Dizzee Rascal flew from London to Houston to meet up with Bun B and film the video for “Where’s Da G’s?” B gives D a tour of his hood and hooks him up with a sweet deal on a pair of X-Ray G Glasses.

Dizzee Rascal + Bun B “Where’s Da G’s?” Video:

Unfortunately, Pimp C does not appear in the video, but his verses are on the album edit of this song. BIG Big Choon off the US release of Maths + English from Definitive Jux.
“Where’s Da G’s” with Bun B and Pimp C is the best US/UK hip hop crossover recorded so far….

We’ve got 2 Dizzee Rascal tunes in the player this week: “Where’s Da G’s” featuring Pimp C and Bun B of the U.G.K. AND a mega-mix from El-P featuring tunes off the US release of Maths + English (including Pretty Todd’s remix of “Pussyhole”).

([ Click To Add "El-P Mix" To Player ])
([ Click To Add "Where's Da Gs?" To Player ])

(I’m still working on this ^ new feature, so let me know if it works for you or not. Thanks! )

Dizzee Rascal Links

To grab copies of each for yo’self:
“Where’s Da G’s” on Spinner
El-P Megamix on Pitchf*#k

Almost a full year after its UK release, Dizzee Rascal’s Maths + English will finally get a proper release in the US. Of course, the album had more UK appeal, from Dizzee’s dialect to his collaborations with other UK artists Lily Allen and the Arctic Monkeys. That might be why it was nominated for a Mercury Prize and a MOBO in the UK but received little recognition across the pond. But the album also features a collaboration with Underground Kingz Pimp C and Bun B on the track “Where’s Da G’s”, so it should do well in the States too. ([More →])

Pull up Selecta, let’s hear those tunes one more time! Here are my selections for the Top 10 Tunes and 15 Albums Released In 2007… Tune in again tomorrow for a REWIND of the Biggest Tunes Published On ([HearingTest]) in ‘07! ([More →])

There’s a lot of anticipation in the air surrounding the new album from the notorious Wu-Tang Clan. To help ease some of the tensions that have been building, Semtex dropped FOUR tunes off 8 Diagrams during his BBC 1Xtra Radio show last Sunday! Semtex brings a hot mix of hip hop tunes to the UK airwaves and the globe’s internet streams on a weekly basis via BBC Radio 1Xtra. Lucky for us, the show is available until Saturday night/Sunday morning when the new show airs and gets archived. The show also features the brand new Snoop Dog tune (with D-oh-dubble-G singing!) “Sensual Seduction,” plus tracks from Chris Brown featuring Lil Wayne, new Jay-Z, Kid Sister ft. Kanye West, Chingy, Skepta, Asher D, Ghetto, Trigger and Kano! ([More →])

Dizzee’s new video for “Flex” is finished and you can watch it here. The single drops November 19th on XL recordings. Course, you probably already have it on Maths & English.
Also, Dizzee gets flexed and stretched for the Supersonic Speed Trials - check his track style! “Sirens” was apparently just a warm up… ([More →])

Dizzee Rascal is gettin ready to drop the newest single off Maths + English. The old-school garage tinged “Flex” will hit the streets on 9 November while Dizzee is in the midst of a UK tour. The Boy In Da Corner also took home the MOBO Best UK Male award this year. ([More →])

Dizzee Rascal scored four nominations for UK’s Music Of Black Origin (MOBO) Awards. He is nominated for best UK male, best song for “Sirens,” best video for “Sirens” and best hip hop act. I hope he wins best video because I LOVE that “Sirens” video. Other competitors for MOBOs include WILEY, Kano, Kanye, 50 Cent, Common, Lethal B, Sway, Shaggy, Joss Stone, Corinne Bailey Rae, Jamelia, Tony Matterhorn, Stephen Marley, and many more!! ([More →])

From all I have read on the web and in glossy magazines, few are able to decipher a complicated music subject and share it with the masses better than Martin Clark. Clark writes “The Month In:…” features for pitchf*#k, and I need to find out where else he gets published because I learn so much from each of his installments. I’ve mentioned his column before, usually in reference to grime, but I’ve never really drawn attention to the man and his writing abilities. I just wanted to point this out to you because I know some of you love to read and write about music yourselves. That, plus Clark’s gone and done it again - he’s written a fantastic article about what’s happening right now in dubstep and grime, how the music is beginning to draw from its rich cultural history, and how this will bode for the future. He weaves short stories together about the different musicians making moves right now, with commentary on the fresh and upcoming albums. He describes the hardships of urban youth in the UK and ties it into the music’s lineage, rooted in the UK Jamaican diaspora. ([More →])

