kode 9 + spaceape - memories of the future

[BrotherLovesDub]

i like the bare bones, stripped down vibe of dubstep. grime is largely cluttered and rougher in general than dubstep, in my opinion. i will look for those Dj Target cuts. any sites offering individual tracks to download?

like Memories of the Future, the biggest problem i have with grime is pointless, grating vocals. i mentioned Def Jux cuz that style reminds me of what's plaguing grime vocals. self important, forced deliveries that struggle to make sense and ride the riddem. you think Talib Kweli is wordy and clunky? these grime mc's make Talib sound like shakespear. if there's a grime track with amazing lyrics, i've yet to hear it. grime lyrics seem to be mostly shouted, packed with too many lines and not very poetic or intelligent. could be that i'm not british, though i generally love thick british accents in music, but listening to hours of Logan Sama shows has left me with the perception that there is not a single Grime MC who is intelligent, with a catchy flow and a way with words.

please prove me wrong. i do enjoy the backing tracks in grime but would dearly love to hear somethign that wasn't ignorant and shouty. wiley has come close, and i've listened to his stuff quite a bit, but i'd like to hear others.

[kid cue]

Originally Posted by BrotherLovesDub

i like the bare bones, stripped down vibe of dubstep. grime is largely cluttered and rougher in general than dubstep, in my opinion. i will look for those Dj Target cuts. any sites offering individual tracks to download?

that's what i like about grime - it's so fast-moving and sonically ambitious. and genuinely complex, especially when the most angular flow meets the densest riddim. there is so much energy. the site i linked for Contreras sells mp3 versions of a lot of the grime mixtapes. i think bleep.com sells a scant handful of grime mp3s (under "Road").

like Memories of the Future, the biggest problem i have with grime is pointless, grating vocals. i mentioned Def Jux cuz that style reminds me of what's plaguing grime vocals. self important, forced deliveries that struggle to make sense and ride the riddem. you think Talib Kweli is wordy and clunky? these grime mc's make Talib sound like shakespear. if there's a grime track with amazing lyrics, i've yet to hear it. grime lyrics seem to be mostly shouted, packed with too many lines and not very poetic or intelligent. could be that i'm not british, though i generally love thick british accents in music, but listening to hours of Logan Sama shows has left me with the perception that there is not a single Grime MC who is intelligent, with a catchy flow and a way with words.

there are a lot of issues there. first, grime MCs are going to be pointless to most people because they're almost always talking to each other. it's a completely self-referential, insular scene, hence the lyrics about merking so-and-so's mum.

as far as 'forced', un-intelligent deliveries, that's blatantly untrue. lots of Americans just assume that grime MCs can't flow, but the truth is that they're a natural evolution from rave and then UK garage-style MCing. these have traditionally been incredibly fast, dense, and angular rhyme styles. there is a lot of structure there. this from N.A.S.T.Y's early days sums up a lot of what i like about grime - the energy and freedom, yes, but also how almost every MC brings a completely unprecedented style. Armour, Ghetto, Kano, Bruza, Sharky, Hyper. (the white guy and the dude w/ cornrows kinda suck though)

i don't like pretentious flows either. my 2 favorite Jux records don't really suffer from that - Can Ox and Lif both know how to ride the beat just right. so do good grime MCs (virtually all ex-N.A.S.T.Y members, Dizzee, Wiley, Riko, Trim, Newham Generals, most of Ruff Sqwad...). i DO hate Talib with a passion (when i can work up the energy).

please prove me wrong. i do enjoy the backing tracks in grime but would dearly love to hear somethign that wasn't ignorant and shouty. wiley has come close, and i've listened to his stuff quite a bit, but i'd like to hear others.

well, 'shouty' is one of my favorite things about grime ... but if you want something more accessible, try some of those tracks i suggested above. JME's latest mixtape is full of ambitious lyrical content and a clear, measured rhyme style.

[adam]

Yeah, if you're hating on the "shoutiness" of it, then I don't really know what to say. But I'd say check Wiley's Gangsterz or No Lay's Unorthodox Daughter. Unorthodox Daughter is shouty, but if you're going to dismiss it for that reason, you're missing out. (I know you listed other criticisms...if I dismissed every album I liked because I thought the lyrics weren't very intelligent I'd be missing out on a ton of great music).

I always thought the Spaceape/Kode9 virus business was taken from Burroughs talking about the virus-like nature of language. I'm not saying that's not silly (I've read very little Burroughs but I did think he was very overrated), but that's what I took from the lyrics. Now, in some of that Burroughs shit, he's stressing the editing and resplicing of words and phrases, played in the background, from which new meaning emerges, which, I would suggest, if the reference is deliberate, supports the repititious nature of the album.

[kid cue]

Originally Posted by adam

I always thought the Spaceape/Kode9 virus business was taken from Burroughs talking about the virus-like nature of language. I'm not saying that's not silly (I've read very little Burroughs but I did think he was very overrated), but that's what I took from the lyrics. Now, in some of that Burroughs shit, he's stressing the editing and resplicing of words and phrases, played in the background, from which new meaning emerges, which, I would suggest, if the reference is deliberate, supports the repititious nature of the album.

i wouldn't be surprised if it were a Burroughs reference. the other thing about Spaceape reusing his lyrics is that it's a very grimey quality - all grime MCs spit the same bars over different beats, sometimes in the same set. Spaceape isn't grime, but there's enough dialogue between grime and dubstep that his self-quoting doesn't sound out of place to anyone who follows both scenes. he talks about the "sign of the times" in the super early Kode9 track "Babylon", before they covered "Sign 'O' The Times" in "Sine". completely intentional, as opposed to being strapped for ideas.