Sick of Standing Room Only

I could feel it coming when I was 22. I was in San Francisco, walking back to my car with a group of my friends after a concert. I turned to my buddy Talib and said, “Man, my legs hurt like hell. All this damn standing. I’m going to start bringing crutches to these shows.” Then after dropping everyone off, I went home and lay down, legs aching through the night.

Over a decade later, I don’t need crutches, but it’s becoming really, really clear I’ve gotten too old for the shit. I’d say 90% of the hip-hop shows I go to these days unfold the same way. They are held take place in an overcrowded club, with standing room only. If the act is any sort of popular, the place is completely packed, with each person having maybe six inches of personal space around him/her. The ventilation sucks, yet everyone’s smoking. The sound stinks. The acts are late. The venue’s staff is disorganized. The security working the event are jerks. Everything is overpriced. And not to sound too much like a geezer, but damn everyone there was born in the mid-’80s.

The Dizzee Rascal/El-P show I went to a few nights ago encapsulated a lot of the dumb shit I have to put up with whenever I go to a show these days. First, doors opened late (at 9:30 instead of 9 p.m.; the half hour makes a difference in terms of crowd control). Then the venue’s staff and security acted like jerks. Then I found out even though I was supposed to have passes to the show, I somehow wasn’t on the list. Then the stage area of the rather crowded venue didn’t open until like 10 p.m. Once I finally positioned myself stage right near the front of the stage, I looked around I saw I was surrounded by increasingly drunk young twentysomethings who’d probably turn the show into a moshing/slam-pit extravaganza. At that point I had a moment of clarity, where I realized there was no logical reason why I needed to watch this show near the front of the stage, standing for three hours while packed in like sardines with obnoxious jerks

Even after I moved to the balcony with a couple of friends of mine I ran into while there, the show was still plagued with problems. The first act, Busdriver, didn’t go on until 11 p.m., and his set was sabotaged by sound problems. To their credit, both El-P and Dizzee Rascal rocked their respective sets, but the delays in-between acts seemed interminable. There’s no logical reason why a Wednesday night show should end after 2 a.m.

Maybe I’m just grouchy because 36 hours later, my legs still hurt and one of my good shirts wreaks of cigarette smoke. But I’m starting to have more and more lingering thoughts that I should just give up the hip-hop show game entirely. My legs will probably thank me.

Sharper the Ever: Dizzee Rascal hits the U.S.

The following is an expanded version of an article I wrote for SF Weekly.


Regional scenes are the engines that drive mainstream U.S. hip-hop today. For every Kanye West, there’s 20 Souljah Boys, artists that make regional hits that have translated into financial and Billboard success. Yet American audiences have yet to really embrace many hip-hop artists from overseas. Case in point: Dizzee Rascal, a savage MC from East London who’s still unknown to many U.S. hip-hop heads.

Rascal broke out of the U.K.’s Grime/Garage scene of the early ’00s, a movement that spawned breakout artists like M.I.A., Lady Sovereign, and The Streets. Dizzee started off much like other grime artists; MCing on pirate radio stations and at raves and underground venues since he was 15. He rapped with a heavy cockney accent, and filling his rhymes with native slang, and flowing over beats that sounded like (and often were) generated from a video-game console. He first achieved acclaim in 2003 with the songs “Fix Up, Look Sharp” and “I Luv U,” and his debut album Boy in Da Corner. “Fix Up” was a Top 20 hit on the U.K. charts and Boy in the Da Corner was awarded the Mercury Prize, an annual award given to the best album released from the U.K. and Ireland. The album also earned him attention in the U.S., as Rolling Stone named Boy in Da Corner one of the 50 best albums of the year. In 2004, he released his follow-up, Showtime, which debuted on the U.K. charts at #8 and solidified himself as the star of U.K. hip-hop.

Despite Dizzee’s continued success in the U.K., his lyrical ferocity is known by a select few in the U.S. This might be due to the fact British hip-hop hasn’t always been the most user-friendly. MCs rapping at warp speed with a thick British accent sound completely unfamiliar to the average mainstream listener. Furthermore, in a climate where listeners are already inundated by hip-hop from every region of the U.S., it’s pretty easy for overseas MCs to get lost in the shuffle.

“America has the best of what the world has to offer when it comes to hip-hop,” Rascal acknowledges. If a 20-year-old from Oakland is able to identify with the sentiment behind the lyrics of a southerner like Lil’ Wayne, it’s not much of a stretch that the same person can identify with the raw reality Dizzee expresses on his albums. “People are willing to listen to something new,” he adds.

Dizzee hopes the U.S. release of his latest album, Maths and English, will put his name in the hearts of minds of American hip-hop heads. Sonically, Maths + English is much more straight-ahead hip-hop album than he’s previous releases, both musically and lyrically. “I worked a lot more on my flow, so it was easier to follow,” Dizzee says. “I still use a lot of slang, but I just slowed things down a bit so people could understand what the fuck I was saying.” He exhibits a more deliberate flow on Math’s opener “World Outside,” a mellow, introspective track where he explains why he’s has to remove himself from the London hood life to make positive moves in his life.

The production manages to sound both grimy and accessible. And while some of the songs are crafted to sound more “familiar” to American listeners, sporting traditional drum breaks and the occasion soul sample, the album still retains its British feel, as his frenetic Garage sensibilities are still apparent on songs like “Sirens” and “Temptation.” It’s a middle ground that both Dizzee and his new record label, indie hip-hop juggernaut record label Definitive Jux, hope progressive hip-hoppers will embrace.

“I think it’s a dope, new, relevant sound for America, and the shit is really edgy,” says El-P, Definitive Jux’s owner and an artist on the label. “It’s hard not to put on [Maths + English] and not want to punch someone in the face. But I make music that sounds like that, so maybe I’m biased.”

El-P says he feels the time is now right for this album. He’s known Dizzee for years, and has turned his friendship with the Brit into a musical partnership. The two are hitting the road together now as Rascal launches his first tour to the U.S. in three years.

“Working with Def Jux was the best situation take get the album out in the U.S.,” Dizzee says. “They’re at the top when it comes to putting out independent, cutting edge hip-hop.”

It took to a year for Maths + English to get a proper U.S. release on April 28. Previously XL Records had only made the album available digitally. The American version has three new tracks, including an El-P produced remix to “Where’s Da G’s?” featuring UGK. Dizzee first met Bun at the 2003 South By Southwest music festival, and the two became first friends. Bun has since completely embraced Dizzee’s efforts to blow up stateside.

El-P has nothing but glowing things to say about his experience working with Bun B. “He was so cool and knew everything about me and [Def Jux],” he says. “He’s the prototype for the open-minded mainstream MC.”

Sadly, “Pussyole (Oldskool),” one of the best songs from the original release didn’t make it to the U.S. While Dizzee was able to clear the James Brown samples in the U.K. (where sample clearance laws are different), Dizzee says the protracted dispute over Brown’s estate prevented the track from making the U.S. version of the album.

Dizzee is ready for Math + English to launch him into the American mainstream, and he’s not at all sentimental towards his years in the U.K. underground.

“Yeah, I really miss getting jerked for my money at shows, dealing with dodgy promoters, and always having to watch my back when I’m at a club,” Rascal deadpans.