London’s bleak, dripping landscape is providing an excellent
backdrop for a new hungry breed of artists: Hip Hop ones. A style
which used to be all about American Emotions from American
places-Brooklyn, Hollis (Queens, NY), Staten Island, parts of the
Deep South, The 5th Ward (Houston, TX), Compton, and Inglewood,
then things simmered down a bit, and some intelligent flows
emanated out of the Bay Area (Del, Cali Agents, etc.). Then it was
Swollen Members from up in Canada. What about the remainder of
Planet Earth? The
Best of International Hip-Hop (Hip-O Records) compilation
proved that it’s thriving in places like Argentina, Switzerland,
Algeria, Israel, Austria, Japan, Greece, France, Greenland,
Portugal, Romania,…and even South Africa. A short death is
all it would seem to be able to get there.
Great Britain wasn’t represented on that disc, and that could be
because the scene in England is doing quite well on it’s own, thank
you very much. People like Ty, The Creators, Unsung Heroes, Cappo,
The Nextmen, Beyond There, Black Twang, and Braintax are fueling
what is rapidly becoming an out of control blaze, and maybe hip-hop
in Britain can soon enough take some of the morbid attention away
from the road-side accident scene that is Britpop. Oasis are
apparently bust, and my other favorites threw the towel in years
prior. Maybe…hopefully people are ready for something
new.
Gamma are a solid quartet, mixing the verbal skills of three
MC’s and two DJ’s/producers. They arrived in London via Birmingham
(UK) and Dallas. No sleep-inducing stereotypical ‘isms’ here
lyrically. On the track “Factory” it’s: “a bitch is a female mutt.”
Period. Not some Jenny Jones “Barefoot and Pregnant” episode.
Lyrics about wilding out and killing people gets you a warning
sticker in America, but it’s apparently alright to look down on
women in your songs apparently. Gamma obviously has the brains to
pick more interesting things to write about.
Permanament is thick in sound, busy at times, and book-ended
by a pair of instrumental songs that would even make Liam Howlett
(The Prodigy) pause. The vocals are all delivered with thick ‘we
ain’t from Bed-Stuy’ accents that at times resemble Rasta patois.
There are so many songs here that keep the Repeat button working
over-time: Don’t Send A Boy, Godly Food, Black Atlantian, Filter
731, and Supreme Confidence for starters.
Big Dada is a sub imprint of the Ninja Tune label, who’s
responsible for albums by Kid Koala, DJ Food, Herbaliser, Amon
Tobin, etc. Just seeing Ninja Tune anywhere on a record or a cd
should make you jump. As Britpop withers the next sunrise will
signal the dawn of Gamma, and UK Hip-Hop in general.
