so what went wrong with grime blowing up?

i heard that when rinse fm booked ministry of sound they couldnt even fill out both floors.

when jungle came out people said it wouldnt travel past london but grime cant seem to even get past east london.

basically any uk artists trying to make their version of hip hop are always gonna be fucked in some way unless youre really special and say what you want but grime artists were trying to make their version of hip hop but all they had was energy which is great for raves but thats about it - like, i listen to old pirate radio rips and theres some amazing stuff there but the amount of rubbish MCs is ridiculous, theres only a few properly good MCs in the scene

Thirdly: RAP MUSIC DOESN'T SELL IN THE UK. If Lil Jon can't go top 50, what chance does MC Skribbledeedoo have?

definitely! thats the thing though, as an adjunct it was fine, but when mcing became the focus, well, it wasnt enough!

oh really?

I think in London grime is/was popular but traditional means of monitoring this (eg sales of ....) didnt track it. attendance at raves back then (2002-04/5?*) is prob a better indication

* when was the last eskimo dance in london @ SE1?

talking of grime raves, are any still going?
Rep yr Manor in Bedford?
Young Man Standing?
Sidewinder?
Eskimo Dance happened in Watford again a coupla weeks back?

quite a lot, iirc.

a lot more than Grime-related stuff really. Nothing harder than 'Some Justice' - but really, how on earth DID that get in the top 40 itself? Lots of dents in the top 100 for acts like Manix too (if anyone still published the top 100 online it might be easier to guage success of Grime singles as I'm sure some must dent top 100 even now). Rave saw tiny labels like Sub Base get top 40 hits with relative ease (no real airplay not even on Kiss). Totally different climate today, everything so marginalised and niche.

but, im also saying, you wouldnt grasp the scope of their popularity, if you were to judge by sales figures alone

http://www.djgomes.nl/pictures_news/OI_FLYER.jpg

dom, what does that even mean?

most of it just wasn't very good

He's saying ppl who read certain music mags got to hear it but top40 listeners and the streetz didn't. I think.

the only way is through SCIENCE!! (i.e. talkin to people and gettin a feel for it.)

Fixed.

It fucking sucked. NME hypes aside, the UK public is not stupid. And they're not gonna make grime popular if it ain't any good!!

Thirdly: RAP MUSIC DOESN'T SELL IN THE UK.

oh really?

Dude, the first rap album to hit number one on the UK charts was NOT It Takes a Nation, it was NOT Fear of a Black Planet, it was NOT Straight Outta Compton, it was NOT Niggaz4life, it was NOT The Chronic, it was NOT Doggystyle, it wasn't even Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em or To the Extreme!

Nope, the UK had to wait until Nineteen-ninety-flippin'-seven and Wu-Tang Forever to get a #1 rap album under their belts!

And then the Wu became one of only two acts ever (the other being Doves) to have an album go to #1, and then fall out of the top ten the next week.

Not enough club tracks being produced, by which i mean singles that will appeal to DJ's that aren't exclusively grime. Too many MC's (especially shit ones) compared to the number of labels, DJ's and producers. The raves all got locked off in London which killed a lot of the scene's momentum as a live thing. Too many hype kids involved (although who knows, this could be the music's saving grace in a few years if they stick with it and get better). Those crappy albums that got released. Very few pirates now willing to host grime shows that once did, deja, freeze etc...

anyway my feeling is that it tried too hard to be the "new rap". all the "energy" stuff that ts was talking about was more than that -- there was some fantastic talent on the old live mixes and soforth that i've been listening to lately (granted, from the usual suspects, but it doesn't take much more than a handful of good artists to "make" a scene anyway) but the borrowed affectations dragged it down too much and made a neither here nor there hybrid. also, the beats slowed down quite a bit as the MCs then had to also -- which made them *worse* because it actually killed some of that improvisatory doubletime work that the MCs could do before (i.e. "energy").

plus, yeah, as sterling says, it took itself too seriously as 'the uks version of hip hop'. when the beats started getting slow, and the mcs followed suit and started thinking they werent rave mcs but hip hop style ones (ie took themselves seriously), it went tits up. and all that OTT post-fwd riddim style aggression is fucking ludicrous and as false as all the punks in the late 70s putting attitude on. no one is going to believe that, esp not in england. and re: improv, even in 2006, most of these guys cant make 'songs' like hiphop artists can which kinda kills the 'rave mc----> artist progression' they were all aiming for in dizzee's wake. in fact, i blame all that on wiley stressing the importance of being an 'artist' as eveyone else tried to do the same thing, and they were all, wiley included, just not as good at it as dizzee despite wanting to be that so badly. they tried to be 'the new rap' instead of just being their own thing which is what they were, even in the days of lady stush, pay as u go, more fire etc. matter of fact, i prefer so solid to half the new crews, at last it sounds totally diff to hip hop!

