There's always a period in modern music where the geographical aspect plays a major part in a genre. If we look a few years back Hip-Hop was dominated by the influence of New York rappers and lifestyle in the states (LL, Jay-Z, Big L, Nas, Busta Rhymes, Wu-Tang etc) while R'n'B had Atlanta crooners and songstresses lighting up the charts. In the UK, South and East London bred the more popular faces of UK Garage and later on Grime (Heartless Crew, So Solid, Wiley, Kano, Lethal B etc). Now we fast forward to the latter stages of the "noughties" decade and the southern influence is more than apparent in Hip-Hop stateside but UK Hip-Hop and Grime is more spread out. However it seems from recent exposure that North London is breeding a new force of talent AND artistry.
Now Im not gonna pretend that Im the biggest fan of Grime/UK Hip-Hop but I appreciate talent when I see it and over the past year or so I've seen alot of progress in both genres especially from the North side of London. In my opinion North has the best UK rapper in Sway, fair do's he hasn't reached his peak just yet but thats even more testiment to his talent and he has a flow not emulated anywhere in the UK. There's been a lot of talk about him retiring early but fingers crossed Akon can make a bigger star out of him because the potential is there.
Chipmunk is doing alot in the scene right now and after winning best newcomer at the Mobos Im hoping he can push on; Im biased when it comes to him mainly because he went to the school of my sixth-form and is part of my cousin's music label but at 18 he's definitely gonna be on top when he reaches his lyrical peak. Wretch 32 is another beast and deserves big props. Lyrically he's nearly untouchable in London and you can see his influences have given his delivery a much needed boost. His last mixtape was dope, get to know.
Scorcher, Northstar, G, Marvell, Ram and a host of others along with the R'n'B influences of the likes of Lemar, Ny and Keisha White are beginning to push North London to the forefront of the underground/mainstream music scene. Now I know other Londoners will have something to say about it (especially East) but Im gonna go ahead and be biased/controversial and say North London may not have the most amount of musically talented artists in the capital but they have the best.....Hmm then again East are doing alot too. Ok I'll get back to you on that statement.
4 comments so far....:
scorcher and chipmunk's vids are my favourite.
Heartless crew were from North :( they were the only ones reppin it from North back in the day!
Oh is it? I swear they were from Hackney, lol I'll research that later
They were from North, but they always used to be at 'Chimes' which is in Hackney so maybe that's why you thought they were from East :)
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