Dizzee Rascal’s future is now unavoidably interlinked with Pete Doherty’s. What was Dizzee thinking? Well, I guess rascals don’t get much say in who they tour with. Now it all rides on whether Doherty can stay out of jail and off drugs long enough to complete a Baby Shambles tour. ([More →])

Tales Of The Jackalope announced the lineup for this summer’s event. TOTJ 2007 takes place in the “enigmatic and romantic countryside” of Kimberly Hall in South Norfolk from noon on August 4th until noon the next day.

Tales Of The Jackalope Lineup

DIZZEE RASCAL
THE FALL
2MANYDJS
ESG
UFFIE & FEADZ
THE HOURS
FUCKED UP
RUMBLESTRIPS
FOALS
SHY CHILD
CHRIS CUNNINGHAM
LATE OF THE PIER
ERRORS
DANANANANANYKROYD
XX TEENS
COMANECHI
FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE MUSIC
STRIKEN CITY
CONAN & THE MOCCASINS
EBONY BONES
THE MORE ASSURED
AUTOKRATZ
CHOW CHOW
OX.EAGLE.LION.MAN.
SHAKES
TRIM
DEAD PIXEL
MAMASHAMONE

Get all the info you need at the TOTJ website. Only 3000 people can attend, so don’t sleep!

In other grime news, Dizzee Rascal’s new single, “Sirens” hit stores this week. BLEEP has “Sirens” as well as Dizzee’s collab with Arctic Monkeys, “Temptation Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend”. You can listen to them on BLEEP and/or order individual tracks in mp3 format. “Sirens” is from Dizzee’s upcoming album (available in the US as digital only, but available on vinyl and CD in UK and Europe) Maths + English and “Temptation Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend” is from the recently released Arctic Monkeys album Favourite Worst Nightmare which is available on CD, vinyl, and download.

Grime, meet Indie Rock. Pop, meet Grime. And so on. New albums on the horizon that are blending, mashing, and redefining musical genres.

There is a great article on the genre crossing between grime music and indie rock in The Independent today. I find it interesting that, for me anyway, it has raised more questions than answers about music today.

It lists a few examples, such as Statik remixing the Bloc Party and The Rakes last year, putting a grime sound to each. It was Statik that coined the term “grindie” for such combinations. He also made a few mashups, placing grime mc’s over Ladyfuzz and Larrikin Love with Pete Doherty in the mix. ([More →])

You have most likely heard of Lady Sovereign. You may have also heard of Dizzee Rascal. In the US we would tend to call that style of music hip-hop, because here, that’s what we call any music with words rapped over it. In the UK they currently call this style grime. It has words rapped over music like hip hop does, but the music is more clubby than most american hip hop. Grime’s basslines are incredibly heavy and rolling, like synthesizer melodies made for subwoofers. The beats are a 2-step breakbeat and the overall tempo is between 130-140 bpm. The words are rapped aggressively fast, double time to the music. Grime, like hip hop, incorporates sampled elements from all over the place - piano bits, guitar riffs, glockenspiels, record scratching, etc. But unlike hip hop, grime was influenced by UK Garage, drum and bass, ragga, and jungle. These forms of music are very full and rich forms of electronica, whereas most hip hop tends to be a bit more sparse, often sounding like the original instrument that was sampled. More to the source, Grime is completely influenced by it’s first creator - Wiley, the Grandfather of Grime.
When Wiley first created this new sound in 2000, he was calling it “Eski-beat” and himself the “Eski-boy”. He was a mentor to Dizzee Rascal who was just a teen at the time, listening to Wiley, and trying out his own voice and hands on the machines. Both Wiley and Dizzee presented this new sound to mainstream record labels at the same time, and both had an album released by XL Records in 2003, Wiley’s Tredding On Thin Ice and Dizzee’s Boy In Da Corner. Boy In Da Corner received the Mercury Music Prize in the same year. In 2002 another grime hit, “Oi” by Lethal Bizzle debuted at #7 in the UK Singles charts. Lethal B’s next big hit, “Pow (Forward)” also known as “Forward Riddim” was released in 2005. It debuted at #11 in the UK Singles charts and #1 in the UK Dance chart.

