I recently interviewed Lethal Bizzle for the Guardian. The limits of a tight word count meant that I could only fit a tiny snapshot of our conversation into the printed copy – and as The Guardian ain’t exactly Grime Forum, most of the in-depth stuff about the scene had to get left out. What they got was a short jokey piece on how Bizzle’s turning the viral memes he churns out into chart success, supporting the original grime scene all the way – you can read it here.
Biz was in a pretty forthcoming mood, and we ended up setting the world to rights, talking about the relationship between grime, social media and major labels. The main thing I got from Biz was the positivity in his swag right now – he’s talking about how he’s circumnavigating clueless A&Rs to build his own shit from scratch, and showing that that’s an entirely possible goal. With Dizzee’s recent championing of Fekky, I think (hope!) that it’s likely we’re going to see a couple of these MCs who are moving into their 30s taking a more statesman like role, building labels that actually promote the UK underground rather than some diluted approximation – it certainly seems to be what Biz is suggesting at the end of the interview… As there’s so little decent grime journalism out there it seemed dumb to let this languish on my hard drive, so I’m gonna post it here – enjoy –
IM: The journey of Rari Workout from snapchat joke to actual tune suggests social media’s pretty important to what you’re doing right now –
LB: It’s definitely helped urban music become more prominent, and give the power back to the artists – I feel a lot of urban music doesn’t get the support it should in this country, and social media has helped me get in a position where I can win without having the major radio stations or other media resources properly supporting us. It allows us to be as successful as the people who are getting the support from those channels.
So it’s making things possible for you now that weren’t back in the day?
100, million percent! It’s a blessing man, I feel like its 2001 again, when it was done on merit, like you’ve had a good song, it’ll get played, you go out there do the raves, you put the hard graft in and you could be successful. But a few years ago when it was all about N Dubs, or N Drugs should I say, it was all about whether Radio 1 played your record, then the masses would get to see it, then that’s it, you would be the poster guys. But that’s irrelevant now – well it’s relevant, but I feel the control is a lot more in my hands now. My last three records have been chart hits without Radio 1 play listing. Rari Workout, the figures on pre orders are already looking like we can have another chart hit and we’ve had no radio play yet. It’s a lot easier now to promote your music, and for me to get the results I always wanted to get.
Do you feel you put in the groundwork in the early noughties only to see it get taken and put into a pop product by the major labels, whilst they simultaneously cut out the originators?
Yeah, it’s what happened, but that approach doesn’t last though, because it’s not authentic – a lot of the urban success, from Tinie Tempah, to N Drugs, to DJ Ironik, we built the foundation for that back in 2001. We were just going into a dark room, we didn’t know where this was gonna take us, we were making music for the love of it. It wasn’t about anything else, and we captured an audience, we built a scene, so obviously the majors look and they’re right ‘OK, that’s cool’, and they’ll try and find someone who they can fit into that scene and exploit it, and push us to the side. Social media has helped us say; we are the real guys. People like me, Wiley, Dizzee, Kano, D Double, loads of the crews like NASTY, Roll Deep, Ruff Sqwad, we are the foundation and we are one of the main reasons why the UK scene has managed to progress as it has. The UK labels are like ‘we need to find a new thing or the next wave’ but social media makes people realise that yo, you like what you like, you can’t force feed these kids anymore, they’re going to listen to what they listen to.
Do you think that the level of beefing might have had a negative impact on the scene?
I dunno. The Lord of the Mics thing that Jammer’s doing is healthy, it’s exciting. There’s different types of beefs though. The beef between me and Wiley back in the day, most of it was lyrical. Some of it spiraled out of control, because your entourage don’t understand, but it depends where the artists heads are – if everyone knows it’s just a lyrical thing and it’s just about being the best you can be then it’s alright. No one wants to get hurt, no one wants to die. But if negative things happen they get attention.
And that’s been a problem – negative stuff has been focused on to the point where the old bill won’t still won’t let raves happen
The rave thing is fucking annoying. Grime has got this perception still – the word grime, I’ve never really been too comfortable with the word grime. Grime in itself to the average person is almost like a negative from the start, and people who don’t know about the scene just scapegoat it… I went out on the NME tour though, and I saw worse things on rock n roll tours than I saw in grime raves. Fights were kicking off all the time, mosh pits – sometimes it was just people getting excited and crowd surfing – but in a grime rave for some reason these things aren’t allowed to happen, and they just get locked off. I don’t even know how we can resolve it. If the artists can keep being successful and unifying with each other then we’ll be OK.
Like, nothing unusual happens at a grime rave that doesn’t happen at a rock n roll festival or at a house club. I probably had one of the most fun times doing the NME tour – it really opened my mind up, letting me see that rock n roll fans like grime, they like hip hop, they like indie. My music is very energetic – I want people to wile out, to jump up, I wanna see mosh pits, I wanna see crowd surfing, I want that, I encourage that, that’s having fun. It’s just, when it’s seen in an urban environment its seen differently, although its nothing different than what might go on at, I dunno, a Gallows rave. They go beyond in! I’ve kinda learnt not to complain and moan, and just work hard, put music out and do as many events as possible that are trouble free. I couldn’t play out in 2004 – I’d go to venues and the police would be outside saying ‘nah you can’t come in, if you come in we’re shutting the whole event down’, and the club owners would be like ‘we might lose our license.’ I’ve driven to Leicester, to Leeds and been told, this ‘Pow’ song causes trouble, it can’t happen rah rah rah. So from that to where I’m at now, I think there is progression, but the stigma of grime is still being felt. It’s just sad that that shit still happens 10 years later
So do you want to call your current music by some next name?
