Interview: Chipmunk, Griminal & Little Dee (Woofah Magazine, 2008)

I wrote this for the excellent Woofah Magazine in November 2007 and it wasn’t published until March 2008. The points the piece makes still apply, but were more relevant at the end of last when most grime discussion seemed to centre around the new wave of youngsters, so bear that in mind.

‘The level of MCing’s gone up a level’

At various points in grime’s volatile lifetime it’s been declared dull, dying and dead, and often all that’s needed is to tune into Newham Generals on a Sunday night to reassure you that that’s mere scaremongering. There was a long period this year though, where things really did feel like they’d ground to a halt. Wiley’s faux-retirement threw everyone for a loop, and as good as Roll Deep’s Rules and Regulations was, it wasn’t the classic it could’ve been. But what really set the death knolls in motion for the first half of 2007 was that it didn’t seem like Rinse FM was worth listening to.

Unorganised artists and overzealous police campaigns have always meant live dances are a problematic way for a grime fan to get their fix, and half the big releases we’ve been promised over the years have never come out (or, in the case of In at the Deep End and God knows how many mixtapes, not lived up to expectations). But as long as I’ve known grime that’s been a minor complaint, because every night you could still lock into pirate radio and catch incredible, ephemeral moments of music never meant to be recorded; one-off relays of brilliance that disappear as quickly as they’re spat.

For the last few years, Rinse has been how you keep up with the scene – it was Skepta’s emergence as the star of Roll Deep’s sets in early 2005 that propelled him to his current status, and it was Scorcher wrecking every set he touched that winter that marked his arrival as a top boy MC. Every Monday you could log onto RWD and hundreds would be frantically discussing that weekend’s must-have session. But at some point this year, that changed. Rinse’s flirtation with dubstep became a full-on affair, and afternoons where you’d once have tuned in and heard new Jammer or Ruff Sqwad vocal tracks were replaced with funky house shows. There was still the odd show that would get talked up (Spyro’s instrumental marathon, for instance), but things weren’t the same.

Gradually over summer, things fell back into place, but for once it had little to do with the usual suspects spraying down mics. This was a younger generation of MCs, slowly revitalising the scene alongside equally young producers like Maniac and Bless Beats. Some – Chipmunk, Ice Kid, Maverick and Little Dee – were brought through under Wiley’s wing as part of Eskibeat, and others like Griminal, P Money and Brutal became pirate radio fixtures through different means. And on the first weekend of September, any doubts about the passion and talent of this new wave of MCs were officially deaded when Griminal and Chipmunk’s clash on DJ Unique’s set upstaged Ghetto and Skepta’s one later in the show.

‘Back in the day I’d lock into Deja – hear D Double spit Birds in the Sky’

Where as the original grime MCs like Wiley, D Double E and Riko had their roots in jungle, garage and bashment, the primary influence for this new breed of pirate radio stars is grime, which goes some way to explaining why we’re yet to see the compromised stabs at the mainstream that grime’s first wave offered us in the past. Griminal, a beast of an MC from Greengate, East London and current N.A.S.T.Y. Crew golden boy expands: ‘you find a lot of the older MCs in grime today, they do hip-hop and that, but we grew up listening to grime – that’s what we’re the best at doing. I’m a grime MC, don’t ever get it twisted – even if I do tunes that will appeal to other people, I’m just trying to be versatile in grime.’

Chipmunk, an Eskibeat MC from North London and natural foil for Griminal – contrasting his pure energy with a cheeky, confident flow – reckons that ‘clearly grime is the main influence. There’s no one person who’s influenced me most, but when I started I was listening to Scorcher, and Wiley’s massive. It’s good for me to say I’ve progressed, and now I’m considered on the same wavelength as the people I’m listening to. Two years ago, I was looking at them thinking that’s where I wanna be’. Where as Wiley has spoke about believing every scene comes and goes in the past, these MCs have grown up immersed in grime, and you get the impression that they want to preserve it as well as push it forward.

