Too gully to care

For the last two years, everyone in grime has been lusting after that holy grail of crossover popularity, and striving with varying degrees of energy and success to get a following outside of grime's cash-deficient niche. MCs have gotta eat, after all. So whether it's going merchandising-crazy (Boy Better Know), copying Boy Better Know by going merchandising-crazy (everyone else), setting up labels (Wiley/Eskibeat), collaborating with swag pop stars (Lethal Bizzle, Kano, and Dizzee), or investing in expensive, exciting videos and then following them with... nothing (Essentials), everyone's reaching for that pot of gold at the end of the grimebow.

VS

Except for Young Dot. Young Dot just doesn't seem interested in crossing over. In making swag hip-hop. In putting out a 25-track mixtape with four good tracks on it. In making a lame Katherine Hamnett slogan t-shirt like everyone else. He seems interested in MAKING GRIME. Gully, dark, haunting, aggressive, poignant grime. His album has the aesthetic sentiment of Essentials circa 2004, and - thanks to his always-innovative production skills - the beats, synths, and rhythms of 2007.

Bok Bok and I have been rinsing 'This Is The Beginning' so much that you can hardly see the letters 'm', 'p', and '3' left on our computer screens, and you should be too. He made it available on his MySpace for free, and now it's disappeared, so I'm upping it again for youse:

Young Dot - 'This Is The Beginning'

Oh yeah and he's changed his name to Dot Rotten, but until he actually releases something under that name we're officially ignoring that fact.

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So Wiley has quit Big Dada. What was that Logan said about Wiley plans not lasting more than 30 days? How cynical - he almost made it to six months this time! Progress for William! The madness is continuing on RWD, with Wiley asserting that Eskibeat is the future, and the usual arguments between him and the RWD kids. Is it funny or is it depressing? Bit of both. I asked Big Dada for a comment, and they issued the following, ahem, statement:

"Wiley is a one innit."

Lol.

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Get Vectra's 3 August show off the Rinse podcast *immediately*. It's like what Bossman's show used to be before he sold his soul for 30 funky aaahhhs dubs: loads of great new vocals, and fun, upbeat mixing in the second hour. He makes grime fun! Good for him. One of my personal favourites is this stuttering refix of Rebound X's super-large 07 anthem 'Rhythm and Gash':

Rhythm and Gash refix - Rebound X

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Can anyone identify, or better still provide a full mp3 of this incredible Rapid beat from 2005? Ruff Sqwad in late 05 were so tough to beat for melodic power - and this was before lesser producers jumped on the bandwagon and pitched-up chipmunk vocals became a dime-a-dozen.

Untitled (snippet) - Rapid

Big up viktorvaughn on Dissensus for locating the Rinse set that track is from, which I've re-upped here:

Ruff Sqwad + Ghetto on Rinse FM 18/12/05

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Get Prancehall's incredible Anger Is A Gift mixtape! The tracklist alone makes me weep with joy (Jammer over Britney?? Are you Toxic in the head??). More on that soon.

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This is big news in itself really, but if you're on grime you probably know about it already:

Logan Sama's show is officially the most popular show in London during his time-slot, with a whopping 48,000 listeners (imagine that being converted into album sales!), almost pulling more listeners than Radio 1 (21,000) and Choice FM (31,000) put together. And that's not counting the national - or indeed global - internet and digital listeners. "Grime is dead"... HA! But then we've been telling you lot that's bollocks for ages (Logan Sama interview if you haven't read it). Get listening: http://www.whatson.com/kiss Mondays, 11pm-1am.

I've wanted to say this for a while, and I feel like I have some statistical evidence to do so now, but maybe the idea that we've already slipped into the next stage of the hardcore continuum - beyond grime - is off. In fact, who says there necessarily will be a next stage? You can't read history forwards, certainly not in a linear fashion. It's worth remembering that.