Kadhim's Totally Hot Album of the Week #13

The most irritating thing about Tim Westwood is this: he’s actually 100% credible. He’s been supporting UK hip-hop since the 80s and, by all fair metrics, has earned the right to ram obnoxious horns and gunshot sounds up the backside of every track he plays on his radio show. I, on the other hand, have absolutely zero street-cred – unless of course you count the Walkway as a street, and you accept furiously avoiding eye contact as ‘cred’.

Which, you could argue, might make my decision to choose Dizzee Rascal’s new mixtape [free download] as my Totally Hot Album of the Week slightly strange. The only UK hip-hop I’ve ever listened to is Foreign Beggars; whose 2003 album Asylum Speakers [Spotify link] is a must-listen and whose 2008 song ‘Hit that Gash’ is... well, find out for yourself. So what insights about grime, a genre of music as far removed from my expertise as astute political analysis is from Dizzee, could I offer you? Well to you ‘haters’ – see, I can totally get into this – I say this: I may not understand a word of French, but I’d sure as hell as jizz my pants if Audrey Tautou started talking to me.

Let’s be clear: this is ain’t no pop record. With Calvin Harris off cheating on him with Rihanna (who would say no?), Dizzee has gone back to the quick-fire spitting with which he first made his name in the early 2000s. All that festival-pop nonsense has gone the way of Sports Direct’s stock and buggered off down the street. Grime-Dizzee is back. The tracks are bombastic, viciously-tight, full of swagger, and as energetic as a LHC proton. (And yes, that joke is exactly why I’ll never have street-cred). But naff jokes aside, there’s something primal-ly appealing about this mixtape. It makes you want to bounce off the walls, get pumped up, and perhaps run about throwing gang signs while studiously avoiding confrontation with people who actually understand the lingo...

I’ve genuinely got nothing bad to say about this tape. Criticism is fairly difficult when you’re busy concentrating on skanking like a total boss. Imperial, it’s time to leave your comfort zone and get dirtee this week with Dizzee. Just think of it as gateway grime. Peace out.

Tweet me @kadhimshubber and let me know whether it’s acceptable for a guy who went to private school in Eastbourne to say ‘Peace out’. Alternatively, tweet @CalvinHarris and tell him, “If I ever see you near Dizzee again, I’ll pop a cap brah!!!”