SoulChampion Media Blog
Bassline House, Dubstep, Grime, UK Garage, and UK Funky House news and editorial coverage, and video coverage from the world wide web.
"We don't do boring." NEW
FactIf you’d told me six months ago that I’d be dedicating a Contemporary Fix to so-called “funky” - the now rapidly evolving, increasingly disorienting DJ-led dance music that’s come to dominate a good number of London’s (pirate)radio-waves – I would most likely have let out an incredulous chuckle and slapped you over the head with a my copy of ‘Death Is Not Final’. But six months is a long time, and summer '08 has seen funky grow from a risible non-genre to an explosive, thrilling and exquisitely pliable form that’s challenging a lot of my assumptions music in general. Funky has its roots in that definitive pariah genre, funky house, but has absorbed the influence of soca, grime, dancehall, UK garage, dubstep, electro-house, bleep and even minimal techno to become something altogether more alien and arresting. At times, it makes for an unholy racket, but for the most the part the sound repped by the likes of Geneeus, Mak 10, Supa D and Marcus Nasty amounts to some of the most pulse-quickening and madly inventive dancefloor music on the planet right now.
Crazi Cousinz - Bongo Jam feat. Calista Official Music Video NEW
YouTubePeering Through The Front Door Of Funky House NEW
IdolatorBloggers may have a housebound reputation, but we do like to occasionally go out and shake what passes for our stuff. That's why we have Idolator club guru Tim Finney to drag us onto the dancefloor for the purposes of exploring the worlds of house, techno, and beyond. In this installment, he digs into the UK genre known as "funky house," which is a genre that's still trying to define itself—and thrilling dancefloors in the process.
The low end
The Boston PhoenixThe British rave revolution of the late ’80s/early ’90s — a cultural movement that had no real analogue here in the US — is accurately viewed as the source of the ever increasing number of dance genres in the UK. In the last few years, however, the emergence of grime and dubstep — two genres characterized by violent, murky bass and a grim sense of urban decay — has signaled an abandonment of rave’s goodwill and shimmering neon glow. Yes, both genres have produced loads of great music (consider grime artist Dizzee Rascal and dubstep producer Burial), but their hyper-masculine disdain for cheesy fun has worn a little thin. So, in Northern England, a burgeoning new scene has coalesced around a new dance genre, bassline house, that embraces everything that grime and dubstep exclude: femininity, social interaction, and pop hooks aimed directly at the brain’s pleasure receptors. With clattering beats descended from ’90s speed garage and vocals that coyly walk the line between teen pop and R&B, bassline revels in the kind of simplicity and directness usually reserved for pop radio hits. As the name says, however, it’s the bass that leads the way, and the genre’s wacky bass hooks have made it a rapidly growing club phenomenon.
BASSIC - No frills BASS and vibes on a Boston Wednesday night.
G NOTORIOUS
The question has loomed over Boston like the ceiling tiles in a Big Dig tunnel. When was a real Dubstep night gonna drop on Boston? I know I'd thought about trying it myself but due to lack of time and other commitments, it never happened. Sure, there are other notable places where the sound can be heard around town. Leggo Dub at the Middlesex (is this still going?), Beat Resarch at The Enormous Room, Jam-2's Operation Underground and various one-off appearances here and there but when would there be a night dedicated solely to the rumbling subterranean UK sounds of Dubstep?
On Wednesday, June 26th this question was finally met with a definitve answer! Dabu of the Soundbox crew that hosts Friday nights at the Solstice cafe brought us the first monthly installment of BASSIC at Good Life! Quite an impressive turnout for a Wednesday night downtown. The room was full of happy, moving, and curious people. Dabu himself brought pure dubstep while guest Jam-2 mixed it up with other UKG and Grime flavors to a very receptive crowd. The most curious aspect of the evening for me was the sheer number of people sporting "BASSIC" t-shirts. More even than people repping ELEMENTS. Odd for an event on it's first night but added an extra element of exclusivity. Looking forward to this month's installment featuring the "original fungalist" and Heavy Pressure head, Moldy alongside label artist Grapes and Dabu and Damian as a duo called dBase.
Bassic, third wednesdays at Good Life, 28 Kingston St., Boston, MA 02111
Photos: Professor Pious
Heavyweight - Dallas, TX Dubstep Night NEW
MySpaceGrime artist interviews
Urban KonnexOld School Garage Video History Lesson!
