I just heard Dizzee Rascal for the first time...

to which i reply, all hip-hop, ever, to thread.

I think nearly everyone who is uncomfortable w/ the hip hop comparisons (myself included) tends to change their album when they hear the album in full.

also jus a rascal is FAR more the insincere indie disco pick!

I don't think there's anything bad about it, I just like "Stop Dat", "Seems 2 Be" and "Live-0" more, and all of those tracks do something pretty similar. It's not a case of "this track must go" so much as "if I had to choose one to cut".

Dave I do still agree with you as well, but I understand better why everyone says "oh it's hip hop innit" so quickly, because Dizzee goes out of his way to make it sound like a hip hop album, such that, out of context, it is a hip hop album. I'd have a lot more difficulty equating, say, his Slimzee Sidewinder set with hip hop because it's much more obviously doing something sufficiently different to hip hop.

someday when all the doubters are nattering on about him/it, we'll be able to go "oh please, that's sooo last year"

He was.

(He isn't anymore, in case that was ambiguous.)

I'll lose all respect for RTC if it turns out he was actually pissed off by that ban. You can't say "ban me pussyole" and not be prepared to take a bullet for it.

Incidentally the other day I discovered that my oldest friend's dad is a huge Dizzee fan. Prefers the early stuff lol. It's a really liberating feeling to be able to use the word "pussyole" in conversation with a middle-aged man you've known since the age of four.

Dizzee is, in all seriousness, the first and possibly only black British male pop superstar

I'm not talking about sleeper hits I'm talking about massive proper household name prime time TV type hits

I make Seal a British black male with 3 of those, but to my surprise only one UK #1 and a different US #1, so I guess you may be right. Weird!

(nothing to do with Dizzee, just was surprised enough to note it here. Certainly not arguing re paradigm shift in any event)

I had forgotten about Seal.

Seal went MOR very quickly and was never really youth-orientated. i was going to suggest Craig David...

I don't think Craig David qualifies since the world lost interest in him pretty quickly.

but it doesn't seem like there is really any more interest in Dizzee outside the UK still, from a commercial pov as opposed to 'edgy' blogs and websites in the US or elsewhere

Maxi Priest?

need a couple of #1s to qualify

but it doesn't seem like there is really any more interest in Dizzee outside the UK still, from a commercial pov

Except, weirdly, in New Zealand.

Billy Ocean?

a key difference between UK and US female MCs is that the UK ones never ever ever ever went the smutty ho-rap route. i only have a few half-baked ideas as to why this might be.

UK is too cold to get around in bikinis.

I think Britain needs its own Missy Elliott before it goes for full-on smutty ho-rap. British female pop stars first and foremost tend to be people the public would like to go down the pub with (Lily, Winehouse, Girls Aloud etc etc)...

Britain actually had its own Missy Elliott 13 years ago in the form of Phoebe One (she really did sound v American to my ears tho).

British female pop stars first and foremost tend to be people the public would like to go down the pub with (Lily, Winehouse, Girls Aloud etc etc)...

not just female. i'd argue that this is why our pop stars fall short. any nascent divas fall victim to tall poppy syndrome :(

...hang on, people want to go down the pub w/winehouse??????

Maybe not now, back in the day though.

Also, British people can't really do golden gods and goddesses, Beyonce/Justin style. It just doesn't work.

don't care about idols, just want good pop

any nascent divas fall victim to tall poppy syndrome

Leona?

Unless you mean "insufferable overgrown brat" in the Mariah Carey mold, in which case THIS IS A GOOD THING.

i mean someone who is totally aware that they are shit hot and unafraid to say it, which facilitates good pop, stevem. i want BRAGGING and ATTITUDE.

i don't want any more "likable" (ugh) pop stars

i want BRAGGING and ATTITUDE.

That way also facilitates Robbie Williams and Johnny Borrell.

Maybe not now, back in the day though.

Also, British people can't really do golden gods and goddesses, Beyonce/Justin style. It just doesn't work.

― Space Battle Rothko (Matt DC), Friday, November 20, 2009 4:51 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"Yo dogg, no disrespect but recognize"

http://z.about.com/d/classicrock/1/0/W/4/zep_3.jpg

Robbie Williams is a likable pop star!

i really like that Robert Plant song "I'm Fucking Incredible, My Solo Shit Rules And Anyone Who Disagrees Is Obviously A Jealous Hater Revealing Their Own Evident Shortcomings As A Human Being". Think it was B-side of '29 Palms'.

nah i mean he got up on top of a building and proclaimed "I am a GOLDEN GOD" per the zep bio so i think that counts.

bro was a peacockin' motherfucker to the core.

i mean he settled down and went newgrass and all but still

British people can't really do golden gods and goddesses, Beyonce/Justin style. It just doesn't work.

That goes deep though, only room I can see for a big star is a lil wayne style eccentric who ppl don't have to take too seriously.

you want bragging and attitude? that pretty much sums up every speech debelle interview actually.

