Operating out on the outskirts of grime, electronic R&B and rap, Avelino injected the scene with leftfield atmospherics that owed as much to FlyLo’s brainjazz as it did to Wiley’s sense of experimentation. This could have been a top 100, and we still wouldn’t have run out of bangers. The lack of instrumentals is no par to the likes of Spooky and Mr Mitch – if anything, it’s a mark of the UK scene’s rude health. It’s more accurate to think of it as a top 20 of the biggest MC-led tunes of 2016. This top 20 tries to balance street level hits with genuine longevity, opening out beyond simply grime to reflect just how much the entire UK rap scene is popping off right now. The most exciting development was the gradual hybridisation of rap with afrobeats – a melodic switch more than a rhythmic one, with artists such as J Hus, Kojo Funds and Belly Squad leading the mutation. On a street level, the tracks that mattered most sounded increasingly less like a purist’s version of grime, inspired by drill and trap as much as eski beat or 8-bar sounds.
Giggs hit #2 with a record that had almost no promotion, and Abra Cadabra became a star on the back of tunes that barely existed outside of YouTube. If there’s a lesson to be taken from 2016, it’s that more and more hits were broken outside the mainstream. But their attention was almost entirely concentrated on a small circle of veterans: Skepta, Kano, Wiley, an occasional nod to Stormzy and Novelist, and crumbs for the rest.īut this tight focus didn’t really matter.
Media attention was everywhere – for the first time in over a decade, mainstream publications ran multiple stories on the grime “revival”. In 2016, grime was busy consolidating the gains made in the previous year. Ian McQuaid whittles down the 20 best tracks from the intersection of grime, rap and afrobeats. From Skepta’s Mercury win to the rise of afrobeats to Drake remixing a teenage rapper from Streatham, it’s been a massive year for UK MCs and producers.
0 kommentar(er)
