Originally Posted by Christian Benteke

I'll go with this one as I reckon I can describe it the best. You guys are much better reviewers and writers than I am though.



Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner

Back when this came out, I was a Hip-Hop fan and only really listened to the mainstream Americans. I was familiar with the Garage thing happening in the UK at the time (particularly Oxide & Neutrino and So Solid) and I even liked some of it and bought the music but it was quite one dimensional and to be honest the MC's were shit, people were still spitting with American accents around this time, that's all there really was then. And then Dizzee came along with his high pitched, chirpy Cockney accent.

A mate had sent me
I Luv U over MSN that summer and I remember thinking 'WTF is this?'. It was being labeled as Garage but sounded nothing like it, or anything I'd heard before (or since actually.) The content was fresh and real, as opposed to the predictable shit that you'd already heard on Garage a thousand times over (clubs, champagne, girls, etc.) Dizzee was rawer than everyone else before him. And it was hard. It was a track that exploded out of nowhere, everybody rated it, it didn't get to number 1 but it was played everywhere. I think it's comparable to something like Anarchy In The UK in the way that it crossed over because of how shocking and abrasive it was.

This album's content is pretty much the polar opposite to the sort of thing that Garage MC's had done up until then. Tracks like Jezebel and Brand New Day... when you're a teenager at that time it's easy to relate to these tracks, it was the ugly side to the same culture Garage music encapsulated. We all knew a girl in the ends like the one in Jezebel and Dizzee's self expression on Brand New Day was concise and emotive; anyone who has been in a similar position will have felt like that at some point when you're growing up, it was a representation of you. 'Big shout to the boy who thinks he's a don, you're looking at your Avirex thinking you're a don' is a perfect description of how cocky and confrontational you can be at this point and how pointless a lot of teenage squabbling is when you're in school or in the ends. When I listen to the lyrics on this a lot of it reminds me of the people around me and myself, being a dickhead on the back of the bus, nicking phones and a load of other shit. That's exactly what was going on then and Dizzee is talking about it.

Everything on the album is composed and produced by a 16-17 year old Dizzee. The beats are all his with the exception of Fix Up, Look Sharp and Jus' A Rascal which were both co-produced. The production is completely unique, it's raw (I've had Americans tell me it sounds half finished) but it is meant to be that way, it's not supposed to sound polished, it's Grime music. There are no complex rhyming schemes on here or pretentious fast flows because he doesn't need to do it (other than on the last verse of Jus' A Rascal), he is succinct and he does not waste a word.

And it was actually Grime. In a time where the term 'Grime' has been used as a blanket term for any British rapping and the genre has lost it's identity, this production with it's warped bass, 'pots and pans' kicks and snares and Nokia 3310-esque melodies is the epitome of the Grime sound. Since then, it's all watered down and merged with Hip-Hop, artists now attempt to crossover to achieve the success Dizzee achieved with this album, success he achieved by being particularly aggressive and creative.

So that's my opinion on Boy In Da Corner, the undisputed peak of a genre and a genuine gem in a scene full of utter shit and creatively bankrupt dickheads. Regardless of your opinion on Grime (it's shit btw) this is an album I think anyone can appreciate.

Cheers.