"Britain actually had its own Missy Elliott 13 years ago in the form of Phoebe One"

not quite the same thing. both were fat obv, and decent enough rappers, but the similarities end there.

kasabian brag and have 'tude too lex, you might like them.

but the similarities end there

don't forget 'not sounding British'

Yeah, thing is, the backlash also makes sense to me - the critical treatment of grime was so totally indie, so different to the way in which, say, UK garage was treated that it was almost inevitable that it would set US hip hop fans' teeth on edge (though to be fair I don't think there was really much of any US crit on UK garage pre-dubstep... I remember a belated and excellent Andy Battaglia piece aside, and a Scott Woods article that kinda got it all wrong though I totally love Scott Woods as a writer).

― Tim F, Friday, November 20, 2009 12:38 AM Bookmark

I think something important to note here is that UK garage was getting played on mainstream radio in the US. American radio listeners might not have any idea what such a thing was, but Craig David and Daniel Bedingfield were having legitimate hits in the US circa '01-'02.

"American radio listeners might not have any idea what such a thing was"

prob a big factor in how grime was treated

Yeah, pretty sure C. David and D. Bedingfield were recieved by US audiences as simply r&b and pop, respectively.

iirc they remixed their albums to smooth out the more overt 2-step beats for the US market (à la shania twain's international releases)

i mean someone who is totally aware that they are shit hot and unafraid to say it, which facilitates good pop, stevem. i want BRAGGING and ATTITUDE.

This made me think of Oasis straightaway.

The difference with UK is not an absence of bragging and attitude.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's that in the UK establishing a "human" rapport with the media is much more crucial - you can be full of yourself and full of shit, but being seen to be above it all is deadly.

e.g. Mariah's demanding gonzo eccentricity (did you hear about her 20 white kittens request?? Love you M) would probably remind me people of the dysfunctional royals - her performance is not part of any courtship of the media (except in the reporting of a carcrash kind of way) so the media and its readers would resent it.

Yeah, the ultimate compliment for a female pop star in the U.S. is to be called a diva.

lex: wouldn't surprise me with Craig David's stuff, but there's no mistaking the version of "Gotta Get Thru This" that hit over here for anything else

Craig David's album as released over here was a big pile of shit; the only things on it that were listenable were the singles.

where can i hear the pre-smoothed 2step shania?

it doesn't seem like there is really any more interest in Dizzee outside the UK still, from a commercial pov as opposed to 'edgy' blogs and websites

i was thinking about this when the new dizzee came out, how as he's turned into a real star at home, the interest in him in the u.s. has gone down and down. he really was a hipster/blog phenomenon here, to the degree he was a phenomenon at all (not much). and he never migrated out of that niche into any more commercial/mainstream visibility. somebody i suppose could write something sort of interesting about why m.i.a. crossed over and he hasn't.

It would help if he had some distribution over here. The latest one isn't available accept as an import; Maths + English was an import for nearly a year before a US release, as was Boy In Da Corner. He's also been on three different labels for his three US albums; again, making it difficult for a PR push or build to carry over outside of those already tuned in.

Plus, we just don't do well with accents. Why can't you Britishers sing in good old American like the Beatles and the Stones?

somebody i suppose could write something sort of interesting about why m.i.a. crossed over and he hasn't.

But MIA is self-consciously internationalist, whereas Dizzee is even now very parochial, very London, especially lyrically. I'd imagine a lot of the references would just go straight over the heads of a lot of Americans. It helps that America doesn't have anything like MIA to begin with, whereas you guys have more rappers than you know what to do with.

Several years of ethnic rip-offs in mainstream rnb have probably helped attune people to MIA's thing as well, whereas I was under the impression that even the mainstream 4/4 straight-up poppy electro that Dizzee's been jacking hasn't been a big thing over there.

"I Gotta Feeling"

MIA only really crossed over because of Paper Planes on the Pineapple Express OST i thought

that got her a hook gig on a super star posse cut, tbf

but yeah our rappers are having trouble crossing over at the moment so things are only harder now. dizzee might have been able to push thru when dancehall was actually getting spins in top 40 here -- remember talking about how FWD rhythm got played on hot 97?? -- but even then it would have required the right track which i dont think he ever really made

It helps that America doesn't have anything like MIA to begin with, whereas you guys have more rappers than you know what to do with.

that's true.

it's still a little surprising to me that dizzee hasn't had more guest spots on american hip-hop tracks, if only for the novelty factor. has there been anything besides ugk?

i could see there being more chance of dizzee or someone like him producing for an american rapper than a grime MC doing well in the US. i think american audiences might be more inclined to check for london production styles more than a london sounding MC. surprised it never happened but im guessing when dizzee had more profile in the US it was just seen as too weird/diff, even when southern producers were changing the sound of hip hop.

trying to imagine twista or the ying yang twins or someone on a beat from BIDC. or outkast - BOB mixes well with grime/dubstep.

BOB the song, not the rapper