GARAGE RAP compilations
Village Voice, February 3rd, 2003
plus footnotes from Blissblog, February 05, 2003
by Simon Reynolds
So
everybody knows about the Streets now, but only as an isolated case:
that unprecedented phenomenon, the U.K. rapper who's both excellent and
authentically English-sounding. Skinner actually comes from a context,
though. It's not that perennial lame duck Brit-rap, but a new genre that
some have dubbed "garage rap": basically, 2step fronted by MCs. Nowhere
to be found in the American house tradition, the MC has been an
important figure in U.K. rave culture from the start. All manner of Brit
B-boys and dancehall chatters got swept up in the late '80s acid house
explosion, and for a while there was even hybrid rave-rap, with
performers like Rebel MC, Ragga Twins, and Demon Boyz. For most of the
'90s, though, the rave MC knew his place: a strictly supporting role,
exalting the DJ and hyping the crowd. Through jungle and early U.K.
garage, there were star MCs, but they weren't nearly as well paid as the
top DJs, and even when they appeared on records their careers were
largely based around a few trademark catchphrases or signature vocal
licks, like MC Creed's funky bullfrog stutter.
Gradually,
MCs started to write actual verses, and then, two years ago, came the
putsch: They refused second-billing status (DJ/Producer X featuring MC
Y). Suddenly the scene was swarming with MC collectives—So Solid Crew,
K2 Family, Pay As U Go Kartel, GK Allstars, Dem Lott, Horra Squad, Nasty
Crew—as if only by ganging up for sheer strength of numbers could they
shove the DJ out of the spotlight. American rap's clan-as-corporation
structure was also an influence, with collectives like So Solid modeling
themselves on such entrepreneurial dynasties as Wu Tang and
Roc-A-Fella. If the trend continues, the DJ in U.K. garage could become a
vestigial figure, just like in mainstream American rap. This power
struggle has musical implications. Listening to U.K. garage these days,
the most striking thing is its torrential wordiness. Rave music was
always about the nonverbal sublime. But in garage rap, verbose and
swollen egos trample all over the loss-of-self that was originally house
culture's promise and premise.
With its raucousness
and Englishness and sometimes sheer malevolence, garage rap is
comparable to another music of the embattled ego: punk. The Englishness
comes through in the delivery: Mic chat has always been fast in Black
British sound system culture, but there's also a
tightness-in-the-throat, a dainty crispness of diction, that is
distinctly un-American. As for the nastiness, you only have to look at
garage's current lexicon of superlatives —"gutter," "stinking,"
"disgusting," "thugsy" —to see where it's coming from. There's even a
character called MC Vicious! Sometimes it's closer to the original '60s
garage punk: lots of sexual malice and second-person hostility. But when
MCs drop lines like "there's a lot of anger that's been building up
inside," there's a sense of pre-political rage and social frustration
that feels very 1977. As it happens, the state of the nation in 2002
uncannily mirrors the mid-'70s U.K. context that fueled punk's ire: a
fatally compromised Labour government, recession, public service workers
on strike, and resurging racial tension reflected in both electoral
success for far-right political parties and a revived Anti-Nazi League.
As far as U.K. garage's underclass audience is concerned, though,
collective struggle is a sentimental, distant memory, strictly for
suckers. And so it bypasses the failed realm of politics altogether,
expressing its rage-to-live through individualistic fantasies of stardom
or crime: Staggerlee transplanted to Sarf Lundun.
Garage
rap isn't all crime-pays false consciousness, though. Like punk, the
nu-garage upheaval has opened things up for all sorts of quirky voices:
Skinner obviously, but also honey-dripping Barrington Levy-like charmers
such as Laid Blak's MC Joe Peng. On "Scream & Shout" (Moist
import), he describes himself as "a nice and decent fellow," gently
chides "the ladies dressed in black" ("those are the colors of a
funeral"), and even pulls off a non-cloying plea to build a better world
for our children. Judging by their name, Heartless Crew ought to be
peddling more Social Darwinist ruthlessness, but "Heartless Theme"
verges on positivity, talking about how hard they've worked for their
success, and claiming that they're only heartless "cos our hearts are in
the music." Then there's the geniality of Genius Kru, whose "Course
Bruv" revives the amiable (if insanitary) rave-era ritual of sharing
your drink. The insanely addictive chorus goes: Male Voice: "Can I 'ave a
sip of that?" Genius Kru: "Course bruv!" Sexy Female: "Can I 'ave a sip
of that?" Genius Kru: "Course luv!!"
