grime and the hardcore continuum

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to be honest i'm not sure i totally understand the thinking behind the idea of the "hardcore continuum."

however as i listen to grime i really can't hear any influence of hardcore.

the breaks are gone, the momentum is lost, the stabs are gone but most of all the "take you away" feel of ecstacy is totally gone. it's totally unlike modern d&b, which is still all about the rave.

grime is way too grounded. it reminds you of the harsh realities of london living, not chemically taking you away from them. to me, therefore, grime has broken away from the hardcore continuum.

any thoughts?

martin (martin), Thursday, 22 January 2004 16:59 (twenty years ago) link

they're both on the pirate radio.

vahid (vahid), Thursday, 22 January 2004 17:03 (twenty years ago) link

YES!

i agree, i think the schism has occured..

BUT. having said that, i was listening to some remarc and andy c sets from 93 the other day, and they didnt really sound that different to ruff sqwad

Stringent (Stringent), Thursday, 22 January 2004 17:05 (twenty years ago) link

Ruff Sqwad and Remarc? the only thing they have in common is Mr Reynolds likes them. the Sqwad are going on really electro/80s/melodic if their dubs are anything to go by at the mo.

martin (martin), Thursday, 22 January 2004 17:08 (twenty years ago) link

i agree with martin that there' little resemblance to hardcore really. grime has become the de facto UK Hip Hop, and the similarites between those two genres is *easier* to reconcile

searchanddelete, Thursday, 22 January 2004 17:12 (twenty years ago) link

you might be right re: their track, but a dj set i heard from before christmas did remind me of a remarc set ive got

i think either the continuum is dead, or its stretched to lose original meaning. i think hardcore-jungle-speed garage-uk garage still worked within a house music context, and that the broader context has shifted from house to hip hop. during all those other musics house outside the continuum was still strong, and part of uk culture, that isnt the case any more so the continuum is within a wider culture that is now gone, or, more to the point, it is within hip hop, so there is a schism both in the wider context and within the continuum

Stringent (Stringent), Thursday, 22 January 2004 17:14 (twenty years ago) link

the only thing they have in common is Mr Reynolds likes them

um, i agree. except this is kind of a CRUCIAL point. because sr like class-based analysis, though it's hardly the only trick in his (huge) bag. hardcore continuum = the sound of a class.

vahid (vahid), Thursday, 22 January 2004 17:15 (twenty years ago) link

the continuum was still strong, and part of uk culture

but the pirates aren't really part of uk culture are they? isn't grime more of a subculture? and drum'n'bass too, until it went overground and they started doing cover articles in magazines, and then it wasn't "hardcore" anymore, really, right?

vahid (vahid), Thursday, 22 January 2004 17:17 (twenty years ago) link

well wiley was still chatting over jungle in 1999.
the audience is pretty much the same as it was for jungle.

this is all assuming you agree jungle emerged from hardcore obviously, but the line from jungle to grime is fairly clearcut isn't it? a lot of the first big garage MCs (psg, blakey, CKP etc) were jungle MCs who never made it. the music is nurtured in the same shops and pirate stations (eg rinse, deja etc) and raves at the same venues (palace pavillion, rex, eq etc)

it all follows on but its a continuum innit, that means the thing at this end of it might look a lot different from what started things off in the first place, just changes all the time like chinese whispers

', Thursday, 22 January 2004 17:20 (twenty years ago) link

i guess what i'm arguing is that the link with ecstacy is definitely broken and the linear momentumof house/d&b/hardcore gone.

just because d&b artists do a few magazine covers doesn't make the music still massively related to hardcore. literally hundreds of tunes have come out this year with stabs, breaks and that epic ecstacy vibe.

grime doesn't take you away. it's real. ;)

martin (martin), Thursday, 22 January 2004 17:51 (twenty years ago) link

the abiding, er, 'core of it is 1/ the infrastructure (pirate radio, dubplates, specialist stores -- often the same ones: i remember big apple, croydon's centre of all things plasticman, having ads on the pirates in '92, dodgy clubs and rave promoters), 2/ the constituency (it's the same kind of people invovling, as well often literally the SAME people who were into jungle as early-teens who are now making grime), 3/ the geography (london, and specific parts of london -- a few square miles centred on hackney, luka would have it), 4/ the strategy (uk twist on african-american and jamaican sources), 5/ the spirit (cheap'n'nasty fast money music; it's-a-london-thing; undergroundism, we-are-hardcore not crossover 4 lightweights etc)

E hasn't really part of the 'Nuum since '94 when many junglists started slagging off chemicals and extolling natural highs of herbs.

