So what are the grime MCs saying now? In the era of frenetic 24-hour news, live-blogging and Twitter, the response has been quick, honest and instinctive. When some Londoners expressed their surprise and admiration at the quasi-vigilantism of "Turksec" in Dalston and Hackney, the north London Turkish community who fought off looters with a mixture of togetherness and baseball bats, most grime fans' first thought was Wiley's offhand lyric: "I had this Turkish bredrin from school, all his family were gangsters." Grime describes the world politicians of all parties have ignored – its misery (eg Dizzee Rascal's Sitting Here), its volatile energy (Lethal Bizzle's Pow), its gleeful rowdiness (Mr Wong's Orchestra Boroughs), its self-knowledge (Wiley's Oxford Street), its local pride (Southside Allstars' Southside Run Tings), down even to minor specifics. As the glaziers and magistrates go to work after four nights of riots across London and the UK, the search for understanding and the finger of blame are simultaneously pointing towards the MCs and rappers who Bizzle told me in January were "the real prime ministers of this country". Two decades ago Chuck D famously described rap music as "the black CNN" – a means of describing the kind of daily lives which the real news network would never care to investigate by this token, grime and UK rap is the BBC News 24 of the British urban working-class – not necessarily black, not necessarily young, but mostly so. It makes you feel lost, like you're in a corner." I've been through stuff I wouldn't want my kids, my friends, my fans, anyone to go through. "I care because I'm from these places, and I know what happens. You know when you see Iraq, foreign wars on TV…" he tails off, before reflecting on the Walthamstow in which he grew up. "Watching it on TV's been even worse – it doesn't even feel like it's London, or Britain – it doesn't seem real. Try different things and see what feels natural."T hese are sad days man, sad days it's just … surreal." Six months ago Lethal Bizzle and I had talked about how grime had exploded into the political sphere, soundtracking the winter's youth and student protests in London, but now the 28-year old rapper is much less upbeat, surveying the wreckage in the city he loves. Every Lil Wayne song is basically one-liners about the greatness that is Weezy F Baby, while a rapper like Raekwon will tell complicated stories with peppered with flights of sonic wordplay. Depending on who you're influenced by, the content of rap songs can differ greatly.Get a rhyming dictionary to help improve your rhymes, and try to develop your vocabulary by reading as much as you can. When you finally like what you're hearing, test them in front of your friends and hear what they think. Even if you don't like what you've written, later on you could come back and re-word those rhymes into something you do like. You could even rap about getting dressed in the morning, walking the dog, cooking your dinner, commuting to work, or even about a conversation you had with someone. No need to worry about what you are rapping about, just pick out things that you see around you. Once you feel comfortable rapping on different beats, start to make up rhymes of your own. It's free, so you can listen to stuff you might not even like and form an opinion about it. Check out your favorite rapper's mixtapes and branch out.
RAP GENIUS I GOT 2 PHONES FOR FREE
X Research source An online version of the old-school mixtapes is available at record stores, most rappers album-quality material is available for free download as a promotional tactic. Contemporary rap music is linked to mixtape culture.Listen to the music of different regions: listen to New York-style "boom-bap" hip-hop, West Coast gangsta rap, Dirty South chopped-and-screwed rap, and also the hip-hop of the underground.Kurtis Blow, The Sugarhill Gang, LL Cool J), listen to complex rhymers like Nas, Eminem, Big Pun and Rakim. The Rugged Man), listen to old-school rappers (e.g. Kendrick Lamar, Eminem and Snoop Dogg), listen to underground artists (e.g. Find an artist you like and trace their influences back to get some sense of the foundation of hip-hop and develop your knowledge of the style. It's a style of music deeply ingrained in city life and culture. If you want to rap, you've got to immerse yourself in the culture and the sounds of hip-hop music.