It's a very strange feeling. Having strolled through Admiralty Arch on the southwest corner of Trafalgar Square, I am heading down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace and away from bright lights and big crowds into an American picture-postcard London and yet something is not quite right. Through the darkness I can quite clearly hear Dizzee Rascal: "Box an MC like my name was Frank, going on dirty, going on stank, robbin' MCs like Barclays Bank".
Yes, while it may not quite be picture-postcard material, it was born and bred right here in the Big Smoke and now, thanks to the ICA and Dirty Canvas, Grime has made it to within spitting distance of her Majesty herself.
As London's only night dedicated solely to Grime, Dirty Canvas will always be the main port of call for all afficionados of the genre, and with line-ups as strong as this one, it may become responsible for converting many more. N.A.A’s L Man was up first and, in front of a sparse circle of early arrivals, he still managed a great showcase. Interspersing his own grime tunes with two excellent freestyles – one accapella and one over a Biggie beat – he made the best of a difficult opening slot and proved that he is certainly one to watch in future.
Dubstep supremo Kode 9 was next to step up and, despite the stark contrast between the ICA’s brilliantly bright walls and the tomb-like darkness that visitors to FWD at Plastic People might associate with the genre, his set was one of the night’s many hightlights.
Finally, Ghetto, Scorcher and Wretch 32 – better known as The Movement – took up position behind the decks to a riotous flurry of gun fingers. While Wretch and Scorcher were very consistent and dropped some decent bars, the set belonged to Ghetto. His presence, delivery and actual lyrical ability is genuinely unmatched in the grime scene at the moment and it seems unbelievable that he is still best known to most people as simply one of Kano’s closest collaborators. A few more performances like this one, however, should ensure him the limelight he deserves.
During an old skool garage set by Plastician at Dirty Canvas’ first night at the ICA on 9th September, the host, G Double of West London’s Renegade Boys, asked the crowd “who really remembers where this music came from?”. However, while much of the music played at the event may help explain exactly how grime came about, the question that Dirty Canvas really raises, in its relocation to The Mall, is where is it going next? In many ways, this new setting reflects the scene's current climate perfectly; where better to house a genre that so prides itself on its 'Britishness' (see Bruza, Lady Sovereign or even Dizzee’s Anglo-similies on tracks like ‘Fix Up Look Sharp’ and Roll Deep’s ‘Bounce’) than sandwiched between landmarks like Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace?
Furthermore, while recent mainstream media representations of the new millenium's British 'Urban' scene - most prominently the film 'Kidulthood' and the Channel 4 television series 'Dubplate Drama' - might condition viewers to believe that the ICA's clinically clean white walls, majestically lofty ceilings and excellently-priced white wine combine to create something of an unrealistic portayal of the true grittiness of Grime music, they couldn't be more wrong. While the illegal raves, MC clashes and pirate radio sessions that the music was built on are notorious for their supreme squalor (many of the scene's most famous battles have taken place in Jammer's own cramped, graffiti-strewn basement), outside the East London flats where it was born, Grime is a very different animal indeed. The more mainstream Grime crowds generally transcend race, class and gender and - thanks partly to the genre's support from current trend-setters like Diplo, M.I.A. and even Mike Skinner - at legitimate club nights like Dirty Canvas, you will usually find roll-up-smoking, angular-haired Hoxton street artistes happily throwing shapes next to scowling, gun-finger-toting hooded teenagers.
In other words, despite what it might say on the HMV Store Guide, Grime just isn't very 'Urban' any more. Dirty Canvas' greatest achievement, in setting up shop at the ICA, is that far from abhorring this fact, they exhibit both intelligence and maturity by accepting and accommodating for it while never once compromising the music's integrity. Looking down from the balcony onto the makeshift dancefloor below and watching fashionably dishevelled mullets swim contently in and out of black New Era caps as Ghetto incites another mini mosh pit, it strikes me not only that this is about as clear a representation of Grime music as you could hope to find in 2006 but that, much more importantly, everybody is enjoying themselves. Go and see for yourself.
Reviewed by : Tom Ellen