Wiley - “Pies”

Grime still hasn’t made it really big in the mainstream though, then again, it’s only about 7 years old. As a music scene and genre, that isn’t very long at all. What that basically says is that one guy created a new style of music, and that created a movement that was noticed in less than 2 years. You could almost say that it peaked 3 years ago, but that wouldn’t be including what’s coming up this year and what’s to come in the next 10-20 years. When Alex Bok Bok asked Wiley about this in his recent interview, Wiley responded : “Nahh, it takes time, it takes ten, fifteen, twenty years to build a scene. Which is another reason why I retired, because I thought ‘you know what, I’m 28 – when it’s peaking I ain’t even going to be here’. I don’t want to be Grandmaster Flash. So nah, grime hasn’t had its day. It’s got ages. It’s been five or six years. So it’s got 14, and in 14 I’ll be… well I’ll be old. [lol]”

Retired? The founder of grime music is retiring in it’s 7th year? Well, anyone who puts out albums makes a lot of moey and retire at age 28, lucky them. Well, yes, and no.

Wiley is retiring. Not from music overall, but definitely from the gime scene. Grime is a super competetive and dangerous scene. There is a lot of pressure to keep producing rapid fire hits. If one guy puts out a song, you have to put out a better one, and it keeps going like that. The parties in London that used to play and promote this music (still called “raves” even though the focus is not on techno, house, or ecstasy) have basically closed up because of violence. Too many kids got stabbed at various shows, so the scene has mostly moved out of London. But the heart of the music is in London, and there seems to be a trend of grime producers losing that heart when they leave. Wiley is staying in London, but now he has 2 adorable daughters to think of. He can’t be dodging bullets and knives, and he doesn’t want his daughters to go through that either. That doesn’t mean Wiley is getting old though! He’s only 28, and he is super excited about the kids who comprise the next generation of grime producers and mc’s. When i say kids, i am referring to the fact that most up and coming grime artists are between 15-20 years old. i really do mean kids. And this is who Wiley is working with, the youth of tomorrow, no sign of slowing down and getting old.

As for the money that follows fame, Wiley sees it more as a corruption of the art. In his own words, from the interview with Alex Bok Bok again : “…you make your best music is when you’ve got no money.” And a moment later : “…you should take low money up front. It’s not bad. A Sony label would just throw money at them and they think ‘we’re in business’, but in actual fact they’re not. Low money is the best thing you can take, I promise you. I don’t know why I didn’t go for it before, just say ‘you know what I don’t want 100 grand, just give me 20 and I’m just going to make that album, and do the work, and fulfil the terms’. Because otherwise if I’ve got 100 grand or 200 I’ll just be so happy that you might not see me for a few years. So low money is a good thing.” And referring to how he sold records out of his car in London, before landing any record deals, he told Alex : “Loads, over 50,000. For those whole two years I just had loose change in my pockets the whole time. That was the best time of my life, where I earned all my own money. And then I got a record deal, and I just had too much money. I was too young! I didn’t know what to do with all that money! I’ll be honest with you, I really didn’t. And I didn’t really have a figure telling me what to do with it. I had people in my ear saying ‘buy property! (oh and lend me five hundred)’.”

It’s a great interview, with loads more info and perspective, you should check it out on the lower end spasm blog at dot-alt.blogspot.com. I don’t want to print to much of it here, coz it’s Alex’s interview and you should definitely give his blog the hits. I just wanted to give you a little insight into Wiley’s mentality and tempt you to go read the rest.

Realistically, Wiley is going to escape the rat race, keep making music, support the youth, and watch what other grime artists are doing. Up until know, everyone has been watching Wiley for what’s happening in grime. This will reverse that focus.

WILEY - “Wot Do You Call It?”

So, what is happening in grime, i hear you asking. enough of this history lesson, what can we expect in 2007? A lot! 2007 will see full grime albums from Wiley, Dizzee, Lethal Bizzle, Skepta, Roll Deep, Kano, and more. This will probably be grime’s peak in the mainstream thus far. And if you hadn’t heard of grime yet, you heard it here first! This is your chance to be on top of the trend early!

