NEWSLETTER

Ears. Photo by Jamie-James Medina

Heartless Crew

Dizzee in NYC. Photo by Jamie-James Medina

Question: What are all the major labels doing wasting our time with Shystie? Did you see her on the cover of the Telegraph? She looks like an advert for Urban Claire's Accessories?

New Question: Why is D Double E still fucking unsigned? What about Stryder? He has 10 GCSEs. Also where is Doogz' album? His brother Crazy Titch is all over radio and Channel U.

I guess the guy to blame is our friend Dylan Rascal. Along with Vice, he told all the gay white A&R men about grime music so they're now all falling over themselves to sign a Saturday morning kids' TV version of Dizzee. Don't they know only six-year-old middle-class white kids watch Saturday morning TV?

We're a bit depressed at the moment so it was good to laugh at Lethal B having a pop at Wylie on his 1Xtra show for not selling any albums. The punchline was when he forgot to mention that he only sold about 13 himself with More Fire Crew.

The incredibly-monikered Taliban Trim got into a punch up live on air on the same show. Alex from Split Mics slagged off Shystie on Ras Kwame for not being genuine grime when he spent the last year saying he was into hip hop and didn't like grime himself. Little man, grow up.

Speaking of kids, it was nice to see D Double E and Kano at Forest Gate School as judges in an MC competition for the pupils. And chung girl MC Ronstar slew the boys to walk off with the first prize. "She's good but my little girl could murk them all," offered D afterwards.

BTW, lazy A&R men should note that D's home Forest Gate is officially the "new Bow". Walk up and down the main street chances are you will run into enough MCs to start your own crew and run road. Local boy Big E-D's heavy metal grime banger "The Rush" (hold tight Demon and Bruza on the mic) is the most significant thing we've heard since the news that Lyndsey Dawn McKenzie had gone hardcore. So... more questions:
1. Lawyers in grime? Everyone is using the same one. Not a healthy state of affairs.
2. Where is Doogz? The orginal Clash Gordon has gone all quiet.
3. Why was Jammer MCing at Smoove Live? He should be hard at work in his basement, producing the new D Double album and new tracks for Kano. He's also just started his own label called Neckle Records and his new protégé is Hackney's own Ears. Ears is from the Scare Dem crew and was discovered murking Kano at a children's birthday party. He played the background with N.A.S.T.Y. for a bit while finishing off his GCSEs, but he's now everywhere. Ears just turned 16 and does a weird thing where he verbally breaks his verses down grammatically, calling himself the "pronoun boy". Jammer's other sidekicks are Lewi White and Biggaman, and between the three of them, they've made pretty much every worthy beat you hear on radio.
4. Why is Ross Allen trying to be friends with Riko? Did he read Grimewatch and follow up our tip? Riko deserves to be signed to a five-album-multi-million-dollar-Shyne-style deal by a killer like Lyor Cohen, not a fifth former with girl's hair.

We're thinking of robbing some banks ourselves to finance a move to sign his album if someone doesn't sign Riko soon. The latest of his greatest murks is over Tubby T's "Ready She Ready". MCs, don't let this man ride your instrumentals or he will make you sound A.V.E.R.A.G.E.

Those rollneck-wearing older brother guys at 1Xtra just held a huge garage weekend in a gay attempt to "unite the mainstream and grime". All they did was have Heartless Crew (who are dead to us) in session and played a docu looking at gun crime. Wiley did manage to pass through. He's finally got his shit together and is putting out a new Roll Deep mixtape, Creeper Vol.1, plus a HOT new studio album, which is all over Westwood.

Actually, the mainstream exposure is much-needed for grime to survive. What with beef between East Connection and the Muskateers forcing Deja Vu to drop all the grime acts from their playlist and start Deja 2. We heard bullets got sent through someone's living room window, but the guns were rebores, so the bullets got caught in the curtains. Oh well.

TOSH LYONS AND HYMIE PETERS

Top Ten New Tracks

1. Dizzee Rascal—Stand Up Tall (XL) 2. Terror Danjah & Sadie—So Sure rmx feat Wiley (Aftershock) 3. Lethal Bizzle — Forward Riddim VIP mix (Lethal Bizzle Records) 4. Kano & Ghetto—Typical Me (679 Recordings) 5. Doogz & Dizzee Rascal —Stretch (Acetate) 6. Jammer Ft. Wiley, D Double E, Kano & Durrty Doogz—Distruction V.I.P (Vocal) (Neckle) 7. Tinchy Stryder —It's Real (White) 8. D Double—Bare Different Colours Remix (Promo) 9. Dizzee Rascal—Wheel VIP (Dirtee Stank) 10. Da'vinche —Attack (Dub)

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