just sonixally i'd say the original h-core has at least as much in common with Grime as speed garage or 2step circa 99 has with grime. I.e. the 'Nuum twists and swerves and goes through all kindsa mutations but it's still the same Entity

re realness, i would say that one thing that defined hardcore and make it diffrent from 'we are the beautiful people' house clubs and trance raves alike was that in its deepest heart it knew the E-dream was a beautiful lie (loads of songs touch on the idea of it being fantasy, an illusion, a closing of the eyes to the real); and anyway by the end of 92 it had plunged into darkness which is realer-than-thou.

even arguably the newest thing about Grime which is the role of the MC is an evolution of the role of the mc back in the hardcore days

simonr, Thursday, 22 January 2004 19:15 (twenty years ago) link

some justice, waremouse, shot in the dark, cooking up your brain, the chopper, SOS gunshot RMX, just 4 U london, the slammer, terrorist, RIP, the burial...

at some point pre-metalheadz and post-prodigy i'd say there was lots of hardcore floating around that was "for real", in that it references the real situations and conditions of the millieu ... even a track like "RIP" is rooted in the real insofar as it compares the rave experience to soundclash culture (compare to "hyperspeed" or "g-force" which compare it to space travel or god knows what!). and even in 96-97, after tracks like "metropolis" and "to shape the future", when it went all bladerunner on one side, you had this parallel jump-up explosion, rooted in y'know, sexuality and aggression and whatnot...

vahid (vahid), Thursday, 22 January 2004 19:18 (twenty years ago) link

aaah shit x-post w/ the don!!!

vahid (vahid), Thursday, 22 January 2004 19:18 (twenty years ago) link

I can see the above yes, as continuing out from the continuum, but i think the continuum has mutated since 92-00 when it twisted and turned but still had a visible continuity.

i think one of the other interesting things is the role of the voice, while the voice has always been central (and yea, mcs on pirates riiiight the way through), not on the tracks in the same way, ie: not mc focused. the others might all have been mc-heavy at club/on pirate, but not really on the tracks, not in the same way as grime

ragga-jungle is interesting in this, because that was when for many in the scene it got too hip hop, too mc oriented, and there was a severe backlash against that from many jungle originalists, a schism within jungle which you could say partially eventually led to its demise much later, possibly.

i think the london-hardcore-continuum has 2 key elements. 1) london, 2) house music. i think the first element is still there, for all the reasons outlined above, but the 2nd is gone, in a wider sense too, and there is a realignment with hip hop as centre rather than merely key element

northwest london overlooked in all this, harlesden etc

what about the london-hardcore-continuum pre 92, does it exist? in what way? i think not, due to too much focus on belgium/america, but the key elements outlined by others above were all there, so why is that not part of the lhc?

Stringent (Stringent), Thursday, 22 January 2004 19:31 (twenty years ago) link

Something I was wondering about but don't know the history - were their "purists" that rejected hardcore at its inception? Or did the drugs make that impossible?

Just thinking about all of the "old skool" 2 step heads hating on grime and saying that there's no "garage" in it...

@d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 22 January 2004 19:49 (twenty years ago) link

...so many scare quotes...sorry

@d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 22 January 2004 19:50 (twenty years ago) link

Everyone rejected hardcore at its inception, "kiddy music" "junkie music" "toytown music" brainless, it was house musics skanky cousin, disowned by even the dance media pretty much

Stringent (Stringent), Thursday, 22 January 2004 19:51 (twenty years ago) link

Until the recent raft of 'oldskool' compilations, even a good percentage of the anthems were completely out of print, look for a compilation with acen or dance conspiracy or elevations can you feel it on it? apart from 'total kaos' cds issued at the time, there was none right up until the 'oldskool' comps of the last 2 years

Stringent (Stringent), Thursday, 22 January 2004 19:54 (twenty years ago) link

even since the slightly tepid old skool revival it's practically impossible to track down 99.9% of the tunes.

searchanddelete, Thursday, 22 January 2004 20:04 (twenty years ago) link

Ha ha this argument is so off-base - all of the lighter tunes coming out of grime these days sound like *nothing* so much as hardcore rave! Not all grime is dark and brooding musically.

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 23 January 2004 05:36 (twenty years ago) link

i bet you could easily string together a cd-r from 1990 on that followed a straight line, more or less, between bleep/early hardcore and grime. there would just be a LOT of dots along the way.

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 23 January 2004 05:43 (twenty years ago) link

but that's what a "continuum" is, innit?

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 23 January 2004 05:44 (twenty years ago) link

if anything points to how exciting grime is right now, it's attempting to connect "bound 4 da reload" to "ice rink" or whatever. so many twists in the last three years.

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 23 January 2004 05:45 (twenty years ago) link

Is there a decent chronology of grime to be found anywhere? How old are tracks like the Wiley mix of Eastside Connection and "Champagne Dance"? Come to think of it a Wiley discography would be quite handy...

@d@ml (nordicskilla), Friday, 23 January 2004 05:48 (twenty years ago) link

I'm trying to do a cdr for a friend much like the one jess described above, but maybe jumping off from speed garage or the older Zed Bias stuff.