Roll Deep’s album, Rules and Regulations, was released yesterday and already has impressive reviews. The entire album can be heard on Roll Deep’s official myspace page. You can also read more about them and the album in my previous post Grime Explosion. One review for the album is in the Independent, and Boomkat gives you a review, previews, and you can order the album from them! Roll Deep Crew will be playing at the Love Music Hate Racism schools trip on April 20 in London.

Wiley is finished with his last album as MC and producer, Playtime’s Over and it is in Big Dada’s hands now. Big Dada calls it “his best work to date by a long way and is very much the album we hoped for.” i knew this one was gonna be a banger! you can hear a preview of “50/50″, the first single on the album, by going to Big Dada’s website and turn the music on. The album is still set to release on June 4th. The song 50/50 describes how cool and punk rock Big Dada is, and how it fits with Wiley’s philosophy on money and record deals. For more info on Wiley and the upcoming album, see my previous post, Wiley’s Last Solo Album. His single “Pies” is still the best, top notch best, example of grime music.

Dizzee’s upcoming album, Math’s and English will be released on July 2nd, and features collaborations between him and Lily Allen, and him with Joss Stone. I also already reported on Dizzee’s involvement in the Arctic Monkey’s new release, “Brainstorm”. Wikipedia has a small sample of “I Luv U”, from his album Boy In Da Corner. You can hear more on Dizzee’s myspace page. The tunes on this myspace are not very grimey, they’re closer to regular hip hop.

Lethal Bizzle’s upcoming album Back to Bizznizz will be released in June 2007 by V2 Records.

thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed this. feel free to comment or mogmail me feedback or further info, i will try to incorporate it into my next installment.

My “day job” has kept me very busy making those posts about slayer,ozzfest, ciara, etc. and it has left me with no time to keep up with my sweet artists who make the bumpin music that keeps me going through the day. so, while writing about pop music, i am secretly listening to the new roll deep album, previews of the wiley album, and wishing i could catch up on what where and who everyone is doing right now. well, before work today, i took a quick peek, and i realized that there is news that i absolutely must share with you before it is too late.

This is just a teaser, to let you know what i will be posting later this evening, but i do want you to know what’s gwan on. you can even hunt it down yourself if yr clever.

Wiley is finished with Playtime’s Over and it is in Big Dada’s hands now. Big Dada calls it “his best work to date by a long way and is very much the album we hoped for.” i knew this one was gonna be a banger! you can hear a preview of “50/50″, the first single on the album, by going to Big Dada’s website and turn the music on. The album is still set to release on June 4th. i will post more about how cool and punk rock Big Dada is, or you might glean it from listening to the new song….

Roll Deep’s new album has hit the streets and the people are lovin it! Reviews can be viewed all over the place, like <a href=”http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article2382020.ece#2007-03-23T00:00:01-00:00″>the Independent</a>, and <a href=”https://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=31456″>Boomkat</a> gives you a review, previews, and you can order the album from them! Roll Deep Crew will be playing at the Love Music Hate Racism schools trip on April 20 in London.. Links to reviews and places to listen to it will be posted later.

Apparently, Dizzee’s album is being delayed and will not come out on the same day as Wiley’s. The new release date for Math’s and English is July 2nd.

Les Savy Fav will be playing a benefit show in NYC on April 1st with The Big Sleep, and Call Me Lightning. it will be at the Bowery Ballroom, and sources claim it will sell out for sure, so to get your tix now, hit the link on the Frenchkiss Records website. Les Savy Fav will also play 2 shows in Tokyo (on their “world tour”) on May 2nd and 3rd. Call Me Lightning has a new album out, Soft Skeletons, and you can listen to a preview of a track off that album here. Be sure to comment on what you think in the comments area on spin.com as well.

Kid Koala is still on world tour and has been gracing North America with his stylish dj sets. i will post full tour info this evening. He is in Florida for the rest of this week.

By the time i get the next post up, i will probably have even more juicy bits, so stay tuned and check back here later tonight.

sorry for any major errors to this post, i am typing furiously to get it up before i go to work….