Nuclear Beef

dep down i know y' know why you don't hear about no GRIME forefathers, cuz everybody thinks they're onto like, some next big thing... and there hasn't been one that's trult big since the turntable was invented... just a lot of mad hype.

journalists & critics are complicit in movin' product and if all they ever did was said KRS or Iron Miaden or Ella Fitzgerald already did this, and better... then people stop sending them free records, tix & checks...

ask Jay Z who'd happily remind ya he's getting paid cuz the Cold Crush...uh, didn't...

Elvis was ripping off Big Mama Thornton, Hank Snow & Jackie Wilson..Little Richard bit Esquerita...Led Zep's "Whole Lotta Love" is a Small Faces tune stolen from some obscure long dead black bluesman etc etc

even those classical wigheads in the 1700's stole riffs liberally from each other...

peas & cheese y'all

I hear what you're saying--- as the saying goes, the best jungle MCs are the ones who know when to shut tf up-- and MCs have been rhyming over tricky electronic beats since day one.

That being said,

1. Aesthetically, rhythmically, things are happening in Grime that havent happened before. Good Grime has this unsettling lurchy empty space, an intense disorienting stacatto that is alienating and risky. Listen to Vex'd or Plasticman and tell me you've heard shit like that before ever. The rhyming is almost secondary, and has a long way to go-- but Dizzee gets it in a way few do, contorting his voice and persona in ways that give even KRS a run for his money. (When's the last time KRS rhymed about being bored or vulnerable? When's the last time KRS made his voice SOUND bored or vulnerable?)

2. Culturally, Grime is its own independent entity. The KRS/Goldie track was a gimmick. A brit producer paying an American rapper to guest-star on an album one-off to bolster his street cred. Ditto for similar late-90s crossover tracks, like RoniSize v Bahamadia. Grime was developed in its own universe-- the mega-insular underground London pirate-radio scene. And that no major-label cash was necessary to make Grime happen is why its sound is riskier and weirder than any big-budget cross-Atlantic all-star crossover will ever be.

I totally hear and dig your point that Grime has some dope and often-overlooked antecedents-- but I just got to stick up for it and point out that it's more than the sum of its ancestors.

:D
=Tones=

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1. Aesthetically, rhythmically, things are happening in Grime that havent happened before. Good Grime has this unsettling lurchy empty space, an intense disorienting stacatto that is alienating and risky. Listen to Vex'd or Plasticman and tell me you've heard shit like that before ever.
'

I haven't heard too much of either, but what Plasticman I have heard didn't impress me much. Frankly I'm biased against him because you'd have to be a total joke to consider yourself an electronic musician and never have heard of Plastikman. C'mon now.

But with regards to the stacatto lurch.. both The Neptunes and Timbaland have been doing very off-kilter beats for a few years now. And in the process they've managed to completely transform popular music. A pretty far cry from Grime's claim to have impressed a bunch of music nerds...

Again, I don't see the lurchiness or the electronicness of the beats as unique or distinct from the umbrella of Hip-Hop. Listen to the Neptunes beat for 'Caught Out There' by Kelis and tell me Grime is more complex. At best the trend is worth a name like 'East London Hip-Hop' but a new genre, I don't see it.

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The rhyming is almost secondary, and has a long way to go-- but Dizzee gets it in a way few do, contorting his voice and persona in ways that give even KRS a run for his money.
'

Dizzee has personality on the mic, but his rhyming and beat-riding ability doesn't even approach KRS-ONE in the 1980s. My personal theory is that most people are responding to the beat and the accent, and don't grasp that The Neptunes et al are doing exactly the same stuff, and better. In other words, I see the Grime hype as being centered around exocticism.

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(When's the last time KRS rhymed about being bored or vulnerable? When's the last time KRS made his voice SOUND bored or vulnerable?)
'

KRS-ONE is a particularly bad comparison. He has lots of songs where he sounds bored, vulnerable, heartfelt, spiritual, etc. As do many other *Hip-Hop* MCs who get less hype because their beats aren't electronic enough.

KRS-ONE being vulnerable :
http://www.nuclearbeef.com/archives/000523.html

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2. Culturally, Grime is its own independent entity.
...
Grime was developed in its own universe-- the mega-insular underground London pirate-radio scene. And that no major-label cash was necessary to make Grime happen is why its sound is riskier and weirder than any big-budget cross-Atlantic all-star crossover will ever be.
'

I'm not sure I buy this premise. It's 2005. Is there a marked difference in the musical diet of someone in London and someone in the US? I see locale as making *less* of a difference as time passes, and not more. Perhaps that's part of Grime's appeal, it's.. um.. authenticity.

But what makes those guys with their computers and turntables any different than us guys with our computers and turntables? The accent, mostly, I gather. ;)

Welcome to The Beef!

=darwin

First: I'm glad that in 2003, fifteen years after his debut album, KRS finally released a track where he sounded something other than smug and triumphant. I consider myself schooled.

on plastikman: ack, shoulda been clear-- the grime man is "Plasticman" with a C, and is a new kid on the block. a totally separate human from Plastikman aka Richie Hawtin who I agree did some important stuff in the past few decades but is nothing groundshaking to listen to today.

(Just to keep things meta, until recently Plasticman had zero idea who Plastikman was, thus maybe disproving your idea that "you'd have to be a total joke to consider yourself an electronic musician and never have heard of Plastikman", ha ha.)

On aesthetics... Grime def builds on Timbaland et al but it's definitely its own distinct entity. I think Timbo was the first guy to take mainstream hiphop to grime-tempo (on 'Fantasty'), but generally he's slid back down into the comfortable 85-100bpm range and stayed there. Grime = like 140-160 aLL THE TIME, and consequently totally different. (BPM being just the most easily quantifiable difference from mainstream hiphop, of course a lot of it is I suppose subjective.)

On this: "It's 2005. Is there a marked difference in the musical diet of someone in London and someone in the US?"

Generally, no! And see, Grime was a REACTION to that. Grime grew on London pirate radio, and because it was illegal radio, it was (until it blew up a few years ago) only exported via obsessive internet-heads and audiotapers. It was the desire to have a local distinct East London nonglobal media culture and aesthetic that made Grime happen.

So you're actually spot-on with your labeling grime-fascination as exoticism. I guess where we differ is that I think exoticism is GOOD when it's about seeking sounds and aesthetics that are actually unique and separate from global monoculture. (As opposed to exoticism when it's about fun-with-stereotypes, when it's less cool, which is certainly also a factor in Grime's blowing-up. [But of course the Grime musicians KNOW that being exoticized is key to global mainstream success, and so are in fact *deliberately seeking to be exoticized*, not that this makes it ok or that they're the first or last to do so...])

HES SHIT HES SHIT

krs-one is one of the best battle emcees in history however, his creativity side over powers this battle side and becomes the best rapper who ever lived