@d@ml (nordicskilla), Friday, 23 January 2004 05:49 (twenty years ago) link

something stringent's last post made me think of though: do you ever think the "pirate sound" will swing back around to house - even obliquely? - the way it did in 97? that kind of "reaffirmation"? i don't think it's entirely out of the question, given how i doubt anyone could have predicted speed garage in 94 anymore than they could have predicted grime in 97.

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 23 January 2004 05:50 (twenty years ago) link

the other part of the ethos that is continuous from 92 to 04 is the 'forward' imperative -- gotta keep advancing, reach the future faster than the other guy. which in itself explains why the 'Nuum's gone through so many twists and reinventions and reversals

yeah i think you could trace the prehistory of the 'Nuum back before '92, shut up and dance obivously, but the elements are coalescing all through the eighties--pirates etc. probably even further back -- i just read this book Bass Culture on reggae and they actually had dubplates and prerelease specials in the UK in the late 1950s!

i really think there could be a 2step reinvention soonish, the ladies massive aren't digging the Grime (judging by some things i overheard n the basement of blackmarket last summer, anyway), they will assert their Will. the fact that grime raves have no dance element just people nodding to rhymes sort of DEMANDS a return to groove at some point. whether it's 4/4 house vibe as strongo imagines or 98/99 2step we'll have to see, it's almost long enough now since 2step that it could be revived.

i dug out a 99 tape for someone the other day, and it brought a tear to my eye -- the music was so criss and glossy, it was like the scene manufacturing its own sunshine. the sheer sound quality of it was stunning, so bright and clean c.f the cruddy sonix of grime

simonr, Friday, 23 January 2004 15:56 (twenty years ago) link

speaking of that era, it's fun tracing even small sonic routes like:
Gabrielle - "Sunshine (Exemen/Wookie mix)" - - ->
Sweet Female Attitude - "Flowers (Sunship mix)" - - ->
Gabrielle - "Out Of Reach (Sunship mix)"

Paul (scifisoul), Friday, 23 January 2004 18:37 (twenty years ago) link

yeah i was thinking a lot of the rush of skepta's 'thuggin ruggin' was the startling 2step zigzag nod, how unexpectedly satisfying!

prima fassy (bob), Friday, 23 January 2004 20:56 (twenty years ago) link

yeah, i seriously doubt it will ever go back to 4/4...in the house sense anyway. because of the tempo change, if nothing else. a return to 2-step (or even straight R&B...not even necessarily the kind that fed into 2-step in the first place) seems much more likely.

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 23 January 2004 20:59 (twenty years ago) link

i work in romford, home of suburban base etc and i was having a conversation with the other young fella who works there and some of his mates who come down to keep him company. what i found interesting was that they were right at the hub of hardcore----jungle, that was the sound of romford, but they experienced 2step as the schism. they felt that conspicuous consumpion stuff, 'sexy music for sexy people' as he put it, disdainfully, ran counter to the hardcore ethos. which it did. i was arguing that those things may have applied at twice as nice (never went) and those central london places, but if you went out in stratford to those nights (which i defineitly did do) people were definetly raving. it was a rave, they might have been wearing suits and loafers, but they were fairly cheap suits. you wouldn't have seen any coke really, just lots and lots of weed. hmmm, this is not relevant any more....

', Saturday, 24 January 2004 00:15 (twenty years ago) link

simonr OTM; there is such a poignancy now to the late 90s boom years

robin carmody (robin carmody), Saturday, 24 January 2004 00:48 (twenty years ago) link

2-step will probably always be my sentimental favourite music.

Adam, "Champagne Dance" is from late '01. The Destruction Mix is an interesting version to track down because it sounds very much like common grime-pop, whereas the original was on more of a soca-beat tip a la K2 Family's "Bouncin' Flow" or the Steve Gurley mix of Zed Bias's "Neighbourhood". The Sticky mix is also tops.

Re: a potential return to house - I'm uncertain as to whether it's worth closely following the urban house scene. It's where a lot of the good times/dancing part of the 2-step fanbase have gone but I have a suspicion that it's not where the next big twist will come from if only because its leaders (Dreem Teem etc.) are unlikely to have two shots at glory. What's been true of every twist since jungle has been the generational passing of the baton: although there were a lot of ex-junglists in speed garage none of the big producers were ever *that* big in jungle (even Steve Gurley's post-Foul Play work as Rogue Unit is relatively obscure). Likewise the only big 2-step producers to have even stayed on speaking terms with grime are Sticky and DND, both of which only really "emerged" as forces to contend with in '01.

If there has been any twists and turns in urban house worth noting, it's been the major-scale revival and intensification of the Todd Edwards influence - some of the tunes have astonishingly complex crosshatching (the best I've heard being Drama's "Keeper of the Keys", which cuts up the phrase "I love raving" (!) into a thing of ethereal beauty). Who knows if this will bear fruit though?

