Grime could save us from brostep - thoughts?

[joe muggs]

It's been obvious a while that Grime & Dubstep were blurring boundaries more than they have for years... obviously it's happened for ages, the best DJs always played grime instrumentals, and there's been tunes like 'Intensive Snare' to show how close the sounds really are... but this year it's nuts, the number of killer tunes with really aggressive dubstep backing and proper grime MCing on top is growing, and of course more and more grime producers are putting out instrumental 12s and albums which fit into dubstep DJ sets - it really came clear to me how much this is a real thing when I compiled the Ministry 'Dubstep And Beyond' comp... and the thing is, it's proving that aggro dubstep, as I've said for time, isn't just "heavy metal" or "white boy student music" but is still in touch with its London/pirate roots. It's a new injection of energy, and it keeps dubstep's "mongrel music" nature strong....

Or am I wide of the mark here?

[JensMadsen]

I would full heartedly agree with you mate. When i play out i like having a grime mc spitting lines over my sets. I also like playing dubstep with a bit of a grime twist. I know that ths isn't exactly what you mean. But what i'm trying to get at is, that i like to blur the edges a bit between the dubstep i play and the grime which i might want to play. I would go on to say that i think ginz, joker, guido, gemmy and so on, have a bit of a grime twist, which is why i have no problems having an mc spitting over it, or dropping a grime vocal from the hard drive (yes i often play on my computer, but i also play vinyl) I don't know if this was exactly what you were getting at.

[bassmusic]

i'm loving the new grime influences coming into dubstep, but i'm not sure it will 'deliver us from' anything. There's just a general tendency for aggro in 140ish bassmusic at the moment, whether it's a Flux Pavillion tune or Temps bellowing about how he's going to kill everyone; the energy and the vibe is pretty similar.

I am really happy about hearing the rhythmic invention of grime coming into harder dubstep though - give me Terror Danjah's beats over Doctor P any day; it's really giving us more options to play out exciting beats with energy without having to drop the tempo down to the low 130's to bring in all the funky and future garage.

personally though, I can see dubstep swinging towards the more ravey, fun stuff; much like when DnB tipped too far over into techstep, it ended up swinging back towards the melodic, the liquid and the vocal - I can imagine more pianos and amens coming over the hill one of these days..

[ashley]

Grime can't save us from anything.

Should have died long time ago.

[joe muggs]

I am really happy about hearing the rhythmic invention of grime coming into harder dubstep though - give me Terror Danjah's beats over Doctor P any day; it's really giving us more options to play out exciting beats with energy without having to drop the tempo down to the low 130's to bring in all the funky and future garage.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. OK "saving" is overstating the case a bit... but you know, there's a place for aggression, whether it's Coki/Mavado, Vex'd, The Bug or Tempa T. But the grime input is not just aggression: Mensah is another great one from that Bristol crew recently who's put grime, funk and dubstep all in the blender - and of course the Scottish lot are mangling grime brilliantly, see the SRC EP on Numbers... and listen to the Rude Kid and J Beatz instrumentals I put on the Ministry comp, there's sections in them which are fully dubstep (as well as D&B and electro), likewise producers like Teddy/Silencer are doing amazing stuff that sounds like oldschool 808-loaded electro (which has always been an unsung influence on grime)... and there's good weird stuff too - I mean, Numan is essentially grime in his sound styles, but he's flinging it into all kinds of weird tempos and rhythms. Likewise recent stuff from Untold, Shortstuff and Ramadanman, it goes back to the WEIRDNESS of 2002-4 grime / 8-bar / etc, the way sounds would fly in from nowhere, the eski-style gloopy basslines, phrases just switching without warning etc.

[joe muggs]

Grime can't save us from anything.

Should have died long time ago.

ELL OH ELL

[brasco]

Anything that saves us from brostep has got my support

[ashley]

Grime can't save us from anything.

Should have died long time ago.

ELL OH ELL

Whys it funny?

Grime, like 'brostep' is hardly intelligent music, only thing that Grime has going for it is a few decent artists with clever lyrics like P Money who are actually on a Dubstep tip rofl.

[ashley]

And when I talk about grime I mean real grime.

Not fringe music.

