rolling uk urban pop thread

not saying it's great or anything mind.

memo to self: always have a good stare at the top 40 and remind yourself of reality before saying anything.

Time lag between underground and chart success is at least four years now dude.

that's the thing tho i don't mean groundswell support, i mean producers who started off undie being the first choices for pop stabs and being marketed as normal.

like if you were ill blu what is even your career plan at this point?

cos the artists nowadays arent a million miles from the underground themselves, while a good few undie producers not only have the skills but an idea for what's pop as well - i'm not being like burial should do stuff for rihanna or anything. and yet somewhere along the line a tinchy stryder will always find a fraser t smith instead.

Surprised Ill Blu haven't tried to do another "Stick Up", though obv that wasn't such a success the first time.

similar to the roll deep/ill blu combo, i do wonder if the crazy cousinz mix of aggro's 'candy' was really so outre that it couldn't have made chart headway by itself - perhaps a little capricious of me but not by much, surely? how real is this supposed underground glass ceiling?

1st part - well has any crazy cousinz production been remotely chart-bothering?
2nd part - i'd love to know tbh, but i have zero sense of these things. i mean, uk funky sounded like pop from the get-go, and i still have no idea why the actual urban crossover took the form of cheapo electro and fraser t smith hackery instead.

i wonder if "omg" would have had any success if the ill blu mix had been the main mix.

tbh i have no idea how or why magnetic man are suddenly in the top 10, and why that couldn't happen to ill blu.

tbh i don't think you are being h there.

Magnetic Man are not "suddenly" in the top 10, it's taken years of Skream & Benga playing all over the place and building up a following before unleashing a pop album. It would take Ill Blu years to do that.

My Ill Blu career plan would probably be along the lines of: "credible" single on Hyperdub ---> Tinie Tempah remix ---> indie blog-friendly remix of I dunno Hot Chip or something ---> get on the sort of big indie-dance bills that take place at places like the Coronet ---> get more bombastic ---> play every club night and festival in Britain for two or three years --> release big pop record with either loads of collaborators or Katy B style "muse".

Getting a few tracks on an Xbox game would probably help at some point in there.

get more bombastic

this is where it goes horribly wrong

xxp good question about 'omg' though. stuff that doesnt have a immediate verse/chorus thing going will probably always struggle to an extent but 1/ there could be a radio edit obv and 2/ it wouldve just sounded so striking on the radio in the middle of everything else it's near impossible to imagine a meh response. of course it could hardly have done any worse than the original.

the issue remains though that the remix was after the fact - what will it take for a sabrina to approach an ill blu first?

Ill Blu have already done a remix of Hot Chip Matt!

haha matt in that case if i were ill blu i'd just carry on sitting at home charging £50 for a dub tbh :/

I'm already having trouble working out how Ill Blu could get significantly more bombastic than he already is.

What we're getting at is who if anyone will take on the role of Timbaland/Neps/Dream style superproducer, I suppose? That's probably not going to be Ill Blu but you never know.

It's "Stick Up" style or nothing. I don't think large amounts of people are gonna embrace something as percussive and fast as Ill Blu's normal style any time soon.

the issue remains though that the remix was after the fact - what will it take for a sabrina to approach an ill blu first?

an industry that's a lot less safety-first? if you had the unenviable job of attempting to launch sabrina washington's pop career, with all the mainstream-begging aspirations that implies, what would it take to think outside of shuffling her down the cheapo electro pathway that literally every non-indie british pop act is currently on?

as i've said though, this is why katy b's solo career will be worth keeping an eye on, because if anyone's going to approach funky producers first it'll be her. collabing with benga and magnetic man is probably the best way to get herself into the public consciousness, but with her track record i'd be surprised if the album contained nothing from eg geeneus.

She'd have to fuck up massively to erase my memory of "Tell Me" and "As I".

sigh yeah i suppose i can see the foul logic in that katy n argument.

katy b i mean, oops gosh

"dubstep Kate Nash"

oh shit Matt thanx 4 ruining all my joy

I'm sort of still trying to get my head round the fact that while the UK pop market seems fine with black male MCs and singers, there aren't many black female vocalists making the jump.