Nah, you know what, I’ve embraced it. It is what it is. When we first got labelled grime, I’m sure everyone was a bit, what the fuck, why are they calling us grime? It definitely wasn’t garage, it was something else, but the media just labelled it grime. I remember Crazy Titch, we done some conference up in Oldham and they were asking us about this grime thing, and Titch was not happy! I remember he flipped the table – we were sitting at a table, like a school assembly, we were on the stage, and he flipped the table and was like ‘Look its not grime! You might as well call it pop then, because whats pop?! And whats grime?!’ And there was a huge huge debate – it was the funniest thing ….
But I don’t run from it, it is what it is, and I’m proud that fellow artists from the scene that I grew with are still around and still making grime. And grime is arguably one of the most thriving scenes to have ever come out of the UK, barring drum n bass. Even though the music isn’t necessarily reaching the same sort of level it should do in terms of success, with people going number one, and that’s due to political reasons, because as I said, radio hasn’t really supported. But now the power is back in the hands of the artists – like Meridian Dan – social media drove that record into the top 20, and with Rari Workout the same can happen.
With German Whip, the label put together a remix with some jokers on it like Rizzle Kicks, who I’m sure are nice lads, but y’know, and Professor Green was on there – if the label came to you and said, yeah we like Rari Workout, but we want Dappy on the remix, what would you do?
Hahaha I would slap them! To even ask that question, I mean c’mon. All due respect to Rizzle Kicks, they’re cool guys, but it’s not where I wanna take it. The music I wanna make, I wanna showcase the guys I grew with and I feel should be getting that recognition from the overground. Your Rizzle Kicks, Professor Greens, they’ve got their lane, and it’s cool, but for a grime remix I wanna stay authentic. Still, sometimes you gotta play chess, you gotta play the game. If they thought that was a way they could push German Whip, it’s understandable.
However big I get I always want to spread love, to collaborate with guys who should be getting attention, who aren’t getting the support from the majors. Now we can get the music to the masses. Dizzee Rascal’s been winning for years, and a lot of his success – he’s a talented bre’er – but Radio 1 have backed him. So a lot of people who heard him on radio weren’t aware of these other guys, they didn’t know that there was a Lethal Bizzle, they didn’t know there was a Wiley, cos they’d listen to the radio and think yeah this Dizzee Rascal guy is cool, but they wouldn’t be aware that there are another 20 – 50 other guys in the underground who are just as good
No doubt Next Hype could have been a top 20 tune if it had been supported
That’s right! And 5 years ago it was Radio 1 or nothing. Now kids can find ways of listening to what they want to hear, they can go on any social media site to find out what’s popping, you can’t feed shit down their throat anymore. The way to push records right now has totally changed, and I want to be in a position where I can help myself, and I can help the actual culture. It’s not being helped or showcased enough. I want to be that guy that starts a UK Def Jam to showcase what our UK culture is really about. It needs people there who’ve got half a clue.
It seems to me that the only way UK artists are going to do well is if they pursue a unique UK sound
That’s true – as much as I love the guys who do the hip hop stuff, that’s only gonna get us so far, in terms of internationally
Well the Yanks aren’t gonna care
Exactly, they’ll listen to Jay Z, to Bobby Shmurda, to French Montana, whoever, that’s them. Did you hear when Jay Z rapped on Pow? That’s because it was fresh to him.
There was the Semtex tape from ages back with crunk artists freestyling on grime beats and it was interesting that, to my ears, loads of the American MCs couldn’t really spit on grime
It just doesn’t sound right – and I imagine that’s how we sound to them when we spit on their beats. We’re only gonna really win if we do what WE do. At the moment European music is definitely the most influential music in the world, all this dance shit, and grime is a form of dance, with slightly different influences. If we can focus on our sound UK, European whatever you wanna call it, that’s where we’re gonna win because it’s different, and that’s where we can differentiate ourselves from the Yanks immediately, and its’ very hard to stay away from being compared to American shit.
So you need people from the scene to start labels?
100% People like myself, like Wiley, like Dizzee, who’ve been there from the beginning, and managed to stay relevant, who have a rough understanding of how shit goes, and what’s authentic – like the N Drugs wave, these people like N Drugs, and these DJ Ironiks, and all these people were coming out on the back of our hard work, making all this funny music, that shit was never gonna last, it was just for the moment, and shit like that is harmful, because now they’re non-existent and people, are like “oh what happened to them? Oh that means urban music is shit,’ or ‘it must be dead”
So it’s about putting on people who deserves to be put on and are a good representation of what we do – it’s not gonna be a quick fix, guys just jumping on hype – we need to A&R people properly, from our perspective – a lot of these A&R guys haven’t got a clue.
Being signed in 2014 is irrelevant – myself I’m doing a 50/50 deal, and we’re outselling the majors – you don’t need a major label- you just need a good product and a good artist, and someone who understands the business, without rushing them. Creating your own buzz and trying to build your own sound base is priceless.
Follow Ian McQuaid on twitter here, on soundcloud here, and on mixcloud here