Your best chance of hearing "Heartless Theme" and "Course Bruv" is on (groan!)
Crews Control,
a Warnerdance U.K. compilation you might find in Tower or Virgin.
Somewhat patchy, this double-CD justifies the import price by containing
around eight certified classics, including Purple Haze's "Messy" and
More Fire Crew's "Oi!" Early in 2002, the latter became the most
avant-garde U.K. Top 10 hit since the Prodigy's "Firestarter," its
dead-eyed drum machine beats sourced in Schoolly D and "Sleng Teng," its
patois-tinged jabber equal parts Cockney Rejects and "Cockney
Translation" (Smiley Culture's 1985 dancehall classic).
Garage Rap, Vol 1
(Eastside import) is more consistent and up-to-date, ranging from the
quasi-orchestral grandeur of Wiley & Rolld Deep's "Terrible" to
the thunderdrone rampage of GK Allstars' "Garage Feeling."
The
trouble with comps, even superior ones like this, is they inevitably
lag behind where the scene is at right this minute. With 2step's
crossover bubble long popped, it's like the "real musicians" (MJ Cole,
et al.) have fled to more prosperous climes, leaving the genre in the
hands of barbarian teenagers who don't give a shit about things being in
key, who break the rules 'cos they don't know the rules.
Right
now, London's pirate-radio underground is like a primordial swamp,
seething with protean new forms and percolating with ideas nicked from
Dirty South bounce, electro, ragga, even gabba. Much of it is sub-music:
unfinished experiments, prototypes thrown onto the marketplace for the
hell of it. Some tunes want to be proper rap, but sound like all those
No Limit wannabe labels: cheap 'n' nasty synth-refrains inspired by or
sampled from video-game muzik or cell phone ring-tones, doomy horn
fanfares à la Swizz Beats or Ludacris. There's a whole vein of spartan
tracks, just beats and B-lines, designed for freestyling over—the most
famous and ubiquitous being Musical Mobb's "Pulse X," the U.K.'s very
own "Grindin'." In techno, tracky tunes of this type are regarded as "DJ
tools"—uncompleted work that only becomes music in the DJ's mix 'n'
mesh. In U.K. garage, they function as MC tools, designed to both enable
and test the rapper, the most extreme riddims as buckwild challenging
to ride as a mechanical bull. Every big tune these days comes with an
instrumental lick on the flip, so aspiring MCs on the pirates can
version it, throwing down solo freestyles or sparring in on-air ciphers.
Increasingly, they're using the instrumental B-sides of current rap
hits.
Like its precursors dancehall and hip-hop,
garage rap is capitalist competition at its most honestly brutal, a free
market governed only by the fickleness of popular desire, a/k/a, the
massive. Reigning rhymestar Wiley asserts, "I will not lose/Never, no
way, not ever"; he's next in line for So Solid-style stardom, alongside
his Rolldeep cohort Dizzee Rascal (who's quite possibly the most
inspired and provocative U.K. rapper since Tricky). But most MCs will be
lucky to have one or two hot tunes, and run t'ings for a season before
they're dethroned.
Footnotes from Blissblog
1/ there was even hybrid rave-rap, with performers like Rebel MC, Ragga Twins, and Demon Boyz.
Plus
the ones I didn’t have space to mention: Unique 3 (most reknowned for
pioneering bleep’n’bass tekno, but on various B-sides and on the album
Jus Unique they did a few rather shaky-sounding rap-rave tracks and were
basically a B-boy crew who got tripped out by acieeed) and most heinous
omission Shut Up and Dance. Who started out as the Britrap outfit
Private Party ("My Tennants", way ahead of Roots Manuva, and a pisstake
on Run DMC for sponsorship tune "My Adidas), then as SUAD did tunes like
“Rap’s My Occupation” and “Here Comes A Different Type of Rap Track not
the Usual 4 Bar Loop Crap”. Their conflicted relationship with hip hop
(they wanted to be a UK Public Enemy, but thought the latter were
sonically staid) was surpassed only by their conflicted relationship
with rave (they deplored drug culture and declared “we’re not a rave
group, we’re a fast hip hop group”). But despite doing socially
concerned tunes raps “This Town Needs A Sheriff” most of their big
anthems were sample-collages that updated slightly the DJ record style
of Bomb the Bass/Coldcut/MARRS. Still, SUAD’s comeback of the last few
years is all too appropriate, with killer tunes like “Moving Up” (not a
fully-fledged rap track with verses, but with enough of a MC vocal lick
thing to fit the current moment). Ragga Twins, who I did mention, were
on the SUAD label and now seem especially ahead-of-their-time, with the
Belgian h-core uproar of their “Mixed Truth” prophesying the
gabba-garridge sound.
