Fader

"Take a dollop of Fresh Prince, mix in a generous helping of Cassette Playa, add a pinch of Hadouken!, crush in the fashion section of Super Super magazine... Voila! That should be enough to make those idiots forget that we're releasing a song about summer two months after summer in the UK ended."

Yeah, so, er, I quite like the video for Wiley's new single, "Summertime", I think. There's still no getting away from how awful the song is though. more...

Over two years ago, street preacher Phillip Howard received an ASBO (an injunction that the government gives to annoying people to stop them riding on mopeds through terrified pensioners' houses and playing S Club 7 at 300 decibels at 5 AM every morning and stuff) preventing him from amplifying his voice (his catchphrase was "Don't be a sinner, be a winner", which he repeated about 400,000 times a day) in the Oxford Street area (a popular place where tourists go to shoplift). Last week, Jammer headed to Oxford Street and the surrounding area with a megaphone to promote his new single, "The Message is Love", and in the process rekindled memories of those halcyon days of Howard.


Silverlink feat. Jammer & Badness, "The Message is Love" more...

Wiley has retired from grime for the second time. Beat that, Jay-Z! What Wiley has failed to understand though is what the implications of retirement actually mean because he is still planning to make music. And that's a very good thing because the latest song I've heard from him, "Where's My Brother" (below), is truly brilliant. His singing voice is pretty decent too. News arrived this week that he has enlisted the, er, talents of Kate Nash and Lily Allen on his new album, I See Clear, but judging by this he will be showing them up in the singing stakes.


Wiley, "Where's My Brother" (radio rip) more...

Kate Nash isn't answering his calls and Craig David is too busy drinking protein shakes so Kano has come running back to the grime scene with his tail between his legs. I was sent his latest mixtape, 140 Grime Street, on a CASSETTE TAPE (what do I with these things again? Are they compatible with Macs?) this week. It's basically a grime version of T.I.'s King —lots of horns, average songs and clichéd rapper lyrics that will be forgotten the moment they are heard. But that's pretty good going for Kano judging by his last album.

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Either by very clever engineering, or (more likely) because they bought the cheapest possible CD-Rs they could get their hands on, the copy I was sent of the new Roll Deep album, Return of the Big Money Sound, cannot be imported to my iTunes. It skips and dances around in my CD drive like a little mouse having a fit while being electrocuted.

I had planned to sit back, crack open a three-pack of Ribena, add a few pithy comments here and there, and let the music do the talking. But it looks like that won't be happening now. Luckily, I already had one of the better songs off the album as an mp3, which you can listen to below:


Roll Deep, "Give Up"
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Wiley: "Yeah, you know Kanye, yeah?"
Stoned friend: "Yeah ..."
Wiley: "You know my man sampled Daft Punks, yeah?"
Stoned friend: "Yeah ..."
Wiley: "What if I sampled Daft Punks?"
Stoned friend: "Er ..."
Wiley: "What if Wiley sampled Daft Punks?"
Stoned friend: "Er ..."
Wiley: "That would be a lot you know"
Stoned friend: "Yeah, that would be a lot. Pass the lighter."

This is the conversation I imagined when I first heard Wiley's new Daft Punk-sampling single, below.


Wiley, "Summertime" (radio rip) more...

I was looking back through the archives of this column the other day and while laughing along at my totally hilarious observations I noticed that I had, for some reason, been swamping you with mentions of the "Rolex Sweep". With this in mind, I've decided to start this week by posting yet more "Rolex Sweep" (why fuck with the formula now?) in the form of the single's video.

After the click I will sum up why it goes against everything grime stands for. more...

MySpace has taught me a lot of things and enriched my life in many ways. I mean, before MySpace I never realised that Lost in Translation was the best movie ever made or that George Lucas was the best director ever to step foot in this part of the galaxy. Without MySpace I wouldn't have been given the pleasure of learning that 65 per cent of the people in the world would like to meet Notorious B.I.G., John Lennon, Martin Luther King and Bob Dylan. Also thanks to MySpace (and the small detail of some audio ripping software) I have now got hold of Ghetto's "Sing For Me" (which I wrote about a few weeks back) and am putting it up here for your listening pleasure. Your ears can thank me later.


Ghetto, "Sing for Me" more...

