Grime music

Grime is a genre of music that emerged in England in the early 2000s. It is primarily a development of UK garage, drum and bass and dancehall.^[2]

Pioneers of this stylized music include Dizzee Rascal, Jammer, Kano, Lethal Bizzle, Skepta, and Wiley.

Prominent grime crews include Boy Better Know, Newham Generals and Roll Deep.

History

Origins

Roll Deep, a well-known grime crew, performs at the 2006 Love Music Hate Racism festival.

Grime emerged from London with its origins on UK pirate radio stations such as Rinse FM,^[3] Deja Vu FM, Freeze 92.7 and Raw Mission. At this point, the style was known by a number of names, including 8-bar (meaning 8 bar verse patterns), nu shape (which encouraged more complex 16 bar and 32 bar verse patterns), sublow (a reference to the very low bassline frequencies, often around 40 Hz^[4]), as well as eskibeat, a term applied specifically to a style initially developed by Wiley and his collaborators, incorporating dance and electro elements. 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", "Ice Rink" and "Igloo" by Wiley, "Pulse X" by Musical Mob and "Creeper" by Danny Weed.^[5]

Development

Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, Kano and Lethal Bizzle were among the first to bring the genre to mainstream media attention in 2003–2004, with their albums Boy in da Corner, Treddin' on Thin Ice, Home Sweet Home and Against All Oddz respectively. Dizzee Rascal garnered widespread critical acclaim and commercial success with Boy in da Corner winning the 2003 Mercury Music Prize.^[2] Grime has since received exposure from television stations including Channel U (now known as Channel AKA), Logan Sama's show on London radio station Kiss FM, and the BBC's youth-oriented digital radio station BBC Radio 1Xtra.

Grime is not an offshoot of early electronic music, but rather a subgenre that draws from a wide variety of influences. Early innovative artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Wiley were able to take the strong thumping drums of drum and bass, lyricism and vocal styles of UK Garage and alter some of the rhythms of dancehall to capture all three genre’s essences and add a new half-time, down-tempo dimension to the mix. The genre’s popularity grew exponentially in the United Kingdom, as people across the scene’s musical spectrum appreciated grime’s eclectic mix of instrumentation and subcultures. This hybridization united many different music scenes, allowing for it to spread in the same word-of-mouth and mixtape-based style as hip-hop, yet still appeal to fans of electronic music. It also paved the way for more electronic music artists to incorporate stronger African and Caribbean influences in the future. Unfortunately, grime never received the same attention worldwide that it did in the UK. Much like many other less mainstream forms of British electronic music, its main scene and fan base remained in its home, the United Kingdom.

Although grime is recognised as a creative and innovative musical style,^[6] 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.^[7]

From 2013 onwards producers started to create what they called "instrumental grime" and they battled in so-called "war dubs", as producer Footsie explains in this interview.^[8]

In April 2014, Meridian Dan reached #13 in the UK Singles Charts with his single "German Whip" featuring Big H and JME. Two months after that, Skepta reached #21 in the UK Singles Charts with his single "That's Not Me" featuring his brother JME. Two months later, Lethal Bizzle released his single "Rari WorkOut" featuring JME and Tempa T, which also charted, peaking at #11 in the UK Singles Charts.

As of 2015 Lethal Bizzle has the Top 3 charting Grime songs to date. "Oi!" (More Fire Crew) which was released in 2002 hit #7 in the UK Singles charts, "Pow! (Forward Riddim)" released in 2004, peaked at #11 in the UK Singles chart and finally "Rari Workout", which again peaked at #11 in the UK Singles Charts in 2014.

In late 2015, following Stormzy's performance of 'Shut Up' during the ring walk to Anthony Joshua's Heavyweight boxing match with Dillian White, Stormzy gained attention and pushed his single 'Shut Up' further up the charts, peaking at #2 in the iTunes Singles charts and #8 in the UK Singles charts. In February 2016, Ministry of Sound and BBC Radio 1Xtra released Grime Time, a compilation of the best grime tracks

International growth

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,^[9] Rolling Stone,^[10] and Rock Sound.^[11] By 2010, he had achieved three number one singles 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 grime scene has also been evident in recent years with many popular grime artists playing on the urban music stages of the big summer festivals such as Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds, T in the Park and O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park. Dizzee Rascal played at all these events in the summer of 2008.^[13][14]

Musical style

	Flowdan freestyle Sample of Flowdan freestyling on Shangooli by Scratchy from a early Roll Deep crew pirate radio set on Rinse FM (2005). This sample features an instrumental from the eskibeat subgenre as well as demonstrating the emceeing culture present in grime.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Grime is typified by complex 2-step, 4x4 breakbeats, generally around 140 beats per minute, or sometimes structured around a double-time rhythm, and constructed from different synth, string and electronic sounds.^[2] Stylistically, grime draws on many genres including UK garage, drum and bass, hip hop and dancehall.^[6] The lyrics and music combine futuristic electronic elements and dark, guttural basslines.

Grime predominantly evolved from the UK speed garage scene and genre towards the latter stages, although it takes influences from other genres. According to Sasha Frere-Jones of 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."^[7] Frere-Jones also states that grime has maintained a style different to hip hop.^[7] Hattie Collins supports Frere-Jones' analysis, asserting that grime is "an amalgamation of UK garage with a bit of drum & bass, a splash of punk."^[6]

According to Alex de Jong and Marc Schuilenburg, grime music also samples sawtooth wave sounds (chiptunes) from video game music and ringtones which had become part of everyday life in London and other parts of the country.^[15] British grime lyrics often reference communication technologies popular with artists and listeners such as smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Snapchat.

Criticism

As with many similar scenes around the world, grime has encountered some criticism, especially from government officials such as Kim Howells who made comments that some grime supporters claimed to find "deeply racist", referring to popular artists and crews as "boasting macho idiot rappers".^[16] A counter argument is given by Jeff Chang in an article in The Village Voice where he said 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]

See also

• Oldschool jungle
• UK garage
• UK hip hop

References

Look up grime in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.