P Money - I Beat The Tune (Mixtape)

Having put out arguably two of last year's best grime tracks with Ho Riddim! and Slang Like This, P Money has now switched up a gear and got himself a brand spanking new website. In conjunction with the site launch he's put together mixtape I Beat The Tune. Ra tat tat taa!

P Money - I Beat The Tune

Durrty Goodz All Day...

While the likes of Chipmunk look down from the lofty heights of the pop charts after landing fortunate deals, their grime careers a distant memory, Durrty Goodz can tell a more colourful story. He's seen the genre emerge from the East End; faced his fair share of personal strife, serving a sentence and seeing his half-brother Crazy Titch get sent down for murder; rubbed shoulders with Polydor fat cats and subsequently turned his back on the label; clashed with revered face of grime Wiley; and all the while persevered by independently pushing his music. Take heed while UK All Day, albeit briefly, speaks to Goodz ahead of his forthcoming album, Overall.

Tell the people who you are and your back story in music.

I'm Durrty Goodz, an artist from east London. I've grown up listening to all types of music, knowing that reggae is the most authentic music in the world. You can always hear the culture in the production.

What sets you apart from other grime artists? What makes you distinct?

What sets me apart from others is a long list of things. Being

innovative on everything I've ever released, I also have my own sound

so people can recognise it when it's heard.

Grime blew up at an accelerated pace, arguably from looking at how hip hop in the US commercialised and copying the template. As an artist who's been there from day one, how do you see the genre today, both underground and mainstream?

I don't see the grime genre in the mainstream, I see artists that might have made grime in the past but they're not actually trying to keep the elements of the music alive. I don't blame them either, they're just trying to stick to the rules and make themselves successful. The underground artists are now scared of being themselves because they're afraid they won't become successful doing that.

You're something of an unsung hero in the genre. You garner a lot of respect from your peers and fans alike, although others acts arguably get more attention. How do you measure success?

I measure success on how you're sounding now. You're only as good as your last CD.

You were signed to Polydor in 2005 but ended up walking. Why? And what's your experience of working with a major?

I felt it was the right thing to do while on my journey. Being signed wasn't changing my life or making me get better as an artist. I realised that you have to put in a lot of hard work and it made no sense somebody who I have no contact with owning all my material while all the hard work is being done by me. But being signed to a major can be a bit tricky because since 2005 labels seem to be allowing UK artists a bit more creative freedom, although the contract side of things is even worse.

Wiley and you have been back and forth at each other on-record for years. Even last month he sent for you again. Some say it started after he went at you on Where's My Brother?. When and what started this rivalry?

No one is my rival. When you are respected for being a great artist

you will come across those that fear and those that will do anything

to stop your happiness.

What should people expect from your upcoming album, Overall?

Overall it's what grime is, where it's been and where it's going to. On

top of that, it's a demonstration of my creativity.

Wiley - Numbers In Action (Video)

Wiley at his most playful in this video for Numbers In Action, taken off his next studio to be released on Big Dada, 100% Publishing. Didn't he cuss the label on record after they sponsored his album Playtime Is Over?

Either way, this is better than the chart-chasing sound that grime has opted for in the past couple of years. Trendies will no doubt dig (?) it.

Skepta - Mike Lowery (Video)

Having linked with Diddy recently, Skepta now has a DJ Whoo Kid-sponsored mixtape in the works. The G-Unit DJ seems to be showing the UK a lot of love of late.

P Money - Slang Like This feat. Newham Generals & Blacks (Remix) (Video)

P Money's 2010 anthem Slang Like This gets a remix, on which he grabs his bezzie mate Blacks and grime men of the moment Newham Generals. Peep the virtually identical video for the original and the visuals for Ho! Riddim to get your fill of ("left the room!") P.

P Diddy - Hello Good Morning (Skepta Remix) (Video)

When I heard about this previously, the cynic in me just thought it was hot air. I didn't 1) realise it got made (a couple of months ago) and 2) think they'd put together a video for it. Seeing the man behind Biggie Smalls, and everything else in the years since then, bopping about with Boy Better Know's Skepta is just...odd. Impossibly, Diddy actually sounds even worse over grime, but this is harder than the original, so props to BBK.

Does Chipmunk's mummy know he's started drinking vodka? And straight from the bottle - unhygienic.