But let’s not bring MC Tunes into this, eh?
2/ a strictly supporting role, exalting the DJ and hyping the crowd
The
MC's role in hardcore/jungle/earlygarage was paradoxically
crucial-yet-menial: he (invariably a he) functioned as a membrane
between the expressive/social and the rhythmic/technological, vocalizing
the intensities of machine-rhythm and in the process more or less
transforming himself into a supplement to “the drum kit”. Another key
part of the job description: the rewind, in which the MC relays the
will-of-the-massive to the DJ. A ritual aknowledgement, at least on the
symbolic level, of the idea that he who pays the piper calls the tune.
From
’92 onwards, though, you could sense a latent expressive potential in
rave Mcing -- especially on the pirates, when MCs like Don FM’s OC or
Trace and Ed Rush’s sparring partner Ryme Tyme would go off on one, get
real imagistic and panoramic (“North South East and West, we got you
locked”), as if surveying their domain from a lofty vantage point. Never
quite getting to the point of storytelling, but still, you could tell
that there was an artform in waiting, something that could bloom if
given the opportunity.
3/ there were star MCs
You
had name MCs from quite early on in rave--mentioned in the pirate ads,
obviously considered part of the draw. But the real character MCs
arrived with jungle, when rave's aerobics instructor/cockney street
vendor style of hoarse hollered rabble-rousing was replaced by something
more relaxed (even as the music got more frenetic), warmer,
magnanimous, full of authority. These guys--GQ, Dett, Moose, 5-0,
Navigator, et al--were almost MCs in the old showbiz sense, hosting the
event, stroking the egos of all present, from the selecta in the booth
to the massive on the floor. And now and then you’d get the first hints
of the MC’s role as truth-teller and vibe-articulator, someone
expressing the values of the scene. Overwhelmingly, these were black
voices. While the DJ and production sides of hardcore/jungle/UK garage
seem close to racial parity, MC-ing, from jungle onwards, seems like
it's a 98 percent black thing. Does this monopoly of the role of
host/articulator/spokesman have a symbolic role, expressing the
dominance of black musical/cultural priorities in a subculture that in
terms of population composition is actually pretty mixed? A sense that
the public face of the scene ought to be black (the MC is generally
actually more visible than the DJ, out there with his mic). Or is it
just something about the grain of the voice, suiting the flow of MC-ing?
4/ but their careers were largely based around a few trademark catchphrases or signature vocal licks
Which
could wear real thin real quick. Somewhere I have this eight-cassette
pack, the looks-like-a-video sort you could buy back in the day as a
memento of megaraves like Raindance or Dreamscape, but this was for a
Pure Silk garage event in ‘98. Eight cassettes, eight top DJs, and all
playing the same hot-that-week tracks as each other: talk about
“changing same”. Worse still, there was two or three top MCs hosting the
night, and so you get to hear the same trademark vocal gimmicks and
human-beatbox tricks over and over and over again.
5/ Gradually, MCs started to write actual verses
Some key transitional records here:
----DJ
Luck and MC Neat, “A Little Bit of Luck”. Not many words by comparison
with today’s norms, but the beginnings of MC tunes that actually said
something (in this case, I-and-I survive, “with a little bit of luck we
can make it through the night” doubling as a big up to his DJ, who takes
first billing despite contributing a really rather perfunctory groove
over which Neat croons the most naggingly catchy and rootically haunting
lick). Big BIG tune this: I remember someone telling me they heard a
pirate station play this tune over and over again for half an hour. For a
month or so in 98 this tune WAS the scene.
