What is Grime?

May 31, 2010

Tinchy Strider

Grime isn’t quite what it used to be anymore, it seems one side of it has gone slightly commercial and glossy with acts actually making real records rather than 4 minutes of them just ‘spitting’ or worse yet them and the whole estate. The other side however hasn’t moved very much and too many tracks now have slap dash hooks with an MC or Producers whole college music class on the track and in the channel U video.

One thing I really want to celebrate about Grime is that it’s the one the first genres of UK music to really go around the world a little and even spark international emulations. I’ve actually heard of Croatian Grime as well as some Grime acts coming out of New York – that sounded good too!

The musicianship of Grime acts and producers has also grown somewhat in a very short space of time with samples and influences coming from a variety of music and the developments of acts such as Kano and Tinchy Strider and their crossing over into mainstream media rather than the mixtape, street DVD, pirate radio and of course channel U and YouTube scene only.

More recently Grime acts have evolved and are branching to create ‘Grime influenced music’ rather just strictly ‘Grime’. A movement seemingly pioneered by ‘Tinchy Strider’, supported by productions by classically trained producer ‘Davinche’, its brings a whole chapter to the UK’s ill-supported music scene.