Grime - Definition and Overview

Grime is musical offshoot of the early 21st century UK Garage scene that developed in London's East End between 2002-2004. In contrast to its more soulful progenitor, Grime can often be dark and aggressive. Grime has roots in both hip-hop and electronic music and is characterised by rapid and rhythmic rhyming over sparse break beats, futuristic bleeps and guttural bass growls. Grime resisted attempts to classify or pidgeon-hole it for a long time, but in the past has also gone by the names sublow or eskibeat.

Grandfathers of Grime

Two figures stand out as being instrumental in the birth of the genre now known as Grime. Both members of the "Roll Deep Crew", Dizzee Rascal and Wiley publicised the genre with their albums "Boy In Da Corner" and "Treadin' On Thin Ice". The 2004 track "What D'You Call It" by Wiley perhaps signalled the real split of Grime from previous musical genres whilst mocking media attempts to classify the new sound.

Although Dizzee and Wiley are rightly credited with being the architects of the Grime sound we can see the progression of UK Garage to Grime by looking at earlier tracks such as So Solid Crew's "Dilemma" and "Oh No", More Fire Cru's "Oi" and Sticky feat Ms. Dynamite's "Boo".

UK Garage gradually got darker and the first tracks to be recognised as grime were "eskimo" by Wiley and "Pulse X" by Musical Mob.

The Present And Future

Until now Grime has been lingering in the background of the UK music scene and was concentrated predominately in the East End of London. Now however, it looks set to spread to a wider audience. Dizee Rascals first and second albums ("Boy in Da Corner" and "Showtime") have both been commercial successes and new artists such as Kano, Lady Sovereign and the Birmingham-based Brasko look set to reach new audiences. There have been reports of several British youth producing Grime recordings on home computers or game consoles that are then broadcast on pirate radio broadcasts.