----Corrupted
Crew, “G.A.R.A.G.E.” Again, not saying a lot really, but awesomely
hooky and the MC (Neat?)’s baritone is wonderfully commanding. Also
probably the first letters-for-words spelling anthem (“E’s for the
Energy etc”), a routine that still gets re-used.
---
N&G feat. Rose Windross and MC Creed, "Liferide” . A classic
plinky xylo-bass tune, with Creed spinning out some dizzyingly
assonance-thick rhymes in his trademark clipped’n’prim style (weird how
something so compressed and inhibited sounding is so cool).
---Middle
Row's The Warm Up EP. Are these the first real narrative tunes? I’m
talking about “Millenium Twist": Shy Cookie, Sweetie Irie and Spee
reinventing the Englishness of canonical literature and costume drama
with this hilarious slice of Dickensian dancehall, starring an updated
Fagin from Oliver! instructing modern urchins how to duck 'n' dive Y2K
stylee. And "K.O.", with its bizarre boxing-ring MC narrative (Neat
again, accompanied by Shy Cookie and Spee).
Should
also mention perhaps the “singjay” tunes, half way between chat and
song, by the likes of Richie Dan (on the M-Dubs tune “Over Here”) and
Glamma Kid ("Sweetest Taboo", yes a Sade cover), not forgetting the
various 2step hook-ups with dancehall dons and don-ettes such as Lady
Saw (underlining the point that UK garage’s return to the vocal, after
the vocal-free desert that was techstep drum’n’bass, wasn’t just about
diva vocals but about ragga chat, e.g. Gant’s “Sound Bwoy Burial”).
6/ they refused second billing status (DJ/Producer X featuring MC Y)
As
in Scott Garcia feat MC Styles “It’s A London thing.” From ’97, which
might very well make it the first garage rap tune of all.
7/ Suddenly the scene was swarming with MC collectives
There
was a predecessor to So Solid Crew, a group no one cares to remember,
because they weren’t much cop. I’m talking about Da Click of “Good
Rhymes” infamy. A seriously naff record (Chic’s “Good Times” reworked)
but it made the pop charts and was “important”, just like “Planet Rock”
(surely the most over-rated dance record of all time? I always thought
it wooden and dreary, but I bought it anyway: you just knew it was
important). Same applies to “Good Rhymes”, had to have it, if only for
the sleeve with its pix of 70 players on the UKG scene. Da Click was
basically the scene’s premier MCs teaming up to make a record with the
explicit intent of bigging up the role of the MC in UKG. They were
inspired in a major way by Puff Daddy and the whole Bad Boy thing of
flash thugs riding/rolling with this collective swagger. One of the
record’s instigators, Unknown MC, used to be in Hijack, a Brit-rap group
signed to Ice T's Rhyme Syndicate label. In late 2000, quite some time
after the group’s profile had waned (the follow-up single was even
worse), he told me “in London right now, there's a thing happening where
true MCing is coming back to the floor. You have these clubs with 2000
people where the MC really is interfaced between the DJ and the crowd.
And he's whipping the crowds up into mad frenzies, getting them involved
in the party. Which I imagine is what it must have been like in the
Bronx in the 70s, you know what I'm saying?”
8/ American rap's clan-as-corporation structure
Crews
and posses have always been part of hip hop lore, but it’s fair to say
that until the late Nineties rap's dominant lyrical mode had always been
been first person singular. But with the rise of Ruff Ryders and Cash
Money (both based around real families) and with the likes of
Roc-A-Fella’s styling themselves as Cosa Nostra-like syndicates ("You
Are About To Witness A Dynasty Like No Other), there’s been a dramatic
first person pluralisation of rap; ego eclipsed by what might be called
"wego," the collective triumphalism of Ruff Ryders's "We In Here" or Hot
Boys's "We On Fire". Likewise in UKG you’ve got Kartels (PAUG) and
Famos (K2) galore.
