Got grime?
Dizzee Rascal does. And he’s bringing it to his first Chicago stop
Dizzee Rascal, born Dylan Mills, grew up in a council flat in East London where, barely in his teens, he made a name for himself in the underground pirate-radio scene, spinning drum-and-bass during the late-night shift over stolen airwaves. Gradually his interests grew to rapping as well, leading to his acclaimed 2003 debut “Boy in Da Corner.”
While well-schooled in hip-hop, Rascal’s take on rap may sound unfamiliar to the average American listener; it represents the latest UK-bred hip-hop permutation dubbed grime, where course beats mesh with raw, rapid-fire rhymes. If it has a U.S. equivalent, it’s crunk, a la Lil Jon.
Truth be told, however, Dizzee Rascal sounds like no one else.
Rascal, who quickly released his second album, “Showtime,” last year (and has time to collaborate with everyone from Basement Jaxx to Houston’s UGK), talked to metromix in advance of his first-ever Chicago appearance.
How does it feel playing in a country where you’re not quite as well known as you are back home?
It’s good! All the clubs are like where I started off. It means there’s still growth. I can’t be big everywhere without putting in the work, you know what I mean? I like the intimate shows, because you really have to work the crowd. They’re smaller and they’re closer.
A lot of American MCs, by the time they put out their second record, spend half the songs bragging about how well they did, but you seem to have kept some perspective.
Yeah. I get bored really easily, so I try to be just as considerate to the listener. I try to find as much to rap about as possible.
Starting out, did you develop your skills on your own? DJing’s kind of a solo occupation.
We worked in groups as well, little crews. It’s like the [U.S.] mixtape scene without the mixtapes, basically. It was like a lab, where you learned to really project yourself. It was a real dog-eat-dog scene, and there’s not a lot of money involved in it, either, so you had to learn to hold your own. At least with mixtapes, people earn money.
I imagine there’s a lot of competition too. There are probably still a few crews that think they should have succeeded instead of you.
Yeah, more than a few. But it’s the same in any country. That’s reality, man.
It seems like it took awhile for hip-hop to catch on in the U.K.
Hip-hop has always been there. Most people in the urban community grew up listening to the same songs [as Americans], mostly East Coast and West Coast hip-hop. The fast stuff from the South has only just begun to blow up, but we’re in love with the same artists, the same rappers [as Americans].
You cite Jay-Z and 2-Pac as inspirations, but you don’t hear a lot of them in your music.
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Maybe it was my age and the fact that I get bored quick, but I just like to have fun with the music. I was so open-minded about music. I was into punk, techno, drum-and-bass, hip-hop, grunge, heavy metal, death metal, R&B, whatever. Being so open-minded as a listener, it didn’t restrict me when it came to creating music.
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Dizzee Rascal
When: 10 p.m. Saturday
Where: Double Door, 1572 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Tickets: $15