DIZZEE RASCAL
Frank151 was lucky enough to be a part of UK grime icon Dizzee Rascal’s return visit to NYC. Here he is at the Chop Shop, enjoying a trim from New York barber icon Mr Bee…
New York heads had been eagerly anticipating Dizzee’s return for what’s seemed like ages – and his performances did not disappoint. Well, OK, the first one did sort of, but that wasn’t his fault.
Dizzee’s first appearance in the city, as part of the 2008 PLUG Independent Music Awards, was undermined by the numbing commercialism of the event. It’s hard to maintain credibility as a celebration of independents in the music industry when some of the night’s winners were Pitchfork (who just inked a deal to provide the soundtrack for Xbox’s Major League Baseball 2K8), Radiohead (who only went “indieâ€? with their seventh LP – when they could afford to literally give their record away) and iTunes (no comment). Â
As Pitchfork’s own Matt LeMay pointed out, it was “an indie rock awards show with extensive corporate backing … predictably weird awkward and weird; a cordoned-off counter set aside for ‘bloggers’ bordered on self-parody … the inescapable presence of the event’s numerous sponsors made the [PLUG] awards’ name seem oddly apt.â€? Â
Sam Hillmer – a driving force behind New York’s avant garde standard bearers The Z’s –  also summed the night up nicely during this brief exchange with Frank151.Â
Needless to say, when Dizzee hit the stage and dropped the first verses of his incredible UGK collabo, “Where da G’sâ€? – people didn’t get it. Dizzee, with the help of his hype man, Scope, threw everything he could at the crowd, but with an audience full of indie rockers (and the over-40 crowd who came to see headliner Nick Cave), it was a losing battle. When Dizzee dropped what remains his biggest US hit, 2004’s “Fix Up, Look Sharpâ€?, we overheard a jackass nearby exclaim — “Hey! I’ve heard this song!â€? It was all we could do to keep from stomping him out.
But last Tuesday, Dizzee followed the show up with an incredible performance at Brooklyn’s Southpaw – sponsored by Frank151 and friends.  With openers Game Rebellion and Synapse, plus an encore from Rye Rye, the show was outta control hypeness, and everyone left well beyond satisfied.
When Frank caught up with Dizzee before the show, we learned he’d been expecting the response he caught from the PLUGs – and he knew Brooklyn would blow up by comparison. We’re not surprised. Highlights from the conversation are below….
FRANK151: Caught you guys at the PLUG Awards last week. What did you think of that show?
DIZZEE RASCAL: Well, it’s just another award show, innit? I mean, it was better than some.
FRANK151: We had a hard time with the audience there. How were the audiences at the Mercury Awards? Did they respond more?
DIZZEE RASCAL: Well, yeah. Of course. At Mercury, the crowd get it a lot more.
FRANK151: You think tonight’s show will be more lively?
DIZZEE RASCAL: Well, yeah. Tonight it’s my show, innit?
FRANK151: So, what do you think about the advent dubstep and niche, stuff like that? How do you think that’s affecting the grime scene? Is it changing things?
DIZZEE RASCAL:  Feels a bit more popular than grime right now. But it’s just good to see, you know, because a lot of it is the same people. Like, I know a lot of the dubstep riddims, just from pirate radio, from Rinse. It’s another name, but it’s the same kind of movement.  Musically I suppose it’s changing, but as far as MCs – like, Newham Generals, they MC over dubstep a lot. They go to FWD a lot, they do a lot of sets there…   But MCing over a dubstep track is like MCing over a grime track, or a double time hip-hop track, innit?  You can mix it up.
FRANK151: Yeah, but I heard some of the dubstep producers don’t like grime MCs spitting over their beats so much.
DIZZEE RASCAL: Some this grime stuff, though, it’s got its own lease on life.