It would be incorrect to suggest,
though, that this vogue for presenting what are clearly economic
organisations as quasi-families is just ideological window-dressing for
business realpolitik. Hip hop’s family values represent a kind of
privatized socialism, based around ideals like sharing, altruism,
co-operation, and self-sacrifice. In the war of clan against clan,
loyalty is paramount, not just because teamwork is more effective, but
because cameraderie provides refuge and respite from what would
otherwise be a grim dog-eat-dog struggle. Effectively, the rap clan
offers a haven from the rapacious cut-throat competition of the hip hop
industry/capitalism, and on some level offers solace and security in
what would otherwise be a desolate moral and emotional void. This is
also why the Ruff Ryders/So Solid style emphasis on unity resonates with
their fans--the idea of the clan on the warpath magically reconciles
the contradictory impulses to be a winner but also to belong.
Of
course, there’s a tension between business realities and these
quasi-familial relationships: rappers like The Lox and Snoop Doggy are
flexible in their fealty, shifting allegiances as deftly as sportsmen
changing teams at the drop of a cheque. Still, for many, the "thick like
blood" rhetoric is for real. DMX, in particular, regards loyalty as a
transcendent value. In a hyper-individualistic world where market forces
tear asunder all forms of solidarity and everybody has their price , he
claims: "They do it for the dough/Me I do it for the love". Lyrically
DMX is fixated almost exclusively on loyalty, betrayal, and retribution.
Then there’s his curious obsession with dogs. Strikingly different from
the lecherous hound persona adopted by George Clinton ("Atomic Dog"
etc) DMX's use of "dog" seems to draw on the idea of canine fidelity--to
the pack in the wild, to its owner (hence Fido). In song after song,
DMX insists "I will die for my dogs". Then there’s the way he reinvokes
what Foucault called “the Medieval symbolics of blood": Flesh of My
Flesh, Blood of My Blood, his new label Bloodline. All seem to relate to
atatvistic notions of blood-brotherhood and the loopy fantasy of DMX
and his dawgs as some sort of pedigreed aristocracy of the streets ("My
dogs, the beginning of this bloodline of mine"). So it’s interesting
that in UK garage slang “bruv” has been displaced by “blood” as a
salutation or bonding term--“ya get me blood?”
“Dog”,
“blood”, “nigga”: all these terms have superceded the old racially
encoded but more universalizing greetings like “brother”, which one
associates with the civil rights era. The idea of family offers a kind
of unity that seems more tangible and grounded than allegiance either to
abstract, remote and problematic entity known as the United States of
America, or any of the various forms of African-American nationalism. In
rap and in UKG, group affiliation contracts to the compact and
plausible dimensions of a clique, and one usually one tied to a
place---a project, a council estate, a borough, a postal district (More
Fire Crew shout out to the E4 and E11 crew on the sleevenotes to their
debut album), or at the very most, a city (from “it’s a London thing” to
“Millenium Twist”’s "L.O.N.D.O.N, London/That's where we're coming
from"). As opportunities for feelings of solidarity and communality
shrivel and retreat all over the social landscape, the withering
especially pronounced in the very places where people once found them
(trade unions, electoral politics, organized religion), it makes sense
that this basic human need for a sense of belonging would find other
points of focus, albeit on more diminished terms. In the neo-Medieval
scenario of unchecked capitalism and holy war, it’s no surprise that
we’re witnessing a resurgent atavism in the form of these Mafia-inspired
clan structures (“amoral familialism”, Italian sociologists call it,
diagnosing their persistence as caused by the relative weakness of
nationalism in Italy--as a political entity, Italy is a relatively
recent creation). Musical mobs indeed.
9/ torrential wordiness
Never
ceases to amaze me, this. In UKG at the moment there's almost like a
battle between the words and the music for dominance, the MC's almost
seem to trying to drown out the DJ. Are there even name DJs anymore? Who
gets top billing on the flyers these days? Recently playing Pied
Piper's 'Do You Really Like It', which can only be two years old, I was
struck by 1/ how as MCing it just wouldn't cut it now, it sounds so
wack, and 2/ there must be about 25 words in the whole song. That said,
the first true examples of rampant logorrhea I can think of date from
shortly before ‘Do You Really Like It?’: Sparks & Kie on
Teebone’s “Fly Bi” (wrong Matthew, sorry this tune is the B.O.M.B. and
what's wrong with the spelling thing anyway) and Skibadee on Teebone’s
“Super S”, mad-hectic tongue-twisty sinous sibilant biznis.
