Attention all Wiley fans!

wonder if the mistake he wanted corrected was listing j2k on 'my heart' cos he ain't on there now as far as i can hear

(i'd heard the j2k version on the radio and that tune would have been the pick of the bunch as was but i think they slowed it right down to uselessness to fit french montana on)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0npI8zq_6YU

this is a certified spring jam and far beyond anything on the lp fwiw

i just boggled at "wiley featuring emeli sandé, j2k and french montana" too much to really hear the song

another unguided wiley album drifting listlessly by

you always wonder what his and dizzee's careers would have been like if it was wiley that had cage managing/producing/father figuring

How man of them are there now?

you always wonder what his and dizzee's careers would have been like if it was wiley that had cage managing/producing/father figuring

Even assuming he had the choice, Cage backed the right horse. It's not even that Wiley is mental to the point of being basically uncontrollable, he just doesn't have Dizzee's charm, either on record or off. There's just something about their voices as well, Dizzee can convey so much more. It's not that Wiley hasn't made great records but he'd never hit Dizzee-style beloved pop figure status.

yeah sure it's not a taking sides, i would never dispute dizzee being a rare talent with the edge over his generation, i'm just saying wiley's work has always cried out for an understanding editor when it comes to making that next step

besides it might not be the same charm as dizzee's but he still has more charm than most. much more in fact and certainly enough to be a pop star with

the other side of the question is for all dizzee's outrageous talent would he have ever got this far just by himself the same way his peers have had to? i don't think so

Yeah I mean put him next to I dunno Wretch 32 or someone and the difference is obvious but I'm not sure the man exists who could do that. Crucially none of these other guys see themselves as svengali/mentor figures themselves.

it's not even that cage might have done so much work for dizzee but that the lines of success are so fine that a wise word here a nudge there really can make all the crucial difference

http://www.musicweek.com/news/read/dizzee-rascal-uncaged/049422

"What Dizzee means is: 'It allows a wider remit of artistic expression,'" he jokingly, forcefully clarifies. He looks at me suspiciously: "Who are we talking to here?"

Ten months into this job, and I have never witnessed the words 'Music Week' cause anywhere near such elation. Cage openly guffaws: "Ha! Say what the fuck you like!"

Someone needs to get their act together and just put out that 2CD career retrospective because it'd still be better than the equivalent comp from pretty much anyone else.

A loose-fit turquoise Ralph Lauren shirt brushing over tree trunk torso and beefy belly, he's a boisterous bruiser with a box-clever tongue; a bantersaurus with a Pulitzer in pinpoint put-downs and prickly piss-takes.

Looking forward to his eponymous strip in Viz sometime soon.

I'm going to make the hits, go on TV and make the syncs and that shit. But I want to be able to say shit, cunt, bollocks and all that - talk about obscene stuff. That's what albums are for."

This has nothing to do with what we're talking about I just want to preserve it for when I inevitably need to requote it in the future.

wiley IS a fairly beloved pop figure though - obv not to the extent of dizzee, but tbh i'm not sure how much wiley's persona at its best would translate to mass mass mass stadium appeal anyway. he's not a rabble-rouser or party-starter, he's a slightly grumpy loose cannon. his antics haven't sabotaged his career to anywhere near the extent they should have, and have probably only enhanced his legend (to people who care).

the missed opportunity was someone with wiley's talent taking on the mentoring role to other artists.

I think it's fair to say that a lack of a decent editor (even on a line-by-line basis) has stopped him from ever making a great album. Even the decent ones are met with general indifference.

Tim Finney on the new album: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17772-wiley-the-ascent/

Correctly identifying the Kid-D produced tracks as MVPs, they are gorgeous. 'Humble Pie' ended up as one of my favourite songs of last year. A couple of collabs that didn't make it on the album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptTD37klofk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knkt8ZptBpE

tim otm about how half-hearted the EDM choruses are, the tulisa one sounds especially unfinished and grafted clumsily in

surprised at the tracks tim identifies as standouts, they seemed much of a boring muchness with the rest to me - the aggressive posse cuts are the best/most enjoyable but also, yes, what's the point now

Haha, I think "enjoyable but also, yes, what's the point now" is perhaps a broader criticism w/r/t Wiley.

