NEWS: The Brits Get "Grime"-y

CULTURE: The Brits Get "Grime"-y

Grime music may be thrust into the mainstream spotlight next week when the nominations for the Brit Awards are announced.

Grime (a sub-genre of urban music) emerged in East London in early 2000 and combines punk and hip-hop with UK garage, drum and bass. The music combines simple and sparse two-step backbeats with an aggressive and fast paced rapping style.

The genre has grown in international popularity and countries have spawned their own versions of the fast-rapping artists.

Lady Sovereign is a breakthrough Grime artist that has reached No.1 on MTV's TRL. The MC combines sly wit over bottom heavy backbeats and is the self-proclaimed "biggest midget in the game."

Similar artists include Duke Shystie, the Mitchell Brothers, M.I.A, Dizzee Rascal and the Streets.

The Streets, fronted by Mike Skinner, has already won critical acclaim for its second album A Grand Don't Come for Free. Its 2006 release The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living was named one of the best albums of the year according to Spin Magazine. Skinner has also collaborated with the likes of Chris Martin of Coldplay.

The Brit Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, January 16.

#1 on TRL? It looks like Sov has already thrust it into the mainstream.

Fix up, look sharp!"

Dizzee will always be the grime pioneer in my book.

I have to say, I do love those Run The Road comps. No Lay can really spit.

I'm quite a fan of the Professor Green Remix of the Streets

how is grime not in the mainstream already? dizzee rascall, won the mercury music prize, and he's broken into both the singles and album chart top ten. m.i.a has featured on tracks with missy elliot and ciara, and toured with gwen stefani. and the streets? they went triple platinum on their second album...

you hardly have to be 'underground' to know who these people are.

Lady Sovereign interview on SuicideGirls


The Streets interview on SuicideGirls

go into my old store (sam goody, now fye) and start asking people, in the rap section, if they know who dizzie or lady sov is. i'm sure they won't know.
just because you win awards, doesn't mean the general populace knows who you are.

jeez, the people in FYE dont know anything, that store blows

wow talk about this post being about 4 years late. grime was BIG, but its just languishing in near self parody now, because no one has anywhere original to take it anymore.
seriously when dizzee and the first run the road compilation came out, i thought it was going to overtake hip hop, but that idea is laughable now. i think the problem is dizzee found a way to talk about street life in london in a realistic but frightening manner, but all these new kids don't have his intelligence, so they just act like american wannabes.

Yeah, I'm sort of wondering where the recent spate of articles on grime (and a few threads over on the Music board) came from.

Take hear, though, people were saying the same thing about lack of originality in hip hop in the late '80s, mid '90s, early 2... okay, like every five years. Someone will put out something original and amazing and we'll all be eating our words.

and waddya know i was reading the paper today and turns out that there isn't even gonna be a "best urban act".
sorry but this post was shoddy, at least do your homework before jumping on a bandwagon that left town at least a year and a half ago