Grimewatch

Jammer, Skepta and Wiley

Faction G

Photos by Jamie-James Medina

Ok, so the MOBOs hate black people. Well, not black people, but Roll Deep who weren’t even invited to the awards show. Maybe next year their record label could pay £30,000 for an old stage set of Fat Sam’s Speakeasy from Bugsy Malone and they could perform and win. One idea we had was that Relentless could recreate three flats on stage and have Wiley perform dangling from the ceiling or something. Just an idea. Simon Webbe got a standing ovation for saying he supports the grime scene and Ms. Dynamite performed some terrible new tune. If Polydor keep promising Grimewatch “street” tracks any longer, her kid will be on the mic. And at the age of two we hear he’s already better than uncle Akala! Remove the image of Dyna-mi-tehe of old, and replace it with a cardigan-wearing anti-gun crime, anti-abortion, anti-bullying, anti-swearing, anti-decent music making Niomi-what’s-her-face. Anyway, the night wasn’t a complete washout for grimeheads. Sway, who is actually hip-hop but whatever, won an award and Lethal B won best single for “Pow” and went on to celebrate at McDonald’s in Leicester Square, before hailing a minicab home.

People, Dizzee is back. We checked out his big Dirtee Stank showcase at Ministry, which was arranged by the lovely people at www.psp-pureurban.com. Thanks for all the free champagne guys, but where were all the mandem? Dyl performed two new songs, “Nothing” and “Waste-Man”, which sounded great, if a little crunk-ish. Klass A also performed, which wasn’t so good, but Newham Generals were, as usual, incredible, with Monksta so chilled he performed, eyes half-closed, with one hand in his pocket, coming across as a grime version of that Vice DO with the suited egg getting his lean on. Don’t get it twisted—Newham Generals are shower men. They’ve got an astounding new track called “Humpty Dumpty”, where D-Double-E once again proves he’s got the No. 1 speech impediment in the game, standard. Footsie and Double have also got this crazy double-act thing going on, taking the crown off The Mitchell Brothers as the Robson & Jerome of grime. Bear Man (waste-man) and his grime unicorns have tried to start a war with the Newham Generals but are getting air on the roads. Footsie’s also just produced a bunch of tracks on Dizzee’s new record Maths & English (dat’s wot life is all about, innit?) which is out next summer. We read somewhere that Dizzee hasn’t even heard the new Roll Deep album yet. Isn’t that slightly salty? I mean, if you were given the chance to join the biggest crew on-road when you were just a little yout, then blew up and became the king of the scene they created, wouldn’t you at least be an incy-wincy tiny bit interested in what they were up to, especially if they released a great record? I’m not saying…I’m just saying. Dizz also turned up on Tim Westwood’s show a couple of days before and showed up Sway (who was also there) as a stuttering amateur.

We at Vice are too old for Young Man Standing and too white for Sidewinder, so with those gone, we’re basically left with FWD’s dubstep night at Plastic People in Shoreditch. Check out the article on Skream. If you thought this was only occupied by middle-aged bloggers who say stuff like, “It’s all irie, MATE” while smoking a bag of leaves they bought outside Camden tube station, you’d be right, but it’s starting to attract more and more grime MCs. Also, with Riko now hosting their ads on Rinse FM, more than four people are now paying to get in. The FWD 4th Birthday bash was absolutely rammed, although, everybody left after an hour to go and watch a friend of Grimewatch from another magazine scuffle with some grime crew who will never ever be mentioned in no FREE magazines again.

A word of advice to MCs who plan to make the voyage to Napa next summer: take back-up Ps. SLK went out there on the back of their single “Hype, Hype” and were left stranded and living on the beach. Van Damage got the worst of it—being white he got burnt to a crisp in the sun. When Skepta called him out on Rinse, he phoned up crying and called him a monkey (racism gets air in Grimewatch). I wouldn’t take it so personally, Van Diddly.

CLARENCE STATELY-HOLMES