At sixteen, with a back catalogue of three solo mixtapes and three Motivation Music mixtapes with Black the Ripper and Cookie (a series of free downloads available on his myspace), Chipmunk is the perfect example of the grime fan turned grime artist who knows that if MCs like him and Griminal are going to carry the scene forward, they need to show the kind of work rate that their predecessors often lacked. ‘I try to keep progressing’, he tells us, ‘not one day spent resting; every day I write bars. I’ve always been confident though. Obviously Wiley opened a few more doors for me, but what some people don’t understand is that I met Wiley with two CDs already out. With or without Wiley, I’m still Chipmunk’.

And as for the clash between him and Griminal: ‘anytime me and Griminal are on a set, expect a little bit of sparring going on! But it’s all good, we’re both on high levels so we’ve got to compete with each other to make sure we both stay on point, in case two new youts try and come through and take our place’.

‘I’m a star in the making, so when I’m writing bars you’re raving’

Someone else looking to ‘flood the whole grime scene’ as he puts it, is Little Dee, part of South London’s Fatal Assassins crew and another MC who came into prevalence under the Eskibeat banner, both featuring on Wiley’s ‘My Mistakes’ single and appearing on stage with him at the Playtime is Over launch party. You’d think someone whose history as a rapper consists of ‘trying little things when I was younger, but I’ve just been getting serious since last year’ might be intimidated at the prospect of going back to back with the Godfather of Grime, but anyone who was at Cargo that night will testify that Dee looked like he was having the time of his life.

‘I love being on stage’, he tells us. ‘I just think everyone’s human. When I first met Wiley that’s one of the first things he said to me. Obviously I do look up to a lot of MCs – before, I was their fans; I was a Ghetto fan and I was a Wiley fan – but I feel like I can spit with them now’. His first mixtape, Don’t Let the Name Trick You, is out now – ‘it’s an introduction to me; I call it a mixtape but most people I’ve played it to are telling me there’s album material’ – and scheduled for the coming months are a second solo mixtape as well as one with P Money, and two videos – one for the Maniac–produced ‘Star in the Making’, and one for a new song called ‘Pride’.

‘The older MCs must hear me and fear me’

Another positive effect of the grime scene’s focus shifting to the younger batch of MCs is that it’s forcing the veterans to step up their game for fear of getting left behind – or at least, inspiring them with their work rate. Roll Deep’s legendary Flowdan, who hadn’t released a twelve inch in years prior to this summer, has dropped two recent singles with The Bug, and Wiley’s Umbrella Volume 1 project has finally been completed. Chipmunk exclaims at this idea that ‘the older lot – they know that we’re powerful! Deep down they know; they’ve got experience on us, but when we’ve got experience, I seriously can’t see us not being on top’.

Griminal takes an almost activist stance on the matter; claiming that ‘a lot of the olders are shook of us’, and accusing older MCs of ‘some of the time trying to not bring through youngers. Some try to work with them so they don’t die out, but they know they’re going to die out.’ He does put forward his older brother Marcus Nasty’s name as someone who’s helped to bring younger artists through: ‘he obviously brought me and Little Nasty through, and helped Lightning too – and you’ve gotta give it to Wiley, he’s bringing a few through’.

So what does 2008 hold for the current cream of the crop? Chipmunk claims that ‘in 2008, people will know it’s not about going against Chipmunk’, and is aiming for a February release on his album. Little Dee’s looking to get some more shows in as well as getting the next two mixtapes out, and Griminal’s mixtape Not Just Bars should be out before the end of the year. He tells us that he ‘might drop another one, then I’ll drop the album either just after, or just before the second mixtape’, before letting us in on some news that might have old time grime fans salivating: ‘With N.A.S.T.Y Crew, the album is basically finished; we’re just waiting for that to get all printed up and we’re reading to go. N.A.S.T.Y. are really pushing us as individuals at the moment, but the album is here’.