I think fiddo is onto something with the R&B mention though, as this is where I keep hearing the female audience has gone. When I interviewed Sabrina from Mis-Teeq early last year she said that Eye Candy was more R&B/dancehall focused as opposed to garage because that's what all their friends were listening/dancing to and they wanted/needed to make an album that girls would like. But what, apart from Mis-Teeq, is this audience listening to? What music is being made for them?

What I could sort of imagine would be some sort of reconnection between this lost female audience and the slowed-down, more musical sound of half-time grime. It's timely of Prima to bring up "Thuggish Ruggish" because that's a tune which has the potential to unite a lot of different audiences: grime, 2-step, hip hop, R&B, dancehall...

Alternative: an R&B/garage/broken beat/house fusion a la Mis-Teeq's "Eye Candy" (the actual track) which strikes me as being simultaneously one of the most brazenly physical, most feminine, and most startlingly new-sounding things I heard of in '02. Although I never *did* find out who produced it (it was bizarrely and shamefully left off the Oz version of the album).

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 24 January 2004 07:37 (twenty years ago) link

a lot of continuum talk leaves me cold because it seems to concern itself with deadening chronology and historical mapping rather than any listener excitement intensification, like foulplayificy your crit! i'm not poking ok, just wary... luka's better placed to tell but i'm interested in what hiphop catches the grime village ear, and what it's pointing to, for instance garage shops are always always trying to get in more copies of kanye's 'br right' (something to do with nasty crew, i suppose i can hear a jammer wistfulness there) and there was that 'what we do' freestyle on lord of the decks, despite 'grindin' prob still upheld as the grime overlord. i got told a great story once from someone who went to a early eskimo dance about how they unvelied 'light yr ass on fire' to huge acclaim but only played it for 2 minutes cos they realised, well... there was nothing to do. theoretically should have been love at first sight right? i guess if i take anything from all this it's that FLUIDITY is surely the main uk hardcore strand. maybe it's fluidity within singles now and not the mix, everyone needs folk heroes

prima fassy (bob), Saturday, 24 January 2004 13:03 (twenty years ago) link

(but thats a pretty obvious thing i guess)

prima fassy (bob), Saturday, 24 January 2004 13:05 (twenty years ago) link

(cos secretly i still think cam'ron 'oh boy' is the best single of the 00s, and hey maybe important too)

prima fassy (bob), Saturday, 24 January 2004 13:08 (twenty years ago) link

Tim - "Eye Candy" the song is a Rishi Rich production.

Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Saturday, 24 January 2004 13:11 (twenty years ago) link

FOR THE RECORD
i'm not hating on cam'ron's beats. (well, the beats he chooses/has chosen for him whatever) i love oh boy too.

have you heard knightz of the roundtable 'baby'? (it says baby instead of boy)

just blaze seems to be every garage bods favourite producer.
but more and more uk hiphop (new generation stuff, kalsanekoff, execution squad, rather than your talneted but slightly worthy blak twangs and tys) getting played too.

fluidity is my favourite musical quality, from those breakbeats, to twostep, to just blaze, to target, to james brown etc etc
momentum and fluidity. them two things, and yeah, light ya ass,danny weed, grindin=anit fluidity

', Saturday, 24 January 2004 13:38 (twenty years ago) link

aight cool, i'm not getting at you personally with cam whatever u might have said, there's enough... ecumenical indifference shall we say towards dipset in the world for me to rail against

(i'd say the beats and cam's chat is intrinsic tho, but this for elsewhere)

i have not heard that kotrt no, i heard 'the siege' tho cos it got onto 12. good stuff, i got my eye on them defo. new just blaze ain't what it used to be, too rigid now (that poison rmx tho, oh!) maybe all grime is secretly a kanye/just blaze tussle, i can imagine everyone riding 'encore' now

prima fassy (bob), Saturday, 24 January 2004 15:23 (twenty years ago) link

been a long time since i checked uk rap tho, so much easy bredrenization just cos u were uk was choking it dead. i used to be cool with terra firma, kyza in grove, i should see what's up. oh is that uk rap station still around! fuck what was it called, frequency in the late 100s?

prima fassy (bob), Saturday, 24 January 2004 15:28 (twenty years ago) link

is the uk rap entente a beats thing too or just a generational mutual respect tho

prima fassy (bob), Saturday, 24 January 2004 15:30 (twenty years ago) link

Very quick, heard Kode9 do a mix last sunday and a lot of tunes reminded me of rave circa 91, jungle 93. He also showed a segment of The Conflict DVD (I think it was called that, anyway amazing stuff) and Wiley was rapping over a track that really reminded me of 'Shadowboxing' (same sort of "waves of panic" kinda feel). So the continuum really made sense.

