Although, the grime scene has a lot of harsh critics, mainly people who aren’t educated enough about music to understand the thought that goes into every song, every lyric, the hard work by all the artists within the scene and also just how passionate the fans are about the music made.
There are so many different types of grime about these days. You have music from grime artists such as Tinie Tempah who releases songs that most of the population will hear, such as Pass out which was recently a UK number one. You also have artists such as Ghetts who release songs that only people who are into grime will hear as it’s not a song that is as main stream as others.
Grime artists can find it very hard to get noticed, this is due to the fact the majority of their music is not main stream therefore they use social networking sites such as twitter and facebook to help promote their music. They also use a lot of blog sites and forums to help promote although a lot of the promotion is simply done by fans, such as my self.
History of Grime
Grime music emerged from Bow, East London. It was highly promoted and the development of grime has been helped massively by Pirate radio stations such as Major FM and Rinse FM. Major FM were the first online radio station to support grime music and introduce it to an international market. Grime music started off as being known as “eskibeat” which was a term applied by the artist Wiley who could single handily be held responsible for generating the “grime”. Among one of the first songs to emerge and be labelled as grime is “Eskimo” by Wiley.
Grime was bought to the attention of the main stream media by artists Dizzee Rascal and Wiley who were both part of the movement Roll Deep. They did this by the release of their albums “boy in da corner” and “treddin on thin ice”. Dizze Rascal won a mercury music prize in 2003 with his album “boy in da corner”. Grime started to receive a lot of music and radio attention with the shows such as television program Channel U (now Channel AKA) and radio stations such as Kiss FM and BBC Radio 1’s 1xtra.
Artists within the scene now
Here are just a few of the artists that are big within the grime scene now with some websites too so you can sample the music etc...
Marvell – Marvell are a collective consisting of three members; Double S, Shocka and Vertex. They were formed in 2007 by Vertex. Mid 2008 the collective finally got together a previously other members had left; they all agreed that music would be their number one priority. They now have a free mixtape out called Marvell FM 3 which available here; http://www.filefront.com/15483311/Marvell-FM-3-Mixtape.zip/
The groups website is; http://marvellmusic.co.uk
Marvell Twitter: http://twitter.com/marvell_music
JME – JME is a young artist from London. He has an older brother, Skepta, who is also in the scene. They are both Grime artists who are also in the group Boy Better Know who are well known for Too Many Man. JME has an album that was released in 2008 and is also available to purchase on the majority of download sites and ukrecordshop.com later in the year he has a new album due to be released that can be pre-ordered on ukrecordshop.com bound to be big! JME has recently released a single which is only available on download called CD is dead featuring Tempz.
JME’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/jmeBBK
JME’s Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/jmeserious
Skepta – As mentioned above Skepta has a younger brother, JME who is also in the grime scene. They are both in a movement together known as Boy Better Know. Skepta has previously released two albums; Greatest hits released in 2007 and Microphone Champion released in 2009. Earlier in the year he released a single called Bad Boy and he also has a single due to be released called Rescue Me which can be pre-ordered on iTunes as the rest can be bought on iTunes too.
Skepta’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/Skepta
Skepta’s Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/skepta
Professor Green – Prof G has only emerged in the grime scene this year with the hit single “need you tonight”. Prof G is actually lucky to still be alive as he was stabbed with a broken bottle inches away from an artery which if it had struck the artery would have killed him within minutes. The stabbing cut through a tattoo which is there, the tattoo reads “lucky”, this couldn’t be truer. He had a few songs before this such as Upper Clapton Dance and the song Before I Die which was released in 2006. He has an album due to be released this year.
Prof G’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/professorgreen
Prof G’s Website: http://www.professorgreen.co.uk/
Prof G’s Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/professorgreen
