What is grime?

Grime is an electronic genre developed in London during the early 2000s. The genre is was dubbed in 2017 the most significant music development out of the UK in decades, and is as powerful as Punk music once was.

Grime is, very simply, a fast energetic electronic genre with MC'ing, similar to Hip-Hop. The genre is typically produced around 130-140 BPM.

The start of grime goes back to 2002 when Youngstar and Wiley respectively released the instrumentals “Pulse X” and ‘Eskimo’. These were an evolution out of Grime’s forefather, UK Garage, but were cold, darker, harder to dance too and carried grimey basslines, reflecting a shift in UK Garage music at the time.

Wiley’s series of instrumentals echoing this ‘colder’, darker sound, lead him to be widely credited as the creator of the genre.

Grime’s first foray into the mainstream was in 2004, when Dizzee Rascal released Boy In Da Corner, now widely considered to be the best grime album of all time.

Pirate radios (illegal radio stations) and Clashing are both core parts of Grime’s culture – MC’s frequently go on radio and spit for an hour over random instrumentals. Both are ways for MC’s to prove themselves as MC’s.

By the 2010s, grime had become stagnant. Many MC’s had moved onto pop and had dropped grime completely. This changed unexpectedly in 2014 when Meridian Dan released “German Whip”. This turned out to be a complete hit, and blew grime right back into the mainstream, bringing on a new wave of MC’s and producers.

In 2015, Stormzy released “Shut Up”. With over 80 million views and counting, it became the most viewed grime video on YouTube. The year after, Skepta released his album, Konnichiwa, a significant release in this time period that ended up receiving international mainstream attention.

Grime is often considered a British only genre, but this is false. There is grime music released on every continent (except Antarctica), most notably in Japan, China, Russia and Australia.

Is Grime Hip-Hop? A Hip-Hop subgenre?

Grime is not Hip-Hop, nor is it a subgenre of hiphop. The roots of Grime are firmly within UK Garage, Jungle and Dancehall (including where it’s MC'ing and rapping comes from). UK Hip-Hop is it’s own genre. If you need an example, compare the beat on this UK Hip-Hop song to this grime song.

Note: Please DO NOT add grime tags unless you are actually familiar with the genre. Many people confuse it with UK rap/hiphop, road rap, UK Drill and Afroswing/AfroBashment etc – if you’re unsure feel free to ping @genius-uk or myself @Madbrad200 and I’ll give it a listen.