The Top 10 Underpriced Grime Records

A few weeks ago, I went out and saw Jammer and Skepta perform in Williamsburg and was amazed to see a room full of wispy young Brooklynites lose their minds to oddball shit like Straight by DJ Mondie. This sort of blew me away, as for the last ten years of so, playing any grime songs at a party in NYC has been a great way to stop it dead.

In fact, outside of a one year period in 2004-5 when it was the Next Big Thing among urban Anglophiles (aka Craig David groupies), XLR8R subscribers, and non-cracked out junglists, Grime had no impact here. There were plenty of magazine articles and you heard "Boy In Da Corner" out and about for about 6 months, but as a genre it never had any traction whatsoever. Trust me, I should know. In 2005, I helped start what was probably the first weekly grime party in the world, Pure Fire, in the basement at SubTonic. The only people who would respond to grime with any consistency were IDM kids, who were used to hearing stuff a whole lot weirder than Wiley.

Back then, the music was hard to find. RinseFM's stream was broken most of the time, there were no mp3's of this stuff, and often the only way to hear these tunes was to buy the vinyl yourself.

But, up until a few years ago, you could get basically any grime record online for cheap, usually from a kid in Essex who just finished his bedroom DJ phase, and was now selling all his "vinyls" on some forum for money to fly to Ayia Napa or to put new wheels on his Ford Fiesta. Grime records were a buyer's market.

Fast forward to today, where every slob on Discogs wants 40 pounds for a Syer Barz record. If you're looking for any big records from Ruff Sqwad, Wiley, DJ Oddz, Dizzee Rascal, Jammer, etc, you better have deep pockets or a lot of patience.

There's definitely a new type of buyer out there, someone who doesn't particularly care about the MCs, and just likes off-kilter minimal beats. The focus is definitely on stuff from 2005 or earlier: the more weird, lo-fi, and melancholy sounding the better. I am guessing a lot of these people got turned on to grime from listening to people like Kode 9, Zomby, Mumdance, or Slackk (which is not a bad thing).

This rags to riches vinyl story can be summed up by Functionz On The Low by XTC, which once sold on Discogs for 5 bucks, and now can't be found for less than a C-note anywhere. But, if you can look past getting the same 50 records that everyone else wants, you can find some great stuff cheap. All of the following records can generally be found for 10 bucks or less.

1.

Sticky - "Golly Gosh"

"Golly Gosh" was a legendary track in the days when garage became grime, it pops up in so many old pirate radio tapes from that era. Just listen to the crowd go off when the beat drops at the first

Eskimo Dance

in 2002 (at 5:35 in).

Sticky made countless variations on this beat in the next few years, but this was the first. When I saw Roll Deep Crew at Knitting Factory in 2005 this was the only beat they spit over that wasn't produced by Wiley or Danny Weed. Copies on Discogs start at $1.61.

2.

Flow Dan - "Skydiver"

Flow Dan is best known as an MC, both as part of Roll Deep, and as a featured vocalist on many tracks by The Bug (and now as a solo artist on Hyperdub). Back in 2003 he made one instrumental, borrowing Wiley's soundbanks. It sounds like a lost Wiley track, using the trademark Eskimo bass and video game chomping sounds, and has a weird, amateurish, minimalism that should appeal to Zomby fans. Copies on Discogs start at $12.90.3.

Kano - "Boys Love Girls" (Prod. by Jammer) // Jammer - N.A.S.T.Y

I'm not sure what happened to Kano's career, it seemed like he went on this cycle of Can't Miss to Has Been to Comeback to Disappeared in 5 years. "Boys Love Girls" was his first single and it still sounds great. However, if you are buying grime records in 2014, you probably don't care about it at all. But, the B-side, a Jammer instrumental that is not related to the vocal side, is a top notch piece of Eastern inflected grime that has that mystical, emotive sound that people for some reason now want to pay 100 dollars for. This goes for less than 1/10 of that. Copies on Discogs start at $4.03.

4. Scratchy - "Shangooli"

Another case of a MC moonlighting as a producer and making one track, Shangooli is seriously one of the most unique grime riddims of all time. It has a 4/4 garage beat, yet somehow sounds slow. This tune is used to devastating effect in the

famous pirate tape of Riko Dan basically burying Demon

at about 16:15 in. The Wiley remix on the B-side is not bad either. Copies on Discogs start at $3.64.

5. Wiley - "My Mistakes/Sorry Sorry Pardon What"

In 2003, Wiley put out two different 12" EP's of different MC's vocaling his Ice Rink riddim, which might be THE signature grime riddim, just for its uniqueness (to this day, it totally paralyzes American audiences who have no idea how to react to it). For some reason, Wiley never bothered to voice it himself, until 2007. This is actually a good thing, as 2007 Wiley was a lot better MC than 2003 Wiley. His version, "Sorry Sorry Pardon What," samples its hook from Dizzee Rascal's version from 2003. It only came out on vinyl on a 7", as the B-side of the terrible track "My Mistakes" and can be yours for a few bucks. Copies on Discogs start at $3.15.

6. Dizzee Rascal - "Dream/Trapped"

Want a copy of "Wheel","Ho", "Streetfighter," or any of the other brutally hypnotic instrumentals Dizzee produced before he got famous? Be prepared to shell out, everyone else wants those too, so you aren't getting much for under 30 pounds. However, for 99p, you can get a copy of "Trapped," a B-side from his second album and the last grimey production he ever did. Copies on Discogs start at $1.61.

7. Jon E Cash - "War"

In 2002, as garage mutated into something sparser and more hip hop influenced, there was no clear name for the emerging genre. Wiley called his sound Eskibeat, but producer Jon E Cash preferred the tag, "Sub Low," a name that fit his bass heavy productions perfectly. For some reason, there is not a lot of renewed interest in his records, and no Soundcloud producers are making homages to his sound. Even listening to the glut of old school grime mixes I have heard in the last few years, it feels like Sub Low gets underrepresented.

Jon E Cash was based out of West London and aligned with BBC 1Xtra's DJ Cameo and somewhat removed from the more youth oriented East London scene focused more around pirate radio and MC clashes, so he gets written out of histories that focus on Deja Vu and Rinse FM. Jon E Cash just made great bass music for clubs. "War" was his biggest tune in the grime scene, and you can pick it up for under 5 pounds. Almost all of the records on his Black Ops label by himself or DJ Dread D are worth checking for, and most are cheap. Copies of "War" start on Discogs at $5.00.

Another classic from the days when garage turned into grime. You'll hear it in early Eskimo dance footage as well as the infamous

Conflict DVD

. There are very few major sets from 2003 that don't have it on it somewhere. There are tons and tons of remixes and edits of this song. This one is the cheapest and easiest to pick up with copies going for under 5 pounds. Copies on Discogs start at $3.06.

9. 2 Twisted Cru - "Strike the Match"

Something about this beat just kills me, it's very dumb/smart. I'm sure it got a lot of pirate play back in the day, but I've never heard any tapes with it on it. I got it in a huge folder of 128kb rips of grime instrumentals I downloaded years ago. As such, I'm prejudiced against the vocal version. It's ok, but the instrumental works so well on its own. Copies on Discogs start at $4.64.

10. DJ Wonder - "Shower/Waterfall"

DJ Wonder has one acknowledged classic under his belt, the grime/dubstep crossover "

What

," which Dizzee vocaled on his 2nd album as "

Respect Me

." However, "Shower" has aged slightly better, not being tainted by dubstep in any way. Copies on Discogs start at $5.94.

Follow Peter on Twitter - @pgunnNYC

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