Omar (Omar), Saturday, 24 January 2004 15:51 (twenty years ago) link

itch 105.15

its still there
thats the skinny man, finsbury park axis

', Saturday, 24 January 2004 16:26 (twenty years ago) link

speaking of continuums (haha sorry zemko): i realized today the stuff plasticman reminds me of more than anything else is the stuff 4hero were doing on the second disc of two pages...the kind of neurotic clap-clap stuff they added to the two-step and the little percussion breaks that fly off into nowhere, stuff like the middle section of "we who are not as others" and "in the shadows".

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Saturday, 24 January 2004 16:28 (twenty years ago) link

we who are not as others is the only thing that is has any value on that turgid mess....

ambrose (ambrose), Saturday, 24 January 2004 17:06 (twenty years ago) link

oh there was that droney cousin cockroach tune by dego last year, i'll have to dig that one out, it might sound like the missing grimey link now

prima fassy (bob), Saturday, 24 January 2004 20:19 (twenty years ago) link

Has anyone on the grime threads (Tim maybe?) talked about the dancehall-grime link? Some of the early Reggae Max Beenie tapes definitely have some grime in their beats, also some of the Ward 21 stuff...

@d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 24 January 2004 20:23 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah early Ward 21 riddims are totally grime!

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 25 January 2004 02:38 (twenty years ago) link

am I mistaken in thinking the economy was booming in England during the late '90s, too, the way they were in the U.S.? because sociohistorically I've always sort of figured that to be one reason 2step emerged the way it did. if grime swings back (journeys) into the light it seems like an upswinging economy will have something to do with it, and that's not the way it's looking at all. the R&B-not-house thing is probably otm as well.

M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 25 January 2004 03:03 (twenty years ago) link

I think theres truth in that yea, i wouldnt disagree

Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Sunday, 25 January 2004 10:23 (twenty years ago) link

if ruff sqwads music was a woman, i'd seek her hand in marriage.

Haha!

@d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 19:00 (twenty years ago) link

things are differnt now simon. thats what the romford boys were bemoaing. there was a real sense of betrayal. the rave ethos is stone dead. ecstasy has been wiped from the cultural dna. you still hear that on essex stations but you won't hear it in london unless theres another big drug revolution.
i don't think you can't really expect mcs to resist the flow of time.
dizzee is still distinctly english. althougn i do know where you're coming from. i think the awkwardness of the accent should prevent things ever getting too blanded out/americanised.

'''''', Tuesday, 27 January 2004 19:17 (twenty years ago) link

what about skibadee, people, ha

Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:02 (twenty years ago) link

>things are differnt now simon

very. everything's hyper evolving. people talk about producers being old school with in 6 months. kids are in crews acting the badman at 12.

>ecstasy has been wiped from the cultural dna.

yes! this is EXACTLY why i started this thread. surely the lack of e breaks the hardcore continuum?

>i wish there was a bit more of that old Mc-as-compere, enhancement-to-the-music

may i suggest the sublime Crazy D, as foil to the mighty DJ Hatcha, and his amazing abilty to twist and recontextualise odd phrazes from madonna, reggae anthems, adverts etc. he's always shouting to all "first aiders and escapaders."

]email me if you want some CDrs Simon. Hatcha & Crazy D are genius...[

martin (martin), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 22:35 (twenty years ago) link

the thing is though martin, how many people did you see e'd up at jungle or 2step raves? that break happened in 94. grime is not responsible for that. 2step was a lot further from the rave ethos than grime is, which at least has kept a kind of inclusiveness, not the beautiful people rhetoric of 2step. maybe if you went up london you might see it, maybe if you went east to essex you might see it, not in stratford though, i didn't see it anyway. sonically theres a thread which is easily traceable, i do think thats right. i'm a believer in the continuum, to me it seems like commonsense.


i got a copy of that nasty set now by the way, no thanks to you lot!

'''''''''', Tuesday, 27 January 2004 23:18 (twenty years ago) link

people did e at jungle nights more than is credited

Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 00:18 (twenty years ago) link

people not only did e's at jungle raves, they STILL do e's at jungle raves. more than ever. hence its now massive popularity up north. hence its now ever-rushing 175bpm tempo.

i agree 2step has never had anything to do with e, but its swing and warmth was still part of the house axis, that warm "up" vibe. (and even jungle and later d&b still had that, before the drop). but now grime is all "down": bassy, controlled, contained, angry...

and also don't get me wrong, i can see the evolutionary thread very clearly sequentially from hardcore to grime. i just think either end of the thread (ie hardcore and grime) share next to none of the same sonic elements.

martin (martin), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 00:47 (twenty years ago) link

oh man, they do e at jungle nights now, of course (and it all hyrbidizes now anyway, pied piper, ray keith, ratpack), but its often assumed, in print, that people didnt take e in 94/5, it isnt true. yes, there was a downturn in e usage, but e was still there!

Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 00:52 (twenty years ago) link

erm i'm not sure how you mean it but d&b 2004 is not hybridized. it's more isolated than ever, on account of its tempo and it's fans' dislike of every other genre except hip hop. pied piper would be lynched...

martin (martin), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 01:07 (twenty years ago) link

the mc as compere to music stuff is already in the best rap i'd say, and also why d-ee is my fave by miles

prima fassy (bob), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 01:20 (twenty years ago) link

that's itneresting that E is still big on drum'n'bass scene, although reading between the lines it sounds like it's used more or less as surrogate amphetamine, to keep up sufficient energy to move to the silly-fast beats -- cos there isn't much that's actually sonixally rushy about d&b now

94 yeah there woz pills around (some of them in my tum) but E had ceased to be the paradigmatic vibe-setter. there weren't any tunes hymning E by 94 but there were lots of tunes about herbalist and ganja lover

i wouldn't actually say a drug element was integral to the Nuum, at least not any specific drug. the only thing maybe that's consistent all the way through every kind of pirate music is weed. but that's not unique to that scene

i think what really defines the h-core Nuum is the transposition of a Jamaican way of doing things onto UK club culture -- the dubplates, the riddims, the bass presha, the MC... pirates i think of as equivalent to the big sounds in JA, instead of a lawn they have a broadcast area. Same cut throat rivalry, same repping their local manor, same ties with shady folk

H-core Continuum = the mishmashed up only-in-Britain/mostly-in-London meeting of house music and Jamaica.

simonr, Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:05 (twenty years ago) link

i was 14 in 94 and am blagging it slightly here i admit.

''''''', Wednesday, 28 January 2004 09:09 (twenty years ago) link

>H-core Continuum = the mishmashed up only-in-Britain/mostly-in-London meeting of house music and Jamaica.

ok so if you say drugs is not a core element of the "Nuum" then we'll ignore that, but the influence of house music is now almost completely erased from the Nuum's latest thread...

martin (martin), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 09:32 (twenty years ago) link

26 december 03

Main Auditorium : Old Skool Special

RATPACK
DJ EZ (Kiss 100FM)
NICKY BLACKMARKET
SLIMZEE
DJ YANKEE
GEORGE D (Country Club)

MCs : Everson Allen, Ranking, Special MC

Arena 2 : UK Garage / RnB Classics

PIED PIPER
STEVE COURTNEY
ENTERTAINMENT CREW
JOHN RUSSELL
DJ KV

Arena 3 : hosted by TEKNOLOGY. Jungle, Drum and Bass

PHAZE-ONE
DJ FADER
EM-TEK
DOUGHBOY & CARNAGE
MC FLEXA

Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:20 (twenty years ago) link

erm, yr point sir? slim playing old school is not exactly a step in grime's evolution...

martin (martin), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:41 (twenty years ago) link

no, i was saying that pied piper and ratpack might play the same event as jungle djs (admittedly, the bigger name jungle djs are in the oldskool room at this event). the hybridized thing, though as i write this i realise you probably thought i meant in the music rather than in events with multi-rooms (which are of course not new)

Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:51 (twenty years ago) link

on that old 1999 2step tape i mentioned upstream, it's easter monday and the mc gives out a shout to the Cadbury's Creme Egg massive. that kind of thing doesn't seem to go on so much

Upthread you get a lot of stuff abt 2step soundtracking the 'late nineties boom'. Obviously it was the late nineties: but has anyone here thought about how that was a boom exactly, and who benefits from a boom?

I mean the big effects of the 'bust' (which doesn't compare with 1931, 1981) haven't been particularly street-level: far as I know there's been no increase in unemployment, so in fact some things are better now than in 1988-92, economically.

The big economic 'downturn' has affected the financial markets -- but this means pension schemes, banks, insurance companies.

Apart from the international scene, what makes 2004 'grimier,' economically, politically, socially, than 1999?

Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 11:50 (twenty years ago) link

jeez enrique, we done that already, keep up sunshine!
say something interesting about ruff squad!

''''''', Wednesday, 28 January 2004 12:00 (twenty years ago) link

Uhm, 'not my field' -- yeah you sort of did, but... if the economy *isn't* so bad, why's there more guns/crack/paranoia...?

Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 12:04 (twenty years ago) link

can some one fill me in
how does dubstep relate to uk garage and grime and the hardcore continuum
some of the stuff i've heard reminds me of digital's drum'n'bass which is the only strand of drum'n'bass i've listened to for the last 5 years
is it on the pirates in london?
does it have mcs?
i dont really understand all these subgenres yet?
anyone?

jon b, Saturday, 31 January 2004 10:29 (twenty years ago) link

one month passes...
http://www.darkmoormilitary.com/MATRIX/Full%20Regiment.asx

gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 20:19 (twenty years ago) link

one year passes...
Find threads from I Love Music, subject contains 'grime'.

