NEWS
EVENTS
It's Grime Worldwide
After a few years of growth in status across Britain, 2016 saw grime truly become an international genre of music and it continues to spread to all corners of the planet.
It's grime rebirth time. Since its creation in the early 2000s it has been bubbling. But now we are offically international. With Kanye West’s performance at the Brits in 2015 and Drake ‘signing’ to Skepta’s BBK label last year, the genre has hit the big time. Although acts like Dizzee Rascal for instance did become extremely well known toward the end of the last decade they changed their sound to more suit the charts, and are now in fact reverting to the original style due to its increase in popularity.
This had led to it spreading across the UK, with many new artists adopting the same ‘D.I.Y’ culture that was used on the streets of East London in the beginning. Welsh group Astroid Boys have been making waves with Sian Anderson picking them as her Next Generation Shout and they even featured on a Radio 4 documentary. Their use of guitars creates a punk like sound, and whether you approve or not it shows grime’s continuing evolution. If you’re used to London rappers then you may find accents and slang from around Britain difficult to get used to and even cringe-worthy but representing where you are from and writing about those experiences is what grime is all about.
Also expanding across the continent, French, Czech and other European grime artists are getting exposure in this country through platforms such as SBTV and now Guestlist. Noisey won't leave it alone, with grime scene documentaries from Blackpool to Toronto showing just how much of an international culture it has become. Thanks to YouTube channels such as Risky Roadz grime is experiencing a truly worldwide revival. Hearing rappers not in English is still rare but Japanese performer Pakin spits 140bpm in his own language!
