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May
16
2007
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Reviews Hip Hop and RnB
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Wednesday, 16 May 2007 |
Music Reviews Artist: WileyTitle: Playtime Is OverLabel: Big Dada
 While the Chinese are adamant that this year, 2007, is the year of The Pig, ask anyone who's remotely interested in British 'urban' music and they'll tell you it's actually the year of The UK Rap Album.
Yes - Dizzee, Kano and Sway are all set to drop proper long players over the next few months but, while their combined efforts may turn out to be a far cry from their grimey beginnings (Sway and Kano have long since pledged allegiance to hip hop and Dizzee's been off playing with the Arctic Monkeys), there is one man who's staying true to the scene that he helped create; a scene that “has been down for a minute” but which he is determined to rescue, even if he “has to carry it on (his) back”.
'Playtime Is Over' is Wiley's second full-length solo album (he has also released numerous 'Tunnel Vision' mixtapes and, of course, featured prominently on Roll Deep's 'In At The Deep End') and, just like his debut – which emerged hopefully in the wake of Dizzee Rascal's incredibly successful 'Boy In Da Corner' – it doesn't quite live up to all the hype.
The problem with Wiley is the same problem that occurs time and time again within most musical genres; one of guilt. Just because someone pionereed or created a scene that you like, you feel that you owe it to that scene to like them too. But how many hip hop fans would really cite Kool Herc as their favourite DJ? How many UKHH heads actually like MCD's music? While Wiley is no where near as extreme an example as these two (for starters, grime is a much smaller scene, so there is less choice within it), this feeling of bitterness and sense of a debt left unpaid are still present throughout this album as Eski-Boy constantly makes reference to himself as the godfather of grime music, even claiming in a terrifically attention-seeking manner towards the end of the record, “I don't want praise, yeah, I'm getting on with it”.
But it's not that Wiley is no good; there are some great bits on this album. The beats are generally very strong – the 'Eski' sound with which he made his name is still very much present, with the brilliant '50/50' and 'Getalong Gang' sounding like frantic 90s Nintendo themes that have been left in the freezer overnight. The JME-assisted 'No Qualms' and the fantastically threatening 'Johnny Was A Bad Boy' (the album's tip of the cap to grime's moody cousin, dubstep) are easily two of the best songs Wiley has ever made.
However, it is lyrically that 'Playtime Is Over' really falls down. Wiley isn't that bad an MC, but he there is certainly nothing massively special about him either, and his borrowing of Skepta and JME's 'Go On Then, Go On Then' and 'Shut Yuh Mouth' hooks suggest that even he acknowledges he needs help in this department. Furthermore, even when the title of a track indicates some specific lyrical subject matter, there is still no guarantee. On 'Letter 2 Dizzee' (which appears to promise an exclusive insight into the scene's biggest 'beef'), after a brief and uneventful semi-anecdote about a shopping trip together, there is barely any more reference to Rascal and Wiley returns to his favourite topic: why he is the best in the game, claiming, “I'm a master” and “I'm number one, grime – I still run it”. Add to all this the fact that Wiley seems mostly incapable of producing a chorus that doesn't revolve around him reciting his many different aliases and generally talking himself up, and you aren't exactly left with a linguistic masterpiece.
Having said all this, 'Playtime Is Over' is still a pretty good album – and will be infinitely better and more original than most other UK 'urban' material that is released this year. However, while it does have its strong points, it does seem to reiterate the fact that, in grime, perhaps the orginal isn't always the best.
Rating: 3/5
Label: Big Dada
Release Date: 4th June 2007
Words: Tom Ellen
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