It seemed a bit self-indulgent else I would have explained that my enjoyment of "Humble Pie" and "Broken Thoughts" (I assume they're the "standouts" you're referring to) is basically a derivation of the time I first played a handmade tape sent to me by Luka containing that Dizzee "I like girls, I like sex" tune, pretty much exactly ten years ago now.

nostalgia :(

oh is "humble Pie" the ~reflective~ one? both dizzee and wiley perfected that track with the closers off their respective debuts

"Broken Thoughts" is better IMO. Straight lost girlfriend vibes.

ha, "prissy" has long been my go-to adjective for wiley cat

lol

new album's actually good! despite gudda gudda of all people popping up

"no skylarking" and "badman", all thumbs up

It is pretty good, but there's still the nagging feeling he isn't bringing his A-game here - I wonder if he knows what that sounds like at this stage. Gudda Gudda verse is so unwelcome.

has wiley ever managed to stretch tier one wiley over the course of an lp

treddin' on thin ice and grime wave are as close as it gets probably

success of a wiley album tends to depend on how exciting the beats are, i think - he remains fairly constant

The gap between tier one Wiley and the rest of his work is pronounced though, his best stuff is always fast and pacey and usually grimey, and his limitations as an MC are usually exposed when momentum is withdrawn.

http://ninjatune.net/release/wiley-and-zomby/step-2001/

wiley and zomby collabo. more interesting on paper tbh. its actually a bit boring.

Grim

The celebrity Wiley not only comparing Jewish people to the KKK, but also getting a conspiracy theory in there too.

This is unabashed antisemitism.

Antisemitism is everywhere. It must be called out and eradicated.

Disgusting. pic.twitter.com/mKeB5EDUw3

— alf🌹 (@alfiewm_) July 24, 2020

ffs

What a moron

fucking hell, is he ever going to stop? and plenty of approving replies from other antisemites.

As if the antisemitic rhetoric wasn't bad enough…

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/24/wiley-accused-of-antisemitism-after-likening-jews-to-ku-klux-klan

he spent the whole day posting antisemitic shit on Twitter, in the end he even moved on to holocaust denial.

God, what a dickhead.

Is this remotely typical for Wiley?

Member of the Order of the British Empire, eh?

Indeed, what a genius.

total shitshow on twitter- a few people defending him saying the reaction just proves his point, a whole army of white people giving totally unrelated black people shit in the name of antiracism, every prominent black grime related artist being misidentified as Wiley “for some reason”, people trying to make it all about BLM/The Left/Israel/etc

As they say on r/AmItheAsshole, ESH (Everyone Sucks Here).

what a wankstain, forgot he was a royal arselicker. pathetic man.

total shitshow on twitter

Get away.

how many antisemites and paedos have been given royal orders by now anyway

has Stormzy commented?

Stormzy hasn’t been on social media for months now.

He's apologised for making 'comments that were looked at as anti-Semitic'.

Might have well said that he's sorry people were offended but better than no apology at all I guess. Interesting that he only said sorry after being banned from Twitter.

You can’t make this up... Guardian uses a photo of Kano in an article on racism when referencing Wiley 💀 pic.twitter.com/cgwhD0YwYU

— aruba ▼ red (@ArubaRed) July 29, 2020

apparently same issue as with denise, incorrectly labelled library pics.
but still ..

^ Apparently NME, Daily Mail, Guardian and another (Express, I think) ran wrong pictures of Denise. Certainly, the Guardian picked this up fairly quickly and removed the pictures ... but it's wank, isn't it?

The Independent had the wrong picture for Denise Johnson