10/ with its raucousness and Englishness
One
of my favorite bits ever on a garage rap record, can’t remember the
tune or artist right this minute, occurs when, after a series of grisly
threats, the MC’s killer verbal blow to his adversary is the
instruction: “Behave!”. It’s like some eerie transcultural morphing
effect: Bounty Killer turns into Frankie Howerd. That’ll be lost on
non-Brits, I’m afraid, as is the next reference: the way Horra Squad’s
Mr Guns’s has this bizarre tic-like mannerism of going “just like
that”--an immaculate imitation of Tommy Cooper--right in the middle of
the most bloodcurdling eruptions of “thugsy-ugsy” threats and
“messy-essy” slackness.
11/dainty crispness of diction
Actually,
it’s all about the tension between the impulse towards criss precision
and the “drag” of the uncouth grain-of-the-voice that resists and
impedes that impulse. But, and this is crucial (what some Americans, no
offence, don’t get), the refinement doesn’t equate with whiteness and
gentility (Masterpiece Theater, your daft ideas that the U.K is all
castles and cucumber sandwiches), and the ruffness doesn’t equate with
black/Caribbean. The uncouth element isn’t so much the patois as the
Cockney gutternsipe factor, and the slick diction is more about a Black
British elegance-smoothness aspirational thing. So you have this really
semiotically rich and overdetermined criss-cross collision of class/race
factors, a tug-of-war between assimilation and recalcitrance, “this is
where we came from" and "this is where we're going" . But most of all it
just sounds wicked.
12/expressing its rage-to-live through individualistic fantasies of stardom or crime
The
art of Mcing doesn’t really entail opening up virgin zones of
unexplored content. “Originality” means finding fresh twists on a stock
set of themes. Like that literary critic who broke down the entirety of
western drama and fiction to seven basic narrative structures (I.A.
Richards?), here's my stab at isolating UKG’s core thematics (which are
also stances, outlooks, dispositions, states of mind, ways of walking
through the world).
i/ “I will not lose/we’re gonna make it/ain’t know stopping us/we are coming through”
more on this below
ii/ “know we/they don’t know/people dun know/if you don’t know, get to know”.
Probably
the most interesting and unique to UKG theme (despite my Notorious BIG
quote just now). Interesting, because the scenario it implies is that
the MC is actually unknown---it evokes an imminence, a star status or
stature that is being suppressed, thwarted, or is simply latent. The MC
is an unknown on the brink of breaking out massively, a "supernova" (to
quote Neutrino) microseconds before ignition. They don’t know but they
should know and they will know. It’s hard to imagine an American rapper
writing from this position: regal triumphalism, Jay-Z style, or even
ennui (that standard face of blase derision you get in all the videos)
seems to be more appropriate for a music that has won and is basking in
its victory. Because “they don’t know” also suggests a collective demand
for recognition, which US hip hop enjoys but UKG hasn’t; the theme
seems to convey something of the marginality and underdog status of
UKG-rap as a whole. “They” could be mainstream UK culture (which only
acknowledges UKG when it is scapegoating it for street violence), or it
could even be American hip hop. Alternatively, "They don't know"
sometimes carries a suggestion of (see Black Ops cru) of secrecy,
subterfuge, assassins with deadly powers moving unnoticed through
society.
iii/ making paper/chasing cheddar/we floss the biggest whips etc
Wish
fulfillment, one assumes, or hope: there can’t be that much money to be
made on this scene, surely. (So Solid sold 400,000 of their album but
when you divide the royalties by 30…). Nice UK-specific touches to the
conspicuous consumption/status games, e.g. A-reg and K-reg license plate
disputes.
iv/ biters/why you want to imitate me
yeah right, if you're so unique how come you sound just like everybody else?
v/“haters
—yeah
yeah they're all sick to their guts on account of your
wealth/fame/success with the ladies, well why not desist from rubbing it
in their faces every chance you get then?
Biters and haters are
essential accoutrements, status symbols, on a par with the flash phones
and cars. Mo money mo problems etc.
vi/ alpha male biznis (is that your chick/steal your wifey/kiss her on the lips you’re tasting my semen).
Char-ming.
vii/ “wego-mania” (ride with us/imagine, you’re with a crew like this, etc)
Viii/ “revenge/retribution/ultraviolence”.
the scenarios seem to get more vivid and colorful and cruelly creative every month
13/ Laid Blak .