YouTubeJust stumbled across one of these on YouTube the other day and thought I'd look around for more. From back in the day when Garage was dance music and MCs hosted, pure classics here...
MJ Cole - Sincere
Wookie - What's Going On?
K Warren feat Leo - Coming Home
B15 project - Girls Like Us
Wideboys featuring Dennis G - Sambuca
Gorillaz (Ed Case Refix) - Clint Eastwood
MJ Cole - Crazy Love
Sticky feat Tubby T - Tales of the Hood
Pay As U Go Cartel - Champagne Dance
Ed Case - Who (Live)
There was actually a video released for this but that one's conspicuously missing
Other Random UKG Videos
YouTubeEZ @ Twice As Nice
Ed Case featuring Skin - Good Times
Ed Case Refix - Clint Eastwood (Live at Carnival)
JME - Serious Remix
YouTubeRuff Squad "Anna"/"Down" Video
YouTubeBig Ang Bassline House at Club Air, Feb 2007
YouTubePsylab Covering Classic Deluxe
YouTubeLocal Boston electronic music band performs their version of this dubstep classic.
Global Dubstep explosion!
Dubstep breaks free of it's London roots and spreads like wildfire across the globe. Check the 4 videos below...
Dubstep Documentary
MySpace / Underground Sounds
BBC Dubstep Documentary
MySpace
Joe Nice hits San Francisco
Current.tv
Baltimore's JOE NICE, the appointed "US Ambassador of Dubstep" drops in on San Francisco...
Whoa-B - Dubstep Quickmix
YouTube
Chicago's Whoa-B recently took 2nd in a "Quick Mix" contest by mixing 8 Dubstep tunes in 10 minutes. Check out the video and the tracklisting...
Tracklisting:
01 Mark One - Slang
02 Gravious - Wormsign
03 Distance - Cyclops
04 Caspa - Rubber Chicken
05 Loefah - Rufage
06 Skream - Tapped
07 Tech Itch - Distort
08 Marlow - The Rope
Video Link: BET's Report on Grime
YouTube
Ok, speaking for myself, it's a little sad that once again we're treated to the same "is Grime/Garage/Jungle/Whatever responsible for violence" story but it really made me wonder when the artists will get together and give the media cause to write something else? On the other hand, it's nice to see some of the major players in the Grime scene on American TV.
- G Note
Video Link: CHANTELLE FIDDY INTERVIEW - Part 2
UK Sound TVMs. Fiddy is the authoritative grime journalist. Not only does she write for various international publications including, i-D and Blues & Soul, she also runs her own grime club-night, Straight Outta Bethnal. Here Fiddy chews the fat, spills the beans and tells us her predictions for grime in 2006. Episode 2 of 2.
The Sound of Dubstep (Features Video Documentary)
BBC CollectiveBass in the place.
Brixton, London. On a bitterly cold March evening hundreds of expectant faces file into 3rd Base, a tiny club under St Matthew’s Church. The first birthday of dubstep night DMZ has attracted representatives from all over the UK and worldwide, including this evening’s party-starter, the hugely charismatic Baltimore DJ Joe Nice. Inside, the room rattles to a sound that incorporates UK garage’s sparse clipped beats, techno’s futurism, jungle’s skanking half-time rhythms and the sheer bass weight of dub reggae. The bass is the thing. “Chest bass” as DMZ host Sgt Pokes has it. That moment of delicious weightlessness before the b-line drops.
Something is stirring in the north of England - and in the midlands, too.
IDJOkay, we all know the history of ‘speed garage’, don’t we? The bastard offspring of a bizarre love triangle between US garage, jungle basslines and the +6 setting on a Technics deck, it was a sound that first emerged in London in the mid-’90s (though it drew heavily on US producers like Todd Edwards and MK for inspiration) and rose to dominate the airwaves and clubs of the UK for a brief period in 1997/98. Then two-step engulfed the UK garage scene like a tidal wave and ‘speed garage’ disappeared, right?