FRANK151:  I know you said your new album, Maths + English, you wanted to make the album more anthemic – more anthems, bigger hooks that will bring more people in. Where do you see your sound going next?  Will you keep moving in that direction, or will you move back towards your roots in grime?Â
DIZZEE RASCAL: It’s when I get in the studio. I don’t really plan it too tough. It’s when I get in there, then it starts taking its motion. That’s when I start thinking a bit more ahead. But until you get in the studio, you never know what you’re going to come up with.
FRANK151:Â It could go any direction.
DIZZEE RASCAL: Any direction. And that’s how I like it as well. That’s how I come up with a song like “Sirens�.
FRANK151: So the creative process, for you, happens in the studio?
DIZZEE RASCAL: Yeah, a lot of it. Sometimes I’ll rap, or I’ll write lyrics, and I won’t use them for a year. Or I might try using them on three different songs, and if it sounds better on the third one, I mean – there it is. It’s different all the time.
FRANK151: I hear you. But, let me ask you – in terms of your relationship to the grime scene now… on “Pussy’ole,â€? you say that doing pirate radio was just “a phase.â€?
DIZZEE RASCAL: Yeah. I was being a bit cheeky, but it was a phase that, when I was a kid, I was deep into, innit? I was being cheeky, though, really. I was being cheeky.
FRANK151: Do you think that US audiences struggle with some of the slang that you use, phrases like “pussyholeâ€??  I mean, you don’t really get that one much over here. Why do you think that it’s easier for UK artists to incorporate US slang than for US artists to incorporate UK slang?Â
DIZZEE RASCAL: Well, I don’t think Americans feel any reason to have to put up with any other kind of hip-hop from anywhere else. Why would you?
FRANK151: So we’re snobs?
DIZZEE RASCAL: No, not even that. It’s just that – it’s such a massive place, and there’s so many people doing it here. Until it hit the mainstream, Southern people didn’t even know what was going on on the West coast, and the West coast people didn’t know what was going on on the East coast, until they saw it on the TV. It’s the same when something’s across the Atlantic.  People don’t even know fucking London – they don’t know nothing about it, because they haven’t seen that on the TV.
FRANK151: It’s like another whole coast we haven’t even touched.
DIZZEE RASCAL: Yeah, basically. Really, it’s a small island, to be fair. But I speak some American slang because I know it.  I understand it. I say it in my lyrics, and I say it as slang that I use in my everyday life as well. It’s just… That’s one of the reasons why I like people like E-40, because you learn loads of new things— loads of new ways of saying things.
FRANK151: With the hyphy scene and things like that?
DIZZEE RASCAL: Yeah, but even before that. He was slick, doing all that slang shit ages ago. It was the dance and that.Â
FRANK151: Right. And you were probably on some of the last tracks that Pimp C – rest in peace – ever did. How did you wind up
with UGK? Is there anybody else in the US that you want to work with in the future?
DIZZEE RASCAL: There’s loads of people I want to work with. Timbaland, Outkast… Loads, loads. But I met Bun [B of UGK]at SXSW about three or four years ago, when I first started coming here.Â
FRANK151: In Texas, that makes sense.
DIZZEE RASCAL: Just kind of linking up. We’ve done a sing years ago as well, but nothing happened with it, but this time we were making our albums at the same time. I was making [Maths + English] at the same time UGK was making theirs. And they asked if I wanted to feature on one.
FRANK151: So you traded off?
DIZZEE RASCAL: Yeah, exactly. It was basically that. So I was able to get Pimp on it as well.
FRANK151: So now, after the Mercurys, is this where you saw yourself going? Is there where you saw your career leading after that, or is there more ground that you want to cover?
DIZZEE RASCAL: Obviously, I’ve got more I want to do… but at this point, I’m not sure what exactly it is. I just know I want to follow through – just keep going, keep going, keep going, until I reach that Snoop Dogg level… And then I’ll still keep going.  I don’t know where it’s gonna end, but when I kick back and really think about it, I’m happy with how everything’s gone, man.
FRANK151: Nice. Thanks a lot, man.
DIZZEE RASCAL: Alright.
DIZZEE RASCAL will be back in NYC to play Webster Hall with the Def Jux tour MAY 10.Â
