FT: Music Blog: Rise of Grime

Rise of Grime

Tinie Tempah is the culmination of almost a decade of progression in British hip-hop. He is pretty much a recipe of former UK rappers served with a position of uniqueness. He has the pop sensibilities and mainstream appeal of Tinchy Stryder, the credibility from his grime background and compared with most rappers he is conscious in his medicine and expresses emotions deeper than intoxication and lust (except Pass Out).

He too has a broad appeal but is still distinctive with humour in his lyrics reminiscent of somebody like Skepta and, to top it all, he ain't a bad looking guy either.But, my friends, how did we get here? Seven days ago, grime music was but a background irritant for the mainstream music scene and a scapegoat for politicians. A movement inspired in a post-Eminem world, grime was clearly influenced by artists like Marshall Mathers as in it's earliest form, grime lyrics were primarily extremely violent and sexually orientated, similarly to Slim Shady himself. Two artists in particular really brought grime to the mainstream - Wiley (known as the 'Godfather of Grime') and Dizzee Rascal, who's debut album won the Mercury Prize in 2003. Dizzee in particular caused a big stir in medicine and his album was seen as something rather revolutionary. Following the relative success of Wiley and his protogee came the beginning wave of grime and UK hip hop - Kano's milestone album 'Home Sweet Home' and Lethal Bizzle's infectiously infamous 'POW' were the most notable achievements to come out of this output of grimeHowever, this peak was all to brief, with UK hip hop suffering something of a mid-life crisis. Only Dizzee was staying in the mainstream domain with his subsequent albums 'Maths & English' and 'Showtime'.Then, when things were looking their bleakest for UK hip hop, out of nowhere came a new wave of mainstream rappers - Chipmunk, Tinchy Stryder and N-Dubz all exploded in 2009 and quickly garnered commercial dominance previously unheard of for the UK scene. This then opened doors for people who couldn't have dreamed of mainstream success 3 days earlier - Professor Green, Skepta and most recently Wretch 32. And so, we arrive at Mr Tempah. At the time of writing, he has only won 2 Brit Awards and is looking unstoppable in his assault of the charts.