From
Bristol, and not just a UKG outfit, their spokesman tells me, but a
proper band that can do all sorts. I await their next release keenly and
with real curiosity.
14/ equal parts Cockney Rejects and "Cockney Translation"
The
cover of that More Fire Crew single is a beautiful thing. Not because
it’s especially attractive or remarkable-looking (it’s quite plain and
nondescript actually) but simply because it has these three black lads
and the word “Oi!’ on the sleeve. And the last time the word “Oi!”
appeared prominently on record sleeves, these were early Eighties Oi!
compilations and the young men on the sleeves would have been cropheaded
and pasty-faced hooligans with dubious political allegiances and
jingoistic leanings. In one infamous case, Strength Through Oi! (a
supremely tasteless and inflammatory title), the chap stomping his 18
hole DMs at the camera (almost as if to suggest if the photographer was
the victim of a racial attack) turned out to be an ex-member of the
British Movement or NF or some similar neo-Nazi outfit. So the More Fire
Crew sleeve is an encouraging sign, in some weird way, of a degree of
cultural miscegenation that's taken place in the last twenty years: a
once noxious word being defused and reclaimed. (“Oi, oi!” was always a
big MC chant on the hardcore scene, come to think of it).
As
much as electro or the proto-ragga Casio-riddim ‘Sleng Teng”, I like to
think of Smiley Culture’s "Cockney Translation" as the Eighties Origin
for “Oi!” and for MC garage as a whole. At least it makes for an
appropriately fertile fiction, as Mythic Origin. Released on the Fashion
label (worth rediscovery I reckon, it captured a phase-shift in the
Caribbean-British story), this is the tune where Smiley translates back
and forth between patois and patter, West Indies and East Enders. “Say
Cockney say Old Bill/We say dutty Babylon”, “we say bleach. Cockney
knackered”, “Cockney say triffic. We say waaacked…. sweet as nut. just
level vibes. Seen?”
It pointed ahead to the future
hybrid argot of multiracial London, the hardcore/jungle/garage
mix’n’blend of rhyming slang and rhymes-and-slang.
And talking about the More Fire Crew song, here’s a particularly apt line from Smiley’s song:
“We bawl out YOW! While cockneys say Oi!”
“Cockney
Translation” is an ancestor for garage rap in more than a
symbolic/mythic way, though. The tune was an example of the UK
fast-style reggae sound, which Dick Hebdige describes as “reggae’s
answer to rap”, as spearheaded by the Saxon International Sound System
and its MCs like Tipper Irie, Asher Senator, Lady Di, and Philip Levi.
Fast-style chatter is, if not ‘the roots’ then one key root for
everything from Ragga Twins and SUAD to jungle/UKG MCs like Skibadee.
More Fire’s debut album is good BTW.
15/ a Warnerdance U.K. compilation you might find in Tower or Virgin.
At
one point I was thinking about framing this piece as a ‘world music’
story. Because that’s what this music is at this point—impossibly exotic
and hard to get hold of outside the UK. In America, it’s easier to buy
records of Madagascan guitarpop or Javanese court gamelan than it is to
acquire UKG.
16/ "I will not lose/Never, no way, not ever"
Been
really struck by the recurrence in UKG Mc-ing of expressions of
uncontainability: “we’re coming through, whether you like it or not”
(Black Ops), “this style be original/we can’t be stopped” (GK Allstars).
Or a sense of destiny and determination that would seem pie-in-the-sky
if it wasn’t marked by such hunger--the scrawny ardor animating lines
like: “always believing/follow my heart, keep up the dreaming/behind the
cloud, there is a shining….I know my time is coming.” (GK Allstars
again). Talk of dedication, hard work, all of my energy going into this.
Again and again, this almost-American insistence, not that anyone can
make it, but I’m gonna make it (I’ve got to make it; there is no
alternative). Flying in the face of statistical reality.
Here’s
Peter York (an under-rated analyst of UK socioculture) on what happens
in a tightly class-stratified country like Britain where talent is
“blocked off from conventional embourgeoisment”. “If you have a whole
lot of people who are blocked, then the steam is much more intense. And
where it finds a crack it rises more violently.”
