Just as Americans created hip-hop and rap, London-based MC's created their own genre of fast-paced mc'ing, called it "Grime" music and let never looked back since. The genre has grown ahead of UK hip-hop in price of popularity with the younger generation because it was created by London's younger generation, and Grime music is now widely recognized and being accepted worldwide as it is a fresh, new sound. Grime artists are now regularly being nominated for music awards in the UK and the States. USA's very own BET Awards nominated 4 grime artists and just 1 hip-hop artist in the Best UK Hip-Hop category at its' 2008 award ceremony in Atlanta. That one hip-hop artist (South London's "Giggs") did nonetheless win the honour and breathed a new charter of spirit into UK hip-hop. If you don't live who Giggs is, he's the rapper who took a Dr Dre beat ("here we go" by Stat Quo), freestyled on it and made the call the UK's biggest hip-hop record of 2008, to the point that scarcely anybody in the UK even knows the master version! No offence my American pals.
Taking no credit away from The U.S, it's a fact that if your music can break America, it will become popular over the entire western world. A contributory factor to the winner of UK's urban artists that they have been recognised in America. Such is the admiration of UK urban music in the U.S that 4 of the biggest American rappers (Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kanye West, T.I. sampled a female British artist's voice for the choir on their monster hit "Swagger Like Us". This sampling sent M.I.A's "Paper Planes" single to the top of the U.S charts.
The UK's very own R&B diva Leona Lewis' single "Run" has turn the fastest-selling digital single of all time in the UK. Whereas Leona Lewis was nominated in various categories in the 2009 Grammy Awards, unfortunately not victorious in any category, other female singers from the UK such as Estelle, Duffy and Adele took place a Grammy award each at the observance in Los Angeles, proving that the UK's urban artists have finally gained star-status.