It's a bit more like US emo/hardcore that way - you'd almost expect loads of little local scenes with their own local heroes to pop up. These days now that hip hop has got so far from its DiY roots, grime steps up to that plate really well. All you need is fruity and some basic studio equipment - your mc doesn't even need proper songs (hi dere JME).

But given that local flavour it's also no wonder a lot of it doesn't travel per se - the energy comes from communication between artists and listeners and the lack of much of a gap between the two. Transplant performers to Japan and you lose all of that, and are left with dance music that it's pretty hard to dance with.

Also hip hop moves pretty slowly in incorporating new influences. Think how long crunk and screw sounds were big for in their locales before they went national and global. Or even the limited recent success of Carioca Funk and that's been developing for 15 years or so. It's really only because of the british sense of entitlement that people feel that this music should be massive after four years.

to be honest, why grime didnt blow up (does that just mean, become popular nationally? internationally?) is that in essence, it is people shouting aggressively over often unpleasant noises. this is not popular music. "Oi" was the exception, not the rule. no matter how much media exposure it gets, it just isnt what the national audience want to hear. i think theres a few tunes that could have done ok, maybe "serious" for example "boys luv girls", and the r'n'g stuff could have done ok, but just chill out! its not going anywhere and dont worry about it! just carry on enjoying it till it disappears!

TINCHY STRYDER RHYMIN RITE NOW

WATCH DIS SPACE MAN

IT'S ALL REAL THESE DAYS

HOLD TIGHT THE WORLD

WE PLAN TO BREAK THRU TO THE OVER GROUND

it's because grime's boosters don't talk exclusively about the music, isn't it? grime is important because it's real. but if no-one outside the scene and the blogosphere recognize their lives in it, grime isn't living up to the claims made for it.

i think the problem is that those boosting the scene from outside are making claims like "grime is amazing, its sonically incredible, energy blah blah blah etc." and then to other peoples ears, it doesnt live up to those claims. but it matters who is making those claims. i dont hear even wiley go on about how hes forged the next satge of the Continuum or whatever.

*every* music scene 'reflects' the conditions of its making though. if grime can't win listeners by being catchy, danceable, fun -- whatever makes pop pop -- neither has it won the argument in the more dubious terms of realness. maybe that doesn't matter at all, but if not then the level of discourse surrounding grime seems disproportionate to its interest.

i dont see grime trying to "win" listeners, nor be pop. its true that in the last few years expectations have risen amongst producers etc that they might crossover, or sell lots of units rather, but the idea of how that might happen is not clear within the scene at all. but these expectations seem to have risen in the light of a) the fact that loads of people in the scene have been grafting or years and might expect some exposure or mainstream success after all that b) you might expect the (intense?) popularity of a music within a small area to be scaled up to a national level, especially if you dont have many opportunities to leave that area c) people from the guardian keep on interviewing them all, its a national newspaper ergo maybe theres national support.

but like i said these claims, expectations etc have been generated outside of the scene. insofar as grime is pretty introspective (eg random purple lyric - i want to tell my kids that the world is bigger than Acton(!!!)") its fair to say these claims are imposed to a large extent on those within the scene, rather than being made by them.

there's the rub. also the fact that the guardian's people act like acton is timbuktu.

grimes future, IMHO, would be to stop all the 'uk rap' rubbish, stop trying to make these awful vocal tunes, and get back to making the MUSIC and the beats danceable again so it works as some sort of dance music (cos in spite of bad quality control, there are some great ideas from producers), and have the MCs as rave/club comperes. its never gonna work with the MCs as the main draws - theyre just not good enough. lots of energy and attitude, but not much else, for the most part. sorry if that makes me a hater or look like i have a vendetta against grime or whatever, i do like the music, really i do!

how do you mean? do i find anything apart from the fact grime hasnt blown up interesting about grime? or do you mean do i find anything apart from this topic interesting, full stop? either way, ill just say my most favourite grime release to date is probably rinsessions vol 1. i think the best thing davinche has done is his MIA remix. to be honest, my favourite grime things are the more technoid sounding things.

Outside of (insert popular genre artist), which (insert other genre artists) actually sell in the UK?

has anyone seen the new albums chart show on channel 4 and the albums IN the top ten?