So there's kind of a massive internal eyeroll going on when the first person the UK funky scene throws up who looks like she might become an actual pop star turns out to be camping up the Lily Allen/Kate Nashisms with a side order of Mike Skinner chic in the video. She's a better singer than any of them but still...

i might have the same reaction were it not for the fact that i only realised katy b wasn't black a few months ago

The funny thing about whether Sabrina etc should do proper funky singles is that of course Sabrina's two tracks prior to "OMG" were uk funky - I'm just rediscovering how awesome "Take It To The Top" was. Of course they disappeared without a trace outside the funky scene itself. Would things have been different if they'd been pushed by a record label? Hard to say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdPVaI00v_I

^^banging

Loving this new Ny single.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APGGnxBoKZw

º_O general levy on the mz bratt selecta remix

i'm not really sure where this song should go, but i love it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiAXKFTNfOc

Really liking that Jamie Woon track, he's a Subeena collaborator, right? This is better than Solidify though, the backing is gorgeous.

I've done a complete 180 on Katy On A Mission over the last few months, but it's all down to Katy rather than Benga I think. There must be an amazing house or electro remix out there that keeps the vocal and ditches the backing, right?

I've always rather liked Katy herself on the tune. I know some people find her newly accented vocals but I think it works for the most part (the issues with Kate Nash et. al.'s voices really crystallise in terms of their interrelationship with the style of songwriting, production choices etc - the way it all screams "I'm authentic!" - which simply doesn't arise with Katy).

There must be an amazing house or electro remix out there that keeps the vocal and ditches the backing, right?

the roska remix was kinda disappointing :/

girl unit's been asked to remix "lights on" though! so exciting.

Lights On is the opposite kettle of fish in that I think it's a stronger groove than a song per se, but really heartened to find out that she's gone for a Geeneus beat to follow up the big hit. If she continues to become a proper pop star she could be an excellent foil for so many talented people.

this 'night air' tune is alright u know, count me in! best phil collins song in years.

been jamming the ill blu rmx of "good times" and realized i hadn't heard the original so i looked it up on youtube and holy lol that is a hilarious video -- who is the storch lookin dude? also the budget for that is so hilariously small. the "club" holding their euphoric party looks about the size of my bedroom

i love that on chartstats 'Game Over' is credited to Tinchy ft Chipmunk when he probably does the worst turn on it. kinda shocked by how good Example sounds on it (not that good really, but still). Giggs going first (and Tinchy going last) also pretty wtf. not all that thrilled by the beat/bass but there's enough funny lines here and nice to see a big MCs collab like this doing so relatively well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wpCf0FsZKQ

Does Pow! 2011 belong in here?

do we like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCivYv4HqiI

"katy on a mission" is awes btw, gonna put rtc hate down to intercine uk stuff i don't understand

i thought u were inglis

youtube.com/watch?v=l8C4HL2LyWU

even if i was i'm not sure i'd get uk funky, post-not-dubstep, & urban pop positions if any there be

the owl is lol

there's a poster for this single at the end of my road. i am rendered slightly speechless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyazBLBx52g

i mean what. is this...a thing now?

"spend money like an oligarch"

apart from that white dress i'm pretty confident there is nothing of worth in that vid

importnt update btw: the owl is still lol

the only time i'd seen this yasmin's name before was as the featured vocalist on devlin's latest single (unless it's the same yasmin as on low deep's "inside out"), so i kind of assumed her own solo debut would be your same ol' same ol' electrothump as everything else, but...it's not! it's really good! the beat...where is that whistle from? i'm as surprised that the beat's by shy fx tbh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsNBQJEofQM&ob=av2el

i'll crosspost lady chann's latest - amazing early 90s rave shit - here as well as the dancehall thread, may as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35eqWuPKa8g