Chart Topping Grime?

When you think of Grime, perhaps like me, you think of war reports, lord of the mic, loud & crowded raves, big basslines, fastest-in-the-class lyrics and a fair amount of drama.

The grime that’s currently reigning high in the charts are the condensed Ayia Napa rewinds that, admittedly, are enjoyable, humtastic and easy on the ears, but they’re not a great representation of the music of a culture that has spanned almost a decade.

People are quick to forget however, there was more grime in the mainstream in the early 2000’s when Dizzee stormed the charts with a gritty new genre, and Kano showed he had balls with Home Sweet Home. So Solid’s 21 Seconds secured a new generation of kids on MTV who had no idea what grime was or where it came from. Far from being accidental hits, the sounds of London underground were becoming popular in Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham and so on. The sound has matured over the years but it’s presence in the charts hasn’t sustained. It doesn’t matter, it’s not a bad living, Wiley’s made a fair few bob, and the passion and frustration that goes into the grime sound doesn’t really belong on Top of the Pops; but that shouldn’t take anything away from it.

We can’t condemn a genre for not having consistent chart-success, that doesn’t make it any less than what it is, and with the scribble-happy pen of the media suggesting that anyone in air max trainers may want to knife you for your change; it doesn’t really bode well for a genre that takes on London street life.

A writer friend of mine this week applied to The London Lite with his take on the London music scene, but was turned down for being ‘too street’. Whereas this is certainly not the case for all papers and magazines, it certainly leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Grime, if anything, is the sound of London.

The current diet of ‘grime’ in the charts is nothing more than a muddle of B-side remixes… Summertime, surely Wiley’s poorest output to date, isn’t much to shuffle your feet to; similarly Dizzee’s Dance Wiv Me was the poor man’s Flex.

With man dashing out electro hits like hotcakes and labels perving over the greats we’ve been admiring for years (Wiley, Ghetto…) it feels like the music is being manipulated into something its not in order to make it marketable to an audience that knows nothing of the artist’s history. They’ve got a short MP3 CV straight from i-Tunes condemning them to recent chart success in the urban tick box, forgetting the years performing on radio, in raves and the stream of Youtube videos still getting rewinds now.

Don’t think the labels haven’t been watching the scene for years… they’re as prevalent as RWD in Footlocker. The labels have been circling overhead for the past 5 years easily, but when you exist in the underground it’s not that often you bother to look up, when you do they flash the cash in your skies and when you finally come around you’ll skidding into the Top 10 singing about your rolex. Look at Kano, P’s & Q’s defined that early stages of his crossover, Nite Nite turned the grime down to pop and the less said about London Town the better. Now the ‘darling of grime’ returns to the streets and gets back to the sound that comes naturally to him, he’s even given it a postcode. 140 Grime Street sees the resurrection of the grime kid after a good wash down with indie and pop… but don’t think the vultures still aren’t spying out for the next big hit.

It’s not all doom and gloom, for those, like Kano, who hate being put in the ‘grime box’, it’s still a positive message for all of the young UK artists making chart hits that sit beside the grime genre; Estelle, Dizzee, Wiley etc. are all omnipresent in the underground, and can now boast that they are successful UK artists… but they can’t say they’ve got grime in today’s chart, we’ve got grime artists in the chart… but they’re not bringing the music that created the personas we’re all accustomed to seeing bubbling in a rave.

When P Money, Griminal, Chipmunk, Devlin and any number of hungry, worthy and committed grime MC’s are heard spitting dirty bars at number 1 I might then be convinced of the second coming.