It's been on the cards for a while but I have finally lost my mind. This week, the song which will open my column is an undeniably cheesy, slightly ridiculous funky house track vocalled by a former Big Brother contestant. Above you can see a clip of the song being quite hilariously satirised by the rather amusing Harry Hill on his show, TV Burp. Yet there is something about it which has me hooked. Something which goes beyond the obvious novelty factor of it. By the time you read this, an email from FADER's online editor will be flying towards me across the interweb informing me my contract has been terminated owing to "irrevocable differences". Nevertheless, have a listen to the song in question, made by Crazy Cousins (AKA bassline producer Paleface, former grime producer Flukes, and two other guys called Play and Kofi), below.


Crazy Cousins, "Bongo Jam" more...

I'm bipolar when it comes to dubstep. I either hate it with an intense passion—the hangers on, the now predictably silly basslines, the new flock of talentless MCs—or love it and become totally obsessed with it. One producer who often brings out the positive side of my disorder is Bristol's Joker. His track "Gully Brook Lane", forthcoming on Terrorhythm, is one of the most uniquely brilliant tracks to have come out of the UK in a long time. Check Joker's latest release on Soul Motive Records below. Bun B is reportedly into this beat—how amazing would it be if he vocalled it?


Joker, "Snake Eater" more...

I can't remember the last time I bought a grime 12". That's mainly because I can't remember the last time a grime 12" was released, good or bad. Well, hold the front page of RWD magazine —someone is just about to put out a 4-track grime EP. That someone is a young producer called Rude Kid. And this isn't just any old EP, it's already a classic in the making—incredible from start to finish. The best track of the four, straightforwardly called "The Best", has been vocalled by Ghetto with quite spectacular results. If more than ten people actually gave a shit about grime (and if the song wasn't filled with explicit content), it could be a pretty big radio hit. Unfortunately I only have the instrumental so you'll just have to imagine Ghetto's fast, squeaky voice talking about having casual sex with girls on top of this beat.


Rude Kid, "The Best"
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I'm DJing at a party with David Rodigan tonight. I'm pretty excited. In mental preparation, I've uploaded some of my all time favourite classic roots reggae songs on my blog. Go and check them out maybe. Also on the bill is a more recent DJing hero of mine, Marcus Nasty, whose UK house set at my last club night (which I wrote about here) was something of a musical epiphany to everyone in attendance. Below is a track I picked up on DJ Naughty's debut EP, which I first heard being played by Marcus. Sit tight till next week for a full report with pictures. Until then, read on after "the jump".

DJ Naughty, "Quicktime"
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The Newham Generals have almost been ruined since signing to Dizzee Rascal's Dirtee Stank label. It seems as if he signed them with the intention of doing little more than getting them to warm up for him at his shows around the world. They've been promising an album since 2006, which is yet to show any real signs of being released. It's destined to be a disappointment. How can it be anything else after leaving fans waiting so long? Apart from a mixtape of some old tracks and a really cheap video for "Frontline", they have little to show for their career so far.

Anyway, they turned up on Logan Sama's radio show this week with lots of promises, but also lots of new bars. At the end of the show, they freestyled on old and new grime, UK house and even some bassline—namely Mr Virgo's "Hypnotiq", which can be best described, mathematically, as Benga and Coki's "Night" multiplied by Nastee Boi's "Bangorz", to the power of T2. In short, one of the tracks of the summer. Have a listen to the full set below.

Download: Newham Generals freestyle on Logan Sama's show
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"Oh no," I can hear you screaming at the 17-inch screen of your MacBook Pros, "not more fucking 'Rolex Sweep' this week." Yep, like Marmite on a sheep skin rug, it's proving very difficult to get rid of Skepta's "Rolex Sweep". Ministry have just signed the song for a July release so it will be around for a lot longer I'm afraid. And maybe, just maybe it might catch on.

The above video was taken at Radio 1's Big Weekend—a two day celebration of mediocrity in music frequented by the kind of people who are members of the official fan clubs of both The Hoosiers and The Wombats. It shows 1Xtra DJ MistaJam—a cross between Fatman Scoop and Rik Waller—and Radio 1 presenter Zane Lowe—a man so annoying that the Virgin Mary would happily pay money to see him slowly boiled in a giant cauldron until his unnecessary constant squealing stops—doing what is being called the ghetto Macarena in front of the crowd of Philistines. Enjoy. more...

