Words from the Archives #6: Dizzee from Change (2010)

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be putting some of the pieces that I've been performing over the last 3-4 years up on my Soundcloud page. Starting with this one - Dizzee from Change. I wrote as part of a slam competition I finished runner up in at the end of the year, called Manorlogz. It was broadcast on some sort of cable channel which you can see HERE



I vividly remember that transition between garage and grime

Wobbly baselines and eerie synthesizers

Epitomizing the darker side of London life

Gone were the girly vocals

Replaced by raw instrumental space allowing an MC to demonstrate

The delicate balancing act between bravado and flow

As whole studio's previously only available to those with dough,

Were condensed and squeezed onto desktop pc's

Whatever side of the musical divide you chose

The relentless march of evolution wasn’t stopping

Time waits for no man

So the saying goes

And rightly so

Because

I've suffered many a splinter from sitting on fences

Worried that whatever side I decided to climb off Id be defenseless

For years I perched trying to search for the perfect way

To permeate the boundaries of success and away from the doldrums without being seen,

I saw attention as an enemy that could potentially halt my progress

Though thought and action were two factions that rarely agreed

In-bedded in the tred of my trainers is the memory of a thousand pounded pavements

Paces of procrastination.

Paving slabs greeted my feet anytime I sought retreat in my lunch hour

An escape from my place of work.

I took to these walks to create space for thought

My daily tours saw me over analyzing situations beyond contemplation

Until I realized immersing myself in grey clouds of thought

Was a just a subconscious delay tactic

A mental fence on which to sit

Blanketing the reality of mother nature’s very own weather report

Worried about getting caught in a shower when the forecast was heat

For the sun's rays to penetrate I needed to accept the fact that weather does change 

And the outcome is out of my hands

In order to jump off the fence and make an impact

I tried to revolutionize the way that I think

In the same way that garage dj's did when they dropped 138 Trek by Zinc

Whether or not it paid 

It triggered a chain reaction for change to happen

I'm not sure who claimed they were first to maim that skippy 2 step beat

And chop it in half

All I know is that it tore a line apart between old and new

I Love You was a long way from Bring Me Flowers

However it allowed a whole new species to blossom

The pollen of many genres responding to mistakes and lessons of the elders

Genetically encoded in the DNA of the music

And passed on like father to Son

I decided I had nothing to loose by taking risks

Other than loosing a few splinters,

And the sole's of my trainers could start connecting with a few more stages

And a few less pavements

Actions have consequences – positive and negative

So they say

No action knows no satisfaction

Sitting on the fence in isolation was frustrating

Only dipping my toe into the ebb and flow of everyday living

Would stunt the development required for essential decision making

The act of waiting becomes frustrating

And that impatience converts to bitterness

Who's only home lies in defeat

I didn’t wonna' be another could a been.

So I selected my spot.

Jumped off my fence and went to ground

I realized sometimes you have to do things on you're own.

Accept responsibility,

And just go

The same year Dizzee dropped Boy In Da Corner

I left home

Loefah: Last time I listened...

Continuing my never-intentional tradition of being late to many things (I got a Megadrive as most kids in my year had Playstations. I started watching Sopranoes this summer etc etc). I've been listening to Loefah and his Swamp 81 label. Music is a bit different though, underground wise, it's something I've been into and been involved with, on and off, for a long time. I've probably mentioned it before but when I started MCing, UK Garage was commercially big and in the charts but the underground was taking a turn to the darker side of things. I followed that turn and it's various manifestations into Dubstep and Grime etc. Then I dropped off the radar for a bit, or my internet connection was lost or something, because the whole Dubstep thing got massive, seemingly overnight. Thing was, it wasn't the sound that I was hearing in those early trips to FWD and DMZ with my mate Jazz, or the trips to Bristol I'd make to see my brother and all his producing mates. I just wasn't, and still don't, feel it, much (I don't mind the odd tear-out track or whatever they were calling it). Anyway, one of my favorite early producers and DJ's was Loefah, and over the last few years, I just about managed to keep my toe in these things through my mate Jazz and my brother, who reliably inform me of his activities, like his label Swamp 81. I finally sat down to listen to some of his new (to me anyway) stuff, as apposed to routinely going through his early DMZ releases. Here's a pretty decent Boiler Room mix form August this year. It's sick