Column: The Month in Grime/Dubstep
Pitchfork If you like dubstep but didn't reach DMZ's fourth incredible Brixton bash, where were ya? Journalists had travelled from as far as Eastern Europe to attend, while one DJ, America's Joe Nice, had journeyed from even further afield...Column: The Month in Grime/Dubstep
PitchforkIt's been a month of big events for grime. First, last week's Rinse FM station party. Open to station DJs and their guests only, it featured sets from Karnage, Target, Hatcha, Geeneus, and Essentials with Skepta, Crazy D, and Riko on the mic. Skepta over Hatcha's set was particularly tasty, as the dubstep and grime sounds continue to grow organically closer. Also this week was Pirate Sessions v. Dipset in NYC, which pitched UK big boys Roll Deep and Kano versus some of the States' heavyweights...
The UK's Grime Wave
Mtv.com"Uuuuurrrggggh!" That was not the sound Lady Sovereign intended to bellow into her microphone, but it's what the audience in New York's Knitting Factory heard when the 19-year-old British MC took the stage for a show earlier this month. Gripping the mic with one hand and pressing her pale white face against the knuckles of the other, the rapper, who is barely five feet tall and bears a striking resemblance to the Spice Girls' Sporty Spice, was clearly ill.
WOEBOT and Heronbone at Rinse FM
Dissensus.comDarren and DJ Glamma pick Heronbone and I up at the tube. We're on the way to Rinse FM, London's most notorious, high-profile pirate station, running now for over ten years it has recently reached a critical momentum with it's Friday night DJ, Logan Sama (the Tim Westwood of Grime), being picked up by Kiss FM and Roll Deep, the station's biggest resident crew, about to make a media splash with their debut LP in May.
Dizzee Rascal Launches Record Label
PitchforkIf the term "Dirtee Stank" holds any meaning to you or your loved ones, well, there's a pretty good chance you're a Dizzee Rascal fan. And now Dizzee, aka London's grime aficionado, has gone the way of Eminem, Mike Skinner, Snoop Dogg, et al, and formed his own record label-- the newly christened Dirtee Stank Productions.
Ready to blow
Guardian UnlimitedIn 2001, So Solid Crew were on top of the world and the charts. Now, after hard knocks and trials, their legacy rests not on music but on the infamy of a tabloid frenzy. Jamie Jackson learns the truth about the UK garage stars.
They Don't Know: A Grime Primer
PitchforkGrime is the UK's rap (not rap), syncopated urban music with people rhyming over top. Like Jamaican dancehall, there's an obvious kinship with U.S. hip-hop, but once you start drawing parallels they collapse pretty quickly. Grime is its own culture, with its own codes and laws, slang and dress, sonics and style. But it's also the most accessible (to an international audience) music urban Britain has produced in the last decade. Chopped into song form, steamrolled by MCs, it's been severed for most people from its roots in hardcore, jungle, and UK garage.
UK Grime Pays
Hiphop's next wave... from Britain?
Now Toronto
While Queen West hipsters smugly enjoy G-Unit and Dipset records on the ironic tip, in East London, UKMCs are passing around a mic in smoky high-rise flats, spitting cockney fire through pirate radio transmitters like their lives depend on it.
If It's Grime, It Rhymes
The New York TimesGrime is a booming London-based genre related to hip-hop - the raw materials are jagged beats and rapid-fire rhymes. And for American listeners who have been trying to keep up with grime, there was something shocking about the seemingly ordinary performance that took place at the Lower East Side club Rothko on Friday night...
(requires free registration) MORE...
True Grime - A genre's magic moment
The New Yorker Pop music purists invariably tell the same story about their favorite music. Whatever the genre - R & B, classic punk, dance-hall reggae, Celtic lullabies - a purist will say that it was better at it's inception, when the sound was an expression of something local and unique, before the terrible money came, and strangers corrupted the music with their embrace...Grime Presents: Bangers & Mash 3 featuring Jammer, D Double E, Ears, Shadetek / Rothko / Mar. 11, 2005
More In The MonitorI never thought I'd actually have fun at a release party for a record put out by Vice, but hey, never say never. (The record Run the Road, is bonkers by the way, but you knew that.) The crowd was mostly nerds - rock critics, record collectors - with a few model-gorgeous types snake-hipping to the riddims and making the rest of us feel fat and ugly. It was too packed to dance, though, so we mostly jumped up and down and threw our hands in the air...
Will Grime Pay?
BBCIt may have stumbled slightly over what to call itself, but Grime, as it has begrudgingly become branded, is fast becoming recognized as one of the UK's most musically innovative and creatively cutting-edge subcultures. Born ostensibly from the streets and estates of East London, the music is steadily emerging as a sonic tour de force.
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