Shopping Carts in Ravines

Grime, being generally self-composed and self-produced music, is one of the most exciting and inspiring examples I’ve seen of people turning nothing into something… though I suppose everything from jungle to jazz and from blues to (especially) hip hop is really the same thing - I never really got a chance to watch those things happen, though, being too young to know them until they reached the mainstream. Though of course I am now also watching hip hop street art culture come into an amazing period too as an incredible global free art movement. Really, I guess grime is a derivative of this free/street art movement.

Wiley is probably my favourite grime artist. Despite this, I hadn’t looked at his website until the other day, following him instead through his much more recently-updated MySpace profile. (The website is his old one, as it is through his old label, XL.) I totally love the three videos up in the A/V section… the video for “Pies” is just hilarious, but the other two, the video for “Wot Do You Call It?” and the mini-documentary “Wiley” are both very good introductions to Wiley, his particular Eskibeat style, grime in general, and his particular contributions in distinguishing it from UK garage house.

Update:

I just heard that Wiley is retiring!!! He announced it on Jan 22nd. All volumes of his 5-cd “Tunnel Vision” mixtape series are now out, and his third album is coming out early this year.

That’s heavy… I’m definitely gonna be buying the album, it’s a bitch and a half trying to buy grime from Canada, but I do want to support, I’d like to see his chart level with this one do well, and I expect it to be very good. I liked his first album, a good number of people did, but I’d say he’s consistently improved from then. Both his “Tunnel Vision” and his Roll Deep Crew’s “Rules & Regulations” are among my favourite full-length releases in grime.

From Wikipedia:

Wiley announced his retirement from the microphone on 22 January. In a statement released to RWDMag.com ([1]), he said “I’m retiring. I’m serious. I’m tired, really tired. I just want to be normal. I’m 28 and I’m tired. I’ve felt like it for ages but today I woke up and realised I can’t carry on because I’ve got responsibilities that are way beyond the grime scene.” ‘Playtime Is Over’ will be his final solo release, and he will instead focus on production and setting up a label to bring through younger talent.

In January 2007, Wiley announced his retirement from the Grime scene. He felt that it was not about making music anymore, and that it was time to make some real money. He also felt that having regular ‘beef’, would put his newborn daughter in danger, and that he does not want to be involved in this sort of scene. He will still continue to make beats for other artists.

Well, he does have a kid now, and he’s only retiring from MCing to avoid getting into fights with others in the scene… he claims he’s had Ghetto try to stab him, and I think he actually was stabbed by someone, plus he was rushed by God’s Gift and Mucky Wolf on Rinse FM. So I can understand where he’s coming from. As well, it was his production that was most influential, and if he’s still doing that and still supporting new artists coming into the scene (people he’s brought up include Dizzee Rascal) then this hopefully won’t mean too much damage to the scene and sound.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Art and Music, DIY / Survival, Free. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.