grime and the hardcore continuum

is this really the case? i mean, they have mobiles, the internet, technology is generally cheaper or somehow more ascertainable - i'm alluding that generally people are better off, it seems so but of course there is still poverty and people live in it and it's quite likely that there will be SOME in that scene who fit that description but the generalisation seems too stong - it doesn't seem any more 'hard-up' or desperate than hip hop or jungle did here when they were young underground movements.

yup, always fashionable to be a crim, no argument there. but i promise you, i grew up in stratford and it weren't scary. there wasn't crackheads pestering you for money, there wasn't as many muggings, and there was certainly nowhere near as many arms, and that crew/gang culture wasn't nearly so serious. if you get involved with that (and i'm not obviously) you can get stabbed up for being in the wrong territory. i know some of you will think i'm making it up, but thats what i'm trying to tell you, it's much realer than you think, when we were coming up it wasn't like that. and thats what i'm saying isn't it, i'm not saying people are poorer now, i'm saying they're scareder.

does everyone think like that or am i just childish? or am i just the only one stupid enough to admit to something like that?

should put somehting garage related here too now
if ruff sqwads music was a woman, i'd seek her hand in marriage.

of course i was 16/17 then, i think most of us are like that at that age, and a good many are like that in a class-war sense, as you are. Nick is like that, and he's from a very similar background to me after all. but - the crucial, total difference between him and me - he liked Oasis in the mid-90s.

more important than crime and low funds is the mC though. this is the real reason why grime can into existence. it was the music the MCs willed into existence. they were sick of being the sideshow. the younger ones were sick of dibby dibby and flava for the raver, they wanted to write they wanted to spit properly and to do that they needed some music to act as a backdrop. thats the real reason grime came into existence. it sounds like it does for a whole host of other resons, but the need to talk was why it exists at all.

i don't hate anybody, not even marcello.

What kind of content/ visual quality?

i miss dibby dibby and flava for the raver!

seriously i wish there was a bit more of that old Mc-as-compere, enhancement-to-the-music, foil-to-the-DJ role

it's great they're all into writing out their verses and reciting small books's worth of stuff but i miss all the off the cuff daft stuff

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

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

(just saw 'fix up look sharp' on MTV 2 the other day and it didn't work at all, he doesn't command the video space like any old US emcee would, the music sounds scrawny, the voice sounded like he's from Mars -- out of context, it doesn't compute)

Haha!

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...[

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

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.

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.

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...

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

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?

72 results found:

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

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

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.

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