Last month, while Erik Lavoie was wrestling with girls because he thought they had his coke bag, we were at the 99-percent-black Cosa Nostra garage rave at Hackney Ocean, London, and holy shit can that crowd hang. All pristine Air Force Ones, starched Evisus, and mad fake ice while smoking weed, sipping on brandy, and effortlessly tearing up the floor. It was like a fashionable, 21st-century, African Happy Days—and don’t even get me started on how hot the girls were.

At 3:30 a.m., some young MCs from East London’s Nasty Crew started spitting 600 mph raps over beats from their boy Jammer. They tore the fucking house down. They all grew up in the grimy estates of East London and used pure guerrilla tactics—pirate radio, illegal raves—to attract the attention of people like our boy Mikey Streets, who just got Nasty MCs Monkey and Sharky to do some vocals for him.

VICE: So how come young, black British artists are making British white artists look so shit?

Jammer: Cuz with us it’s not even about drugs, y’know. Nowadays, the music that we’re making isn’t about Es and all that. You smoke some weed, feel the vibe, drink a little drink and then you’re listening to the beats and the lyrics and that gives you the energy. You don’t want to be taking too much drugs and shit, ya get me?

Not even cocaine?

Nah, bro. No way.

You look down on people who do it?

Don’t get man wrong, I know man who smoke work [crack], but no more, ya get me? He fixed up. But if a man smoked work, that’s a workhead even now. It depends how a man’s mentality is, but I don’t want no workheads around me, ya get me?

What’s up with Monkey? How did he get that name?

Cuz he spits like he’s smoking monk [skunk]. With bare gaps. Poet, tho’. He paint a picture. He more advanced than Mike Skinner. He got a higher vocab still. Ya get me?

JACK STEEL

COMMENTS