72 results found:

DAEREST V1CE MAGAZINE!!!!! (ex machina), Friday, 17 June 2005 20:41 (nineteen years ago) link

four months pass...
i havent got time to read all of this but it seems many people havent responsed to mr clarks statement about the sheer musical properties of grime VS older dance musics, everyones gone on about other factors relating to audience/geography/outlets/etc etc rather than other stuff

anyway isnt the main diff, the real pivotal switch from pre-grime dance to grime that the MCs are the real draws now, not the DJs nor the producers?

also, the new skepta tune duppy is interesting cos its a 4-4 tune, and honestly, its all the better for it. its dancey, when roll deep Mc over it, its got bounce, some movement, its not all stupidly stiff

the other thing about grime that might tie it to some previous other dance musics is that a lot of it is so amateurish

fucker, Monday, 31 October 2005 12:59 (nineteen years ago) link

"there were too many MCs who thought shouting "i will stab you" 15 times constitutes a good rhymes."

LOL. this hasnt exactly changed has it?

"sometimes i think the more the uk mcs try to imitate and assimilate to american standards of mcing they'll lose what they had before, the english quirkiness and parochial charm. while not gaining an iota in terms of a chance of breaking into america"

totally OTM
basically grime is an outlet for everyone who wanted to make rap music in the UK but felt uk hip hop was too derivative and unoriginal, so gravitated towards grime with optimism. but most of the MCs havent really been up to standard, and me personally, i miss not so much the patter, but just the difference between pay as u go and the type of stuff wiley tries to make these days, all the energy on record is mostly gone from his voice, the speed is AWOL, all that early more fire and PAUG and so solid stuff was so good cos their voices werent like hip hop ones, the flows werent, the beats def werent, and it was fresh, and individual....theyre trying to concentrate on ther content when most of the time, they dont really have any. they should stick with the flowing side of things, cos really, not many mcs are good outside of the pirates, i dont know why, maybe its a lasting element of the old rave/jungle MC pitfalls


fucker, Monday, 31 October 2005 13:10 (nineteen years ago) link

sigh is this okokok / lethalfizzle / blahbarian / etc ad nauseum again

i'd like to have heard 'duppy', but cameo's irrelevant lately, lioness blog is slacking and the rinse fm stream never ever works. and the forum's locked so you can't get old sets. frankly unacceptable. and when are aftershock getting their supposed radio 1 slot?

(if 'duppy' totally sounds like broken beat then i might have heard it! with an uptown top ranking 'no pop no style' sample intro? coulda sworn it was a jammer beat mind)

also i don't think worry (meh) over american influence covers only mcing - ruff sqwad are (still!) so far up dipset's arse sometimes it's getting silly now.

hold tight the private caller (mwah), Monday, 31 October 2005 13:42 (nineteen years ago) link

who was stringent stepper in the end?

hold tight the private caller (mwah), Monday, 31 October 2005 13:44 (nineteen years ago) link

ruff sqwad are basically the heatmakers of grime
rapid used to be the swizz beats of grime, but now hes heatmakers all the way, its quite comical, and even the rhymes now are like dipset
but youre bound to get stuff like that, some overtly american stuff along with the non americanised tracks
and you could argue that even though the us hip hop influence is blatant, they still 'grimeise' it

hi, Monday, 31 October 2005 13:52 (nineteen years ago) link

grime listening to other music isnt bad in itself though, obviously. rather that than everyone waiting and aping until wiley sets the new agenda with some minor adjustment innit

but then when ruff sqwad spit over an untouched mop/heatmakerz instrumental and release it as a b-side... really what is the point.

hold tight the private caller (mwah), Monday, 31 October 2005 14:07 (nineteen years ago) link

honestly i think RS might be one of the most overrated crews in grime
sure they have some moments of brilliance/greatness, but they usually pad it out with real sub-dipset crap
they had underground which was amazing, then on the b side they put that rubbish heatmakers-gone-grime track
i want to like them cos grime bloggers love em so much but they seem really inconsistent. i think they just want to make hip-hop really, but somehow ended up in grime (thinking about that now, that might a common dilemma)
i wonder when the next wiley agenda adjustment will come, its been quite a while.

hi, Monday, 31 October 2005 14:28 (nineteen years ago) link

sorry if this thread is going off topic. can we get it back on route? the first post from fucker had a few decent points.

hi, Monday, 31 October 2005 14:31 (nineteen years ago) link

really hi i can't complain about not taking established grime crit for granted, and yes yes ok it can get risible, but seriously you wd get more joy out of grime discourse if u didnt completely kill the vibe all the time. and ur fucking repetitive!! i dunno perhaps u find more to relish in puncturing egos

*cue all of the internet pointing and laughing at hold tight the hypocrite*

fucker's points have been done to death everywhere you look.

