eskibeat", a term applied specifically to a style initially developed by Wiley and his collaborators. This indicated the movement of UK Garage away from its House influences towards darker themes and sounds. Among the first tracks to be labelled "Grime" as a genre in itself were 'Eskimo' by Wiley and "Pulse X" by Musical Mob.[7]
Dizzee Rascal and Wiley were among the first to bring the genre to the attention of the mainstream media in 2003-4, with their albums Boy in da Corner and Treddin' on Thin Ice respectively. Dizzee Rascal garnered broad critical acclaim and commercial success with Boy in da Corner winning the 2003 Mercury Music Prize.[1] Grime has received exposure from television stations including Channel U, Logan Sama's show on London station Kiss FM and the BBC's youth oriented digital radio station 1Xtra.
Grime, however, is a cross-pollinated genre, taking influences from a variety of different cultural styles as well as musical ones,[1][2] and is therefore still in many respects considered to be underground music, even after mainstream exposure. It exists in a largely informal economy in which most artists make their debuts on independently-produced battle DVDs[3] that, like mixtapes are sold out of barbershops and make their way around the city. Artists receive a lot of help from Pirates radio stations which keep the public up to date with the music. Even though Grime is very popular in the UK, many recording labels have yet to acknowledge its presence as a genre that can compete in the global market. There is a perception that international major labels don't understand the value of Grime, as DJ Semtex, an A&R for Def Jam Recordings and also Dizzee Rascal's DJ says, "the biggest conflict I have is with major labels because they still don’t get it". He says that they just don't understand the value of grime, and more so UK music as a whole, as other countries do.[2]
Although Grime is recognised as a creative and innovative musical style,[2] there are other contributing factors to its rapid and widespread growth in popularity; the MCs producing current Grime music are overwhelmingly young as a group. The most well known names in the industry such as Dizzee Rascal and Kano both getting their first hits at age 16, with "I Luv U" and "Boys Love Girls" respectively, and the resultant package of "youth making music for youth" is seen as a crucial factor for Grime's success. However as time progresses Grime is becoming more and more widespread in popularity, and today there are several young artist making their own Grime tracks as a hobby, they then post the tracks on various websites such as Facebook, Youtube,and Soundcloud, for exposure, in example the Danish artist Morabbi. [3]
It was not until the release of his third album, 2007's Maths + English, that Dizzee Rascal experienced international acclaim. He was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize again, and despite the fact that the album was not released in the United States in 2007, it received high praise from international music critics, magazines, websites, and blogs, including Pitchfork Media,[8] Rolling Stone,[9] NME,[10] and Rock Sound.[11] By 2009, he had achieved three Number Ones in a row.
The 2005 release of 679 Recordings' Run the Road compilation, showcased some of the most popular grime releases to that point, increasing the popularity and fame of grime and grime artists internationally. A particularly notable grime artist who has had success overseas is Lady Sovereign, who appeared on Late Show with David Letterman, signed to Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records, and whose Love Me or Hate Me became the first video by a British artist to reach number one on MTV's Total Request Live,[12] although her music has departed considerably from her early output on pirate radio stations, and she does not regard herself as a grime artist.
The international growth of the UK grime scene has also been evident in recent years with many of the popular grime artists playing on the Urban music stages of the big summer festivals such as Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds and O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park. For example Dizzee Rascal played at all these events in the summer of 2008.[13][14]
As with many similar scenes around the world, grime has encountered some criticism, especially from government officials like Home Secretary David Blunkett who in 2003 called rap lyrics "appalling". Former minister Kim Howells made a statement in 2006 that Grime artists were helping to create a culture "where killing is almost a fashion accessory."[15] Howells went even deeper into the issue, making comments that some grime supporters claimed to find "deeply racist," referring to popular artists and crews as "boasting macho idiot rappers."[16] While the government offers one point of view, the artists and listeners offer another. In an article by Jeff Chang in The Village Voice, Dizzee Rascal’s often violent and sexual lyrics are heralded as “capturing, encapsulating, and preserving” the life that he and his peers live on the streets every day.[17]
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