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Grime is a sub-genre of urban music which first emerged in London, England in the early 2000s, primarily a development of UK garage, dancehall, and hip hop.

Musical style

Grime also know music is typified by complex 2-step breakbeats, generally around 140 beats per minute and constructed from unorthodox sounds. Stylistically, grime takes from many genres including UK Garage, dancehall and hip hop. The lyrics and music combine futuristic electronic elements and dark, guttural bass lines.

According to Sasha Frere-Jones, writer for The New Yorker, grime has developed a fierce sound by "distilling" rhythms to a minimal style resulting in a choppy, off-center sound. Whereas hip hop is inherently dance music, the writer argues that "grime sounds as if it had been made for a boxing gym, one where the fighters have a lot of punching to do but not much room to move." Frere-Jones also states that grime has maintained a style unique from American hip-hop, with clear Jamaican and West Indies influences. Writer Hattie Collins supports Frere-Jones' s analysis by asserting that grime is "an amalgamation of UK Garage with a bit of drum'n'bass, a splash of punk and a touch of hip-hop thrown in for good measure."

Grime is a genre of music often associated with artists like Wiley, Kano, Vibezkid, Dizzee Rascal, Morphman, Sway, and Chipmunk. Similar to when the Americans came up with the term and genre hip-hop, grime is a genre that is also associated with Urban Street culture. It began in East London, Bow, and rapidly spread throughout the UK Urban Cities and Suburbs. Grime has since become a movement, a sound of the 'Youth' in and around multicultural UK Cities. Great talents are now emerging through the genre in rapid successions to become household brands in thier own right. In the 2008 Mobo Awards celebration 'Chipmunk' a grime artist won the category of 'Best New Comer'. Grime continues to exite, entertain and grow to attract audiances far and wide, accross the globe. It is currently well received by none other than the Americans who gave the UK and the World Hip-hop. In resent times they have come to know that there is a massive untapped pool of talent in the UK waiting to be unearthed. Comment added by Blogga

Origins and development

Grime emerged from the inner city areas of East London and North West London, notably the areas around Bow and Hackney in East London and Queen's Crescent and Harlesden in North West London, from where many of the key grime artists originate and also Adam Evans(big al) of Margate who came out with a banger for the streets in 2007. A pleased big al said he would be trying to find other up and coming artsists like him self in the margate area and also said that he wants to make it a hot bed for grime. The emergence of grime is intrinsically connected to its origins on UK pirate radio, with many performers honing their skills and achieving underground success before approaching the mainstream. The first ever pirate radio station to support grime was MajorFm.com, they supported grime music before the genre was called grime, in the early stages, the genre was called Sublow, MajorFm.com was the launch pad of many of the established artists today. This indicated the movement of UK Garage away from its house influences towards darker themes and sounds. Among the first tracks to be recognised as grime were "Eskimo" by Wiley and "Pulse X" by Musical Mob.

Dizzee Rascal, Mark Barnardand Wiley, former members of Roll Deep, were among the first to bring the genre to the attention of the mainstream media in 2003, with their albums Boy in Da Corner and Treddin' On Thin Ice respectively. Dizzee Rascal particularly garnered broad critical and commercial acclaim, with Boy in Da Corner... eventually winning the 2003 Mercury Music Prize. Grime has received a lot of exposure from television stations including Channel U, Playboy TV , Logan Sama's show on London station Kiss FM and the BBC's youth oriented digital radio station 1Xtra Toke on a Joint.

Grime, however, is a cross-pollinated genre, taking influence from a variety of different cultural styles as well as musical ones, and is therefore still in many respects considered to be underground music, even after mainstream exposure. It exists in a largely informal economy in which most artists make their debuts on independently-produced battle DVDs that, like mixtapes are sold out of barbershops and make their way around the city. These artists also receive a lot of help from pirates and radio stations which keep the public up to date with the music. Even though grime is very popular in the UK, many recording labels have yet to acknowledge its presence as a genre that can compete in the global market. There is a perception that international major labels don't understand the value of grime, as DJ Semtex, an A&R for Def Man Recordings and also Dizzee Rascal's DJ says, "the biggest conflict I have is with major labels because they still don’t get it" it being any Gash.