hold tight the private caller (mwah), Monday, 31 October 2005 15:12 (nineteen years ago) link

ok.

hi, Monday, 31 October 2005 15:15 (nineteen years ago) link

maybe we should just talk about bump and flex now.

im up for some reactionary nostalgia a la 2001

ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 31 October 2005 15:24 (nineteen years ago) link

i am now totally convinced that the LHC is dead, and has been for half a decade

Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Monday, 31 October 2005 15:26 (nineteen years ago) link

"what makes 2004 'grimier,' economically, politically, socially, than 1999?"

more gun crime in london?
its hard to tell sometimes with grime how pronounced the influx of urban decay in london really is or if its just part and parcel of the actual genre, i.e. its de facto POV

DTI, Monday, 31 October 2005 15:28 (nineteen years ago) link

killed the vibe havent i. sorry i havent anything to say! but i guess i do still think it's interesting to try work out grime thinking backwards a little - what things that aren't grime does grime like? is there a common thread in particular or is it all, as stands to reason, whatever youngers in london like anyway? or does grime only like other thigns that are grime?

errm so:

still tippin, dipset, 'running' by the game, jamrock, summer bounce riddim, the throw-riko-a-bone dancehall mix of 'shake a leg' is on scoobay riddim, what else

i dunno

hold tight the private caller (mwah), Monday, 31 October 2005 15:36 (nineteen years ago) link

i thought it was pretty obvious. i mean, i can run down things ive read in interviews, but grime seems to like the 'big' hip hop tunes (i dont think grime artists are HUGE hip hop obsessives per se) so stuff like still tippin (even though its well old now), but then wiley has mentioned lil jon, mannie fresh i think, dipset and guys like that too. dizzee likes lil jon, 3-6, cash money and jay-z. kano i think has mentioned the lower tier dipset members too. they all seem to mention the obvious dancehall artists like sizzla, etc. i dunno. what point are we aiming towards here?

DTI, Monday, 31 October 2005 16:07 (nineteen years ago) link

huh?

F.R.I.E.N.D. (nordicskilla), Monday, 31 October 2005 16:12 (nineteen years ago) link

station get licked

ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 31 October 2005 16:42 (nineteen years ago) link

this thread has broken contact with the sense-making continuum

sistermidnight, Monday, 31 October 2005 16:45 (nineteen years ago) link

Welcome to the world of ILX grime threads.

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 31 October 2005 16:47 (nineteen years ago) link

i know right?

reactionary nostalgia it is then

hold tight the private caller (mwah), Monday, 31 October 2005 16:49 (nineteen years ago) link

clearly, grime threads dont attract the right sort of people.

sistermidnight, Monday, 31 October 2005 16:53 (nineteen years ago) link

grime's a turtle / you can't step into its circle

hold tight the private caller (mwah), Monday, 31 October 2005 17:00 (nineteen years ago) link

DTI = doncaster transport interchange, right?

ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 31 October 2005 17:20 (nineteen years ago) link

oui

DTI, Monday, 31 October 2005 17:37 (nineteen years ago) link

sixteen years pass...

New Kornel Kovacs LP has some poptimist-tinged broadcasts from the continuum.

https://kornelkovacs.bandcamp.com/album/hotel-koko

Usch is some Nordic garage, works for me but maybe too polished for some. Get Goofy comes a little harder — I’m not sure the vocal totally works tho.

recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Friday, 21 October 2022 14:37 (two years ago) link

A lot of chatter about the new Burial release but I it’s hard for me to get worked up about, he tends to be same-y imo.

I do think we should have the intention of reviving every different ardkore continuum-adjacent thread if possible.

recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Friday, 21 October 2022 14:40 (two years ago) link

honestly i think RS might be one of the most overrated crews in grime
sure they have some moments of brilliance/greatness, but they usually pad it out with real sub-dipset crap
they had underground which was amazing, then on the b side they put that rubbish heatmakers-gone-grime track
i want to like them cos grime bloggers love em so much but they seem really inconsistent. i think they just want to make hip-hop really, but somehow ended up in grime (thinking about that now, that might a common dilemma)
i wonder when the next wiley agenda adjustment will come, its been quite a while.
― hi, Monday, 31 October 2005 14:28 (sixteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's just an absolute crock. Ruff Sqwad >>>

paolo, Saturday, 22 October 2022 09:55 (two years ago) link

why is it the hardcore continuum and not the reggae continuum or the disco continuum or something else? what motivates critical attention on this lineage over others? is it something about establishing a narrative throughline for specifically british-based electronic/dance musics? and is it supposed to be prescriptive in some way (which would make sense of bizarre things like jazz influences in jungle being talked about as somehow extraneous or intrusive)?

your original display name is still visible (Left), Saturday, 22 October 2022 13:02 (two years ago) link


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