Conflating Grime with Hip-Hop
It's one of my peridodic bugbears, people confusing UK Hip-Hop with Grime, and it's a conflation that almost always happens the closer one gets to mainstream Journalism. So I wasn't at all surprised to clock this on the BBC News site. In character as Colonel Outraged I wrote them a little note which, seeing as how I'd be extremely surprised if they published it, I'm reproducing here:
"Your reporter has made a classic error of trying to compare unlike with like.
The artists mentioned in the TOUCH article (Sway, Klashnekoff and Killa Kela) *ARE* UK Hip-Hop Artists. This lot, as is highlighted accurately in TOUCH, could be seen as engaging with and emulating US Hip-Hop, and like it it or not they're fighting a losing battle.
The others Roll Deep (and Wiley) Lethal Bizzle and Kano are all Grime artists. Saying they're UK Hip-Hop is as inaccurate saying Jamaica's Dancehall is Jamaican Hip-Hop because the music is MCs chatting over a beat. In the long run Grime stands a chance in the shadow of US Hip-Hop because, unlike the UK’s home-grown alternative it has it’s own individuated evolution which has very little to do with American Hip-Hop.
Like your reporter, the UK Urban Industry has made the silly mistake of thinking that if it brands Grime as the UK’s “own version of Hip-Hop” that they will be able to sell it more easily. If Grime didn’t have its own roots you’d find this exercise would kill it quickly, however it will continue to slowly prosper and grow regardless."
Kinda testy of me I suppose. I wonder what will happen with Grime? It still hasn't lost it's grip on the underground like Jungle hade done by 1996 which means it's had an impressive five years in gear since So Solid's "Oh No" in 2000. Putting together my Grime breakout for the second half of this year has proved to be very tricky.