Although grime is recognised as a creative and innovative musical style, there are other contributing factors to its rapid and widespread growth in popularity; the MCs producing current grime music are overwhelmingly young as a group. The most well known names in the industry such as Dizzee Rascal, Corrupt Kid and Kano began recording at twenty and sixteen respectively, and the resultant package of "youth making music for youth" is seen as a crucial factor for Grime's success.

As with many similar scenes around the world, the Grime scene has encountered some criticism, especially from government officials like Home Secretary David Blunkett who in 2003 called rap lyrics "appalling" simply because he is a mug or former Culture Secretary Kim Howells statement that grime artists were helping to create a culture "where killing is almost a fashion accessory." Howells went even deeper into the issue, making comments that many found to be "deeply racist," referring to popular artists and crews as "boasting macho idiot rappers." While the government offers one point of view, the artists and listeners offer another. In an article by Jeff Chang in The Village Voice, Dizzee Rascal’s often violent and sexual lyrics are heralded as “capturing, encapsulating, and preserving” the life that he and his peers live on the streets every day.

There are more and more concerns that grime will lose its authenticity as it gains popularity, as a result of its roots in immigrant cultures and under-privileged communities will be lost to corporate power, as some perceive to be happening with the increasing fame of artists such as Lady Sovereign, Corrupt Kid and Dizzee Rascal.

International growth

Template:Sample box end Dizzee Rascal is regarded as the first grime artist to gain international acclaim after winning the Mercury Music Prize, though he received as much notice for his stab wounds as he did for his debut, Boy In Da Corner. It wasn't until the release of his third album, 2007's Maths + English, that Dizzee Rascal experienced the same kind of international acclaim. Dizzee was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize again, and despite the fact that the album wasn't released in the United States in 2007, it received high praise from international music critics, magazines, websites, and blogs, including Pitchfork Media, Rolling Stone, NME, and Rock Sound.

The 2005 release of 679 Recordings' Run the Road compilation, showcased some of the most popular grime releases to that point, increasing the popularity and fame of grime and grime artists internationally. A particularly notable grime artist who has had success overseas is Lady Sovereign, who appeared on Late Show with David Letterman, signed to Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records, and whose "Love Me or Hate Me" became the first video by a British artist to reach number one on MTV's Total Request Live, though her music has departed considerably from her early output on pirate radio stations, and she does not regard herself as a grime artist.

The international growth of the UK grime scene has also been evident in recent years with many of the popular grime artists playing on the Urban stages of the big summer festivals such as Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds and O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park. For example Dizzee Rascal played at all these events in the summer of 2008 and other important grime figures such as Wiley, Lady Sovereign, (Download 2008)], Boy Better Know and Roll Deep have all played some of these music festivals in recent years. There is no doubt that the jump from Grime as an underground UK music scene onto the mainstream has been a dramatic one, aided by the huge success of Dizzee Rascal but also seen by the Summer 2008 song for Wiley, called "Wearing My Rolex", which reached a high of number 2 in the UK charts, selling over 200, 000 copies.

See also

• Grime artists
• Dubstep
• Grindie
• Wiley (rapper)

References

1. ^ McKinnon, Matthew (2005-05-05). "Grime Wave". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2008-02-24.
2. ^ Collins, Hattie (2004-11-19). "will grime pay?". Collective. BBC. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
3. ^ Frere-Jones, Sasha (2005-03-21). "True Grime". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
4. Harvell, Jess (2005-03-21). "They Don't Know". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2008-02-25.
5. "Cameron attacks Radio 1's hip-hop". BBC News. BBC. 2006-06-07. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
6. Gibbons, Fiachra (2003-01-06). "Minister labelled racist after attack on rap 'idiots'". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
7. ^ Chang, Jeff (2004-01-13). "Future Shock". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
8. Patrin, Nate (2007-06-15). "Dizzee Rascal: Maths + English". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
9. Hoard, Christian (2007-05-30). "Maths + English". Rolling Stone Online. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
10. Miller, Alex (2007-06-01). "Maths + English". New Music Express. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
11. Galil, Leor. "Dizzee Rascal - Maths & English". Rock Sound. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
12. Mathewson, Catriona (2007-02-16). "Sovereign hits her gold mine". The Courier-Mail. Queensland Newspapers. Retrieved 2008-04-13.

External links

• BBC News: Is the UK on the verge of a Brithop boom?
• Grime Remixes
• The Grimepedia
• The Grime Forum

• UK garage
• Electronic music genres
• Hip hop genres
• Youth culture in the United Kingdom
• Music from London