No one in grime bothers with pirate radio sets anymore, which is maybe the reason why the scene has been so boring and lacking life this year. So, just as the music press were penning another round of obituaries and preparing to make way for a new electro-influenced, chart friendly replacement, along come Boy Better Know and friends with a stupendously good studio set (the next best thing to a radio set) to bring back all the naysayers. It's got classic old beats, amazing new beats by people like Rude Kid, excitement, brand new bars, energy, Jammer screaming and making retarded noises—everything that is good about grime. I don't see why MCs continue to put out rushed mixtapes, when they could much more easily bang these sets out with all the best new beats and their best bars and sell them as downloads. They'd be a lot better quality and probably sell a lot more too.

Download: Boy Better Know, Microphone Champion
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I don't mean to underwhelm but the above is the most exciting thing that has happened in grime this week. Yep, Boy Better Know have enlisted the help of 80s children's TV presenter and vicar's son, Timmy Mallett, to promote their all-singing, all-dancing non-phenomenon, the Rolex Sweep. The reason for using former TV favourite Timmy (I would guess) is as a substitute for any actual telly coverage the crew will be getting for the dance. The whole situation is reminiscent of the era when grime DVDs became really popular. The grime scene, frustrated at the lack of TV coverage it thought it deserved, released a load of documentary-style DVDs featuring in-depth interviews with incidental, yet painfully deluded MCs. The DVDs didn't last very long and neither did most of the MCs. more...

Watching Kano progress as an MC reminds me in some ways of a time-lapse video of a decaying apple I once saw at the Tate Modern. (Note: the video I linked to is not the same one, but I do believe it portrays equally as vivid an image, nonetheless.) In case that is too complex a metaphor for some readers, what I'm saying is he's getting worse. And very quickly. At the start of the week his new mixtape, MC No. 1, arrived in the post. It makes for painful listening. There are pointless versions of stuff like "My Name Is" and "Crank Dat"; his slowed-down flow sounds lazy, and he does this weird screechy ad-lib thing that makes him sound like Scooby-Doo.

Last week on an episode of My Super Sweet 16 UK an aspiring WAG (that is the wife or girlfriend of a soccer football player, Americans) called Lauren had a special guest performer at her birthday. Rumours among her party of annoyingly rich but infinitely tasteless young guests were that Kanye West was to be the act performing on this most special of nights. It soon transpired that the surprise performer was in fact Kano, who was greeted with a wave of apathy by the horrified and underwhelmed guests. Listening to the opening bars of Kanye West's "Stronger" on MC No. 1 and then hearing Kano, not Kanye, come in I could genuinely sympathise with how those poor children must have felt. Check out some of the tracks from the mixtape on his MySpace page. more...

Good morning, America. I don't mean to bombard you with my repetitive subject matter, I really don't. But one of the only things worth reporting over here on the shallow side of the pond is once again affiliated to Wiley and his new single, "Wearing My Rolex".

The day after the "Wearing My Rolex" video was unleashed onto an unsuspecting public, upstanding tabloid publication, The Sun, ran a story reporting the reason for Wiley's no-show in his own video was owing to his overpowering vulpophobia (fear of foxes). BBC 1Xtra's Ace & Vis then phoned Wiley to ask him about his phobia and the result of this can be seen in the above video, which looks like one of the funnier moments from Fonejacker. (You Yanks may not be too familiar with Fonejacker but click here if you want to watch all of the show's best clips. It's pretty funny stuff.)

To keep you guys entertained before clicking below, why not have a listen to one of the better remixes that can be found on the "Wearing My Rolex" promo CD?

Wiley, Wearing My Rolex (Agent X remix)
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When I fell into a career in music journalism, I expected to be showered in limited edition deluxe triple vinyl packs of every piece of good music ever made. Unfortunately, as I have soberingly come to find, this could not be further from the truth. All I get are pathetically poor CD single promos by people like Hadouken!, which annoyingly upbeat and excruciatingly persistent botherers are then paid to pester me about until (they hope) I submit and write something about them. The problem is I am far too proud and stubborn to ever give in, which can lead to a lot of mental anguish, but more commonly just quite a few unanswered emails. What's worse, though, is when they get your mobile number. Then there really is no escape from them. They're like paid stalkers.

So it's nice once in a while when some good stuff arrives in the post. This week, that good stuff was in the form of Rinse's newest mix CD, Rinse 04, mixed by Skepta. To keep you interested before "the jump", wrap your ear lobes around this little clip of Skepta's "Tingles", taken from the aforementioned mix.

Skepta, "Tingles" (excerpt)
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