Just A Name Vol 1

A long time ago, in a land far far away (in my head) and an era when in my ignorance I'd never even heard of spoken word and knew very little about poetry or theater, I was rapping.
I still do it. I love it. It's a special feeling kicking a verse over a beat, but from late 2000 onwards for a long time, outside of my work life, it's pretty much all I did.
It's a topic I cover in the show I'm working on A Tale Fron The Besdit in which I moved to Brighton to further what I was already doing, at the time, predominantly MCing in small clubs under the name of Kase One before I began to move towards making Hip Hop and Grime.  
  During that period while I was down there, I wrote a lot of lyrics, which at the time, didn't seem to amount to anything. When I left Brighton in early 2006, the few music projects I was working on had all seem to drift by the wayside and I was left with a shoe box full of lyrics, and one day, whilst sorting through some stuff just before I moved up to London, I had the idea to put a CD together. So I saved up, bought a laptop, borrowed some equipment, went to Bristol  and got a crash course in Logic from my brother Gatekeeper and set about recording some of these words over tracks that I'd selected, or used to practice rapping over.

Mixtapes and CD's were pretty much common place for MC's and rappers even back then, but for me, it was a big achievement and I think I surprised a few people when they listened to it back then. It never really went anyway, at most, I probably gave away 100 copies which I burnt and hand drew the sleeves for, and hearing it back, it's very raw, both lyrically and in the recording of it, and despite most of it making me cringe I'm proud of it, it was a milestone for me. Most of the lyrics were the result of a stream-of-consciousness style of writing I used to do, because it was all I knew to do, I didn't know much else and never really worked with other MC's about from old friends Boogaloo Dee and later on, through the Bristol connection, Grilza, all of which helped me to develop

I've had 3 of the tracks up on Soundcloud for a while, but decoded to stick all up on line (bar 1 track which Soundcloud won't let me, which is fair enough, as I didn't get permission for most of the tracks) and here it is.

 .

Just A Name Vol 1 Tracklist

Small Town Perspective – RJD2 Ghostwriter (Deadringer)

I Drop A 16 - Metal Fingers – Spikenard (Special Herbs vol 4)

Figure It Out – Metal Fingers – Lemon Grass (Special herbs vol 4)

Story – Black Grass - Toys (Black Grass)

Thursday - Roll Deep - Fire Hydrant Instrumental (Poltergeist Relay EB001) 

Trials and Tribulations - Myst aka Gatekeeper

Remember Your Roots - Various Artists - Distorted Minds In The Mix (Knowledge Magazine Issue 46 / DJ Fresh – All That Jazz (Instrumental) / Q Project – Ask Not

Family Business! Gatekeeper & Grilza: Cuts From the Green Room. Free E.P

Bonjour!


Over a decade ago now, when I started on this journey, it pretty much began in my bedroom at home, after an idea was planted in my head by one of my brothers, who I shared not only a bedroom with (full of rave flyers, records and a set of 1210's) but also a common interest in Drum and Bass and most other forms of underground music. He suggested to me I could be an MC.


It's a story I've told many times since then, in various different forms, so whether it's tired or not, it means a lot to me. The part of the story which I havant spoke of, well, not publicly anyway, is of course my brother (I'm not going to tell it now though, I'd have to speak to him first, it's family business). The long and short of it this, he ended ended up in Bristol producing experimental Bass music (Dubstep and it's various mutations) under the name of Gatekeeper.


On the rare occasions we get to meet up, there's normally lots to talk about in terms of our mutual interests and the separate paths we've both taken. About 5 years ago, I think, he told me he'd began to work with a young rapper from Bath by the name of Grilza. Well, he still is, and the family has grown! Theve gone on to be a duo for a few years now and have some pretty sick releases like Ignite which featured Dread MC as well as being championed by Mary Anne Hobbs on the Bristol Rise Up Documentary and various other tracks played on her Radio 1 show.


They've just released a free EP, "Cuts From The Green Room" which you can download HERE. It's a collection of some of the tracks theve produced over the years now, and I know they were carefully selected (there were 1 or 2 I hadn't even heard!) 


At present, they are working on a project which I can't say too much about but believe me, I've been excited about this for a long time, I've had a little listen and there's bigness to come...watch this space!


As one is my brother by blood and the other by a notepad, a pen, football and pure jokes, I'm going to give them all the support I can. It's what you do with family, and like I said, it means a lot to me.