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from ammocity.com music and media
"just got the dubs and took them round to the djs. 500 white labels first and it sold all together on the underground about 6000", dizzee rascal reflects shruggingly of his single, i luv u. self-produced when he was 16, the re-release (xl recordings) hit the top 40 and the album boy in da corner has ears and ears of anticipation - a bbc poll of music industry bods marks him the no.1 uk act for the future. dizzee rascal doesn't feel his music fits any one tag but he's definitely arrived here through uk garage. a genre that despite the success of artists like so solid crew, has often been fenced from the outside with shootings and cancelled concerts colouring much of our impression. dizzee rascal is maybe pushing the gate further open - articulating his experience of east london pastures over fresh but bare productions. interest from outside the usual scene is massive and reluctant-to-please mainstream voices are calling. hip replacement rock mag q, are interviewing him and american newspapers are giving good reviews - it's called euro terror techno according to new york's village voice! "i'm old school like happy shopper / i fight old school, bring your bat and your chopper" dizzee rascal - fix up look, look sharp the music itself is well, sharp - chopped up rhythms spliced by samples. perhaps there's a similar sound to it, albeit 20 years apart, with ll cool j's debut album, radio (def jam). a million seller and a watermark for hip hop the album showed ll's teenage life and loves over rick rubin's minimal, snapping dmx drum beats. with dizzee's album, most of the tracks are self-produced and while ll's still signed to def jam, this rascal said a firm no to the rap world's biggest label. but is dizzee rascal happening too quick? he smiles, "it feels good sitting here, just like sitting here and you think rah! i've been doing this for time. it's like doing an album, is just adding up what's gone so far. when i was 13, 14 i used to go around everywhere like from here to tottenham to south london, i tried to go around everywhere. it used to fuck me up 'cos i went to school the next day and i was coming on the radio same time people was sleeping! i kept writing more and more, so a lot of it just came out on the album. the second album will just be the next stage in life."
so at an age when most of us are busy watching grange hill or glued to nintendo he was busy networking like an underage russell simmons. but in making music he doesn't admit too much science - i luv u he says, took just 20 minutes to produce - part of a quick musical education. "it's all a continuation from school just using computers at school, databases and that straight to learning cubase, it's just the more you do anything the better you become. i learnt to make beats quick, do it, get it out the way - other people spending three days on one tune, wasting their time!" so, as tony blair famously assured us we're all middle class now but dizzee rascal's subjects are the vivid tale of someplace else. as with this interview, sitting here in a disused playground, he's just explaining himself. "i just hope people don't get confused and i know it's the way alot of people my age feel, it's not 50 cent but its the on your doorstep - that's all it is." "i'm just sitting here/ i ain't saying much, i just think/ ...it's the same old story" dizzee rascal - sittin' here "just in general, i'm that yout that was sent in the corner a lot, or on the street corner, rebellious. i watch all around, i watch all the detail. sometimes you just sit here, just looking around. anytime you're on the corner, anytime you can see kids hanging out and wonder why - it's for them kids, you gotta get out of this?" but there's a streak of humour, the dizzee part of the rascal or whatever. "yeah, that's the reality side, some people just show the gully gansta side and i try and see the funny side to that - its like a narrative. the whole album's like that." from the battle rhymes of fix up, look sharp to the lament of, do it - it's impossible to take him any which, any one way.
listening to the tracks - like we know with i love u - each story he spins has it's flip: "some whore/ bangin at your door/ what for?/ 15?/ she's underage/ that's raw." and the girl replies deadpan, with not even a blink in the video, "that boy's some prick ya know/ all up in my hair/ thinks that i care." the narrative gives the same kind of feeling, willesden-bred, rapper slick rick once gave back in the '80s - somewhere between his tracks like teenage love and treat her like her prostitute. but dizzee comes off more sympathetically, like on 'jezebel' as he explains: "outside your door, you can find a girl like that - could have been your sister, maybe even your mum! in the beginning i'm buryin', sounds like funny haha and then in the end it ends like rah! she's a real person, real feelings, sympathetic. its just a blunt description - i don't try and hide." as dizzee says he's 'another kid' making music, but how does he think people and he in turn will take it? "it can become something else but i'll always keep it in my mind the way it is and people can argue and contemplate because i was saying what i was saying before people was listening. all i can do is flourish, 'euro-terror techno' [laughs] that's gonna become bare names, i can understand what they mean though." and what about the big game hunting for his name on the dotted line? "there was a big bidding war, i can't remember half their names - all i know is that i ate alot of nandos through it! like def jam where the biggest contender - i was gonna sign but it came to the point where xl knew what they wanted with us because they had people like the streets, basement jaxx, the prodigy and all them diverse kinds of music. [with def jam] i was gonna be hip hop and that weren't really the move and they wouldn't give me the same as ja rule so what's the point?"
so by now he's not the average teenager? "i might have been, i was more open-minded i didn't give a shit about all them bubbly-bubbly emcees." and listening to punk urchins sham 69? "coming from around here, east london parties, man are screaming 'come on, come on!' i was listening to what was different to get influence even nirvana, punk rock anything rebelious, extreme sounding - i liked to go deep in, sepultura deep stuff, i like all of them." "contrast, that's the mad thing like yesterday at the 2 fast 2 furious premiere, like going there and every star in my face however they are, like the jay-z thing (who he supported at wembley), jus' coming back home to the playstation - everythings normal. contrast. i don't give a fuck about all the glitz and glamour, like big audley harrison there trying to stand firm", he gestures around him, "i told them - 'i don't care'. i'm just a person i'm just staying here." you can hear his crew, roll deep, on rinse fm (100.3fm), mondays 11pm to 1am. dizzee promises a roll deep mixtape coming sometime soon. the boy in da corner album is out july 16 on xl recordings soon and roll deep elder, wiley kat will also be releasing soon through xl recordings. comment in citizens forum © copyright 2003 AMMO CITY INDUSTRIES LTD |