[kernelcoremode]

Great post Joe,
totally agree..

edit after i read the rest of the topic :

to the guy/girl saying grime is not intelligent music, since when a genre defines the value of a track ? Obviously you havent heard much grime, and obviously what you appreciate in dance music is hype instead of real production value and vibe..
When i started listening to dubstep a lot of it was the same with instrumental grime. Whats the difference between a production from Rude Kid or J beats today with tracks like skream - angry, plastician - industrial graft, slt mob - fireweaver, geeneus - dark boy, s+d - wavescape, hey this list can go on forever, and to my taste tracks like these are the basis of dubstep, what hooked me to the sound..
What happened in recent years is big producers wanting to a)experiment b)appeal to wider audiences thus turning towards techno, house, hip hop, with very few exceptions, which created a shortage of heavy, dark tunes, which were the biggest part of what was labeled "dubstep" around 2004, giving the space for all the shit brostep and wobble music to be in kids eyes as the "real dubstep" when they compared it to stuff thats gone too far away (and really sooner than the scene was ready - before most people got a grip of the basis of the genre) flirting with the kind of club music that these kids had already crossed out as commercial..

To me anyone who disrespects grime so much just proves that he is clueless and hasnt even spent the time to research the past of the music he supposedly likes.

[joe muggs]

And when I talk about grime I mean real grime.

Not fringe music.

Yeah real grime. The original old days productions by Wiley, Jammer, Geeneus, Jon E Cash, Danny Weed, Terror Danjah etc etc were as ORIGINAL as anything in dubstep. They didn't have the sonic finesse of dubstep, in terms of production skills and deep bass, necessarily - but rhythmically and tonally they were Fresh.As.Fuck and often completely brain-bending with it. Plastician/Plasticman was originally considered a grime producer too, remember! Hearing pirate radio back in those days was an awesome experience. And there's plenty of freshness now musically, all the names mentioned in the thread above, from Numan and Joker to Teddy and J Beatz, are still turning out new twists on it.

[Liam92]

stop fucking calling it 'brostep'

[joe muggs]

stop fucking calling it 'brostep'

sorry, DUDESTEP then.

[Liam92]

stop fucking calling it 'brostep'

sorry, DUDESTEP then.

No. It's DUBSTEP.

[joe muggs]

stop fucking calling it 'brostep'

sorry, DUDESTEP then.

No. It's DUBSTEP.

You say tomartostep I say tomaytostep

[egoless]

stop fucking calling it 'brostep'

sorry, DUDESTEP then.

No. It's DUBSTEP.

You say tomartostep I say tomaytostep

nonsenstep

[twentyOneDummies]

+1 on the notion of mixing grime into aggressive dubstep sets. If the vibe's more animated than meditative I love to throw in some Swindle, SRC, Royal T, Terror Danjah, etc along with a couple of big vocal tunes. Sometimes the line feels real thing these days to be honest: Ikonika and Terror Danjah are both dropping/dropped albums on Hyperdub this year, one came out of Dubstep and the other Grime but both are working in a zone past that right now.

[busker]

It's been obvious a while that Grime & Dubstep were blurring boundaries more than they have for years... obviously it's happened for ages, the best DJs always played grime instrumentals, and there's been tunes like 'Intensive Snare' to show how close the sounds really are... but this year it's nuts, the number of killer tunes with really aggressive dubstep backing and proper grime MCing on top is growing, and of course more and more grime producers are putting out instrumental 12s and albums which fit into dubstep DJ sets - it really came clear to me how much this is a real thing when I compiled the Ministry 'Dubstep And Beyond' comp... and the thing is, it's proving that aggro dubstep, as I've said for time, isn't just "heavy metal" or "white boy student music" but is still in touch with its London/pirate roots. It's a new injection of energy, and it keeps dubstep's "mongrel music" nature strong....

Or am I wide of the mark here?

i wanna post this on my blog.. good post

few bars on top makes most things bearable, when im in the mood anyway

[joe muggs]

It's been obvious a while that Grime & Dubstep were blurring boundaries more than they have for years... obviously it's happened for ages, the best DJs always played grime instrumentals, and there's been tunes like 'Intensive Snare' to show how close the sounds really are... but this year it's nuts, the number of killer tunes with really aggressive dubstep backing and proper grime MCing on top is growing, and of course more and more grime producers are putting out instrumental 12s and albums which fit into dubstep DJ sets - it really came clear to me how much this is a real thing when I compiled the Ministry 'Dubstep And Beyond' comp... and the thing is, it's proving that aggro dubstep, as I've said for time, isn't just "heavy metal" or "white boy student music" but is still in touch with its London/pirate roots. It's a new injection of energy, and it keeps dubstep's "mongrel music" nature strong....

Or am I wide of the mark here?

i wanna post this on my blog.. good post

few bars on top makes most things bearable, when im in the mood anyway

Feel free... just batting ideas around here really.

[dickman69]

Could be true