Marco Del Horno vs DJ Swerve - Ho! Riddim feat. P Money (Video)

P Money does his thing over a grime-come-dubstep banger produced by DJ Swerve. Polished yet still gully - ho!

Durrty Goodz - Speaks On New Album, Jail Tales 2 (Video)

Durrty Goodz speaks on his upcoming album, Overall, which will feature the tracks Gunshot and Jail Tales 2. The latter touches on the incarceration of his half-brother Crazy Titch, who was sent down for life having been found guilty of murder. Apparently someone had talked slick about Goodz and, in retaliation, Crazy T gunned down dude with a Mac-10. Grim stuff.

Wiley - Tell Ya For Free

Wiley has an irksome habit of crafting saccharin nonsense for the Top 40 and then salvaging his rep by returning to what he does best and what has also made him a veritable legend in this country.

This is him retrenching to his roots.



Wiley - Tell Ya For Free

Flush Raw - P Money

With grime artists getting an ever stronger stranglehold on pop music and culture, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the genuine article had disappeared altogether. But that's not the case. D Double E's Street Fighter Riddim grew legs and just ran, fast; his cohort Footsie, too, is working on something fresh; and the hype that's surrounded P Money over the past year or so is definitely not hot air.

Scratch under the surface and you'll see the genre still very much has a brass ball bag.

Grime Done Sold Out

This article from Robert Leedham gives a brief and accurate analysis of the recent commericalisation of grime, or British hip hop as the mainstream press likes to call it, into a poptastic product that wouldn’t look out of place in a copy of Smash Hits. Dizzee’s Dance Wiv Me is targeted as a key offender in breaking the levies for respected MCs to churn out pop music with rapping on it.

And this is singled out as the latest, and perhaps most embarrassing, episode in that saga. This is currently No. 1 in the UK singles chart and I can’t be held responsible for how watching this will make you feel, mentally or physically.



The most bemusing part of these ploys to capture a pop audience is just how radically acts will change the sound of their music. Whether you like Roll Deep or not, they were pioneers in their own right and carved out a unique sound with in-house production. Chart toppers Dizzee, Wiley and Tynchy Stryder came from the camp – which is/was something like grime’s answer to Wu-Tang. This, for instance, is miles away from the above.



Things had started to look up - Tinie Tempah’s recent hit Pass Out saturated the radiowaves, yet retained enough of an edge to gain respect from his peers and sounded authentic.

As Leedham points out in his piece, the outcome of Giggs’ official debut may be crucial in redefining the rules for playing on a commercial field. As hated as the base lyrical content born in the US has become today, hope that Giggs’ LP is unashamed malevolent ignorance over big, non-4-beat backdrops. He might be able to bring some balance to the mainstream and re-write what is and what isn’t allowed. We’ll see.

Inja - Hat Low Ft Fallacy, SkinnyMan & Mr Thing

I was wondering when I was going to touch on the whole "is grime hip hop?" debate and this seems like as good a time as any. The perfect opportunity, perhaps. You'll know Inja as a rapper from the Delegates of Culture camp. Mr Thing is a hip hop DJ and ex-Scratch Pervert (a crew that itself fuses hip hop and allsorts of other genres in their mixes) and Fallacy and Skinnyman are UK hip hop veterans that have never been averse to spittin' double time over 2-step riddims.

Anyway, I've often been aware of people questioning grime and whether it's hip hop. To be honest, I haven't got the time to split hairs too far with this, but I definitely see them as having lots in common. They share certain elements in their respective genetic make ups. Sure, grime has a direct lineage with garage, but the way I hear some MCs go in over grime beats is closer to hip hop than the dance music hyping that grime was born from. Throw into the fold the image and clothing (which, like it or not, is an integral part of hip hop) that's associated with grime and how fragmented hip hop has become with regional sounds in the US, and I find it difficult to overlook how much these two genres have in common. A lot of artists in the UK make music that is difficult to pin down as being either - hybrid music that takes influences from, but is not limited to, both. Sway, anyone?

Needless to say, I'm no grime aficionado. Neither am I a curmudgeon who dismisses it as nonsense. I'm not checking pirate radio and going to raves, but I won't shy away from artists that I rate, especially as the boundaries between particular types of music become blurred.

I'm not even a huge fan of this track, but it's given me the opportunity to say my piece. So, if you see a post on here that you don't exactly agree with in terms of its fit musically, just scroll up. I just hope I can find something more hip hop to post after this.