Grime

Born as a splinter cell from the U.K. garage scene — with nods to Dancehall, drum 'n' bass, hip-hop, and punk — grime wore its authenticity like a dirty love-bite from the start (in the early '00s) and thrived on an underground network of inner city pirate radio stations and record shops. The maverick genre's gate-crashing raid on the mainstream, led by Dizzee Rascal, the Streets, and Wiley, left us shaken, stirred, and mightily impressed . . . so get underway with MOBO's 2008 Best Newcomer Award-winner Chipmunk ("Who Are You") and Lady Sovereign, grimin' up the Cure on "So Human". Taz and Kano give it serious verbals, in Next Steps.

Dizzee Rascal collaborator Taz has been labelled the U.K. answer to Kanye West in some quarters, and has added fresh layers to grime with his semi-automatic syntax, his mix 'n' match eclecticism, and his artful dodging of pigeon-holes. His breakout single, "Can't Contain Me," convulses under an electrifying injection of imagination and MC skills. "Signs In Life" — with its thumpin' momentum and twisted chunks of orchestral sample — remains a standout on Kano's 2005 debut, Home Sweet Home, while Skinnyman sets a stark social snapshot over mellow piano runs on "Council Estate of Mind". No metronome in the world that can keep up with the likes of Durrty Goodz and Dot Rotten, as you'll hear in Deep Cuts.

Grime has raised the game not just for British hip-hop, but also for quality pop right across the board. Propelled by the DIY immediacy of punk, and boasting a mixed bag of influences stretching from Jamaican Dancehall to electronica, grime unites the local and the universal to stunning effect. Here, in grime's hard-core back streets, we find Durrty Goodz offering staunch backup for Terror Danjah ("Reloadz") and Starkey ("Gutter Music"), and taking centre stage on the syllable-storm "Take Back the Scene (Coki)", as well as Dot Rotten, spitting out words-per-minute like a garden sprinkler on "My Guys".

Grime — a.k.a. 8 bar, sub-low, eski etc. — is fiercely British: a frenetically paced, multi-cultural street movement that toadies to no industry standard, shuns the lexicon of American hip-hop while retaining its core power, and lives by its own codes. As a document of urban and scuffed-up suburban life, grime is as real as it gets, holding up a mirror to society that shows the zits, the warts and the cheeky, gap-toothed grin. It should also be noted that, since its emergence in the early '00s, grime has evolved, and occasionally sticks its grubby fingers into the mainstream pie (hence the ascent of a crossover superstar like Tinchy Stryder), but it works best when it's in-yer-face, uncompromising, and downright nasty. This wide-ranging grime overview will bring you bang up to speed.