The year 2003 will mostly be remembered as a watershed moment for Black British music. For those unaware, it was the year when a 19 year old Dizzee Rascal picked up the coveted Mercury Prize for his seminal album Boy In Da Corner, pipping the likes of Radiohead and Coldplay to the post. The grimey sounds emanating from the inner city had mostly remained hyperlocal up until that point, only carrying as far as pirate radio signals would allow. Dizzee’s triumph tore open a portal to another musical dimension for large swathes of the British public that had never heard anything like Dizzee’s distinctive drawl and his otherworldly sonics. The album of course received rave reviews across the British and American press, and Dizzee Rascal was heralded as one of the pioneers of the most exciting sounds ever cultivated on British soil in decades.
In today’s world, where we seem to be obsessed with numbers and statistical achievements, its important to note that Boy In Da Corner was actually Dizzee Rascal’s lowest charting album, only peaking at number 23. Cultural impact, and importance are often difficult to quantify, and it certainly proves that numerical feats and big numbers are much less meaningful than we’ve been giving them credit for. Not too dissimilar from stateside smash Illmatic, Boy In Da Corner has come to represent an epoch, and will be studied as a historical text for anyone who wants to understand what was going on culturally and politically at the time.
At least half of the album was recorded before Dizzee Rascal was even signed, and tracks like “I Luv U” had already been doing the rounds on pirate radio stations across the capital; the album was actually poised to be released independently before XL Recordings picked up on the vibrations. After signing, Dizzee and Cage (his then manager and engineer) had two weeks to finish the album and prepare the album for release. Today marks the 20th anniversary of that iconic release, which has since gone on to achieve mythological status, and is a piece of art that will be continue to celebrated until the end of time. To honour this historic moment, Dizzee has released a deluxe version of Boy In Da Corner, which contains rarities (including the first track he ever recorded aged 16), and six legendary Dizzee Rascal produced instrumentals. Real Grime heads would of definitely heard most, if not all of these before, but its great for them to be finally getting an official release. It’s only right that we sat down with Dizzee Rascal to talk us through each of these newly released tracks, to find out the stories behind each of them and the process he went through to compile them.
“Vexed”
“If I remember yeah, I don’t think I got it ready in time for the UK release, and the American one came out after so it ended up going on the back of that, It was meant to be apart of the original release.
“A lot of these were just made in one studio, I would of had a bunch of different modules and bits and bobs. Basically it would of been all spread across the keyboard and I would of just made the beat. Its so long ago, I don’t even remember even writing or recording it, its so bad. I don’t remember the actual day or anything like that. If I’m honest I wish it would of been one of the days where we recorded the sessions, but we were just so locked in, it wasn’t a thing that man did, I just got on with it.”
“I Luv U Remix” Feat Wiley & Sharky Major
How did you decide on who to get on the remix?
“At that time, Wiley & Sharky were probably the two closest people to me. I wasn’t officially in Nasty Crew, but I was around them first before I got will Roll Deep. Even if I hadn’t been tight with them at the time, it was just about who I thought was lyrically very good. When it came to writing on topic for a song, I knew that Sharky could do that, he’d bring a certain style, and obviously its Wiley init.”
“Street Fighter“
“So I sampled the game, made a beat out of it and put those bars on it, just tried to have fun with it. But I can’t remember if we even bothered trying to go to Capcom (to get it cleared), cause remember this is 2002? I made that in 2002, and Street Fighter was firing off them times, you know what I mean? I was up coming, I don’t even think I was signed to XL by the time I’d made it.
“Remember “I Luv U”, “Street Fighter”, a lot of those beats I wasn’t even signed yet. So yeah we definitely weren’t trying to go to Capcom, I wouldn’t of even known how to try and do that. Either we didn’t bother, or someone went to them and it was sounding like too much money, or they just wouldn’t clear it. I cant think of anyone else at the time who sampled Street Fighter in a rap song.”
“Give U More” Feat D Double E
“That beat would of been another beat that I made around the same time as “I Luv U”, not the song, just the beat. So I had the beat for a little bit before I actually wrote to it, so that was just one my early beats that was just kicking about and people just loved it. So when it came to vocalling it, Double just had that massive hook, and I thought wouldn’t it be wicked to have that on the chorus and have Double on the hook.
“By this time, I was doing bigger festivals and bigger shows, so I just wanted something that would be anthemic. And where I didn’t have Double on my first album, I knew I had to have him this one. Because it actually came out as a B side on Showtime.”
“Win” Feat Breeze
“I made that around the time that I made “We Aint Having it”. So obviously we were all kicking about as Roll Deep, and Breeze is another lyrical guy and someone who can write on topic and it was a bit of a deeper subject, it wasn’t something that was gonna buss up the dance or nuthing like that. Again, it didn’t make it on Boy in the Da Corner, cause it would of just been too many songs.”
“We Aint Having It” Feat Wiley
“Its another one of me and Wiley, and I already had “2 Far”, and I just went with “2 Far” in the end. At the time I felt that that one was the more catchier up beat one. That one I remember actually making that beat, that was fun, I enjoyed making that. That’s why I got with the whole fitness instructor thing, I was just messing about with the voice effects, that was really fun. So basically I’d make these tunes yeah, put these ideas down, and then call whoever I thought would be good on it. I’d call them after I’d recorded, thinking ah who could I get on this? I still do that now! But back then that’s what I was on, and it was always a privilege ah if I get Wiley on this, this will be crazy.
“Most of the songs I’m on with Wiley, were on my beats, so to have the best MCs on my beats meant a lot. And even to have the best MCs on my beats on radio, that’s what all those things were for, the instrumentals that are coming out now, I made them for radio. See like “Ho”, I made that for Young Man Standing. Young man standing was coming up, and I wanted something that was gonna go mad in the dance, and I thought yeah this will be sick man, and I got the gun noises from the 2pac and Bone thugs song, so that’s what that is. So it changed, and obviously its influenced by Pulse X, with the 8 bar thing, but I just wanted to make something darker.”
“Kryme” Feat Redrum, Sharky Major
“Them times, that was before Roll Deep. But still Wiley introduced me to Danny C, that time I was working over at Danny C’s studio and that’s how made the beat and recored the song. I must of got some Jungle baseline, different drums (I think that might of been on Danny C’s sampler), but then I got Three Six Mafia, “Crunchy Black”. But then I’ve come to find out, that I actually sampled it from another song, that sampled that song, but it was still a Three Six Mafia song. So that got confusing a few weeks ago.
“But there was two, there was this one, and “Boi Dem About”, which I made within the same couple of weeks. That would of made it onto the deluxe as well, but I couldn’t find a good enough version of it. A lot of this stuff I’ve had to try and find it you know 20 years later. The mad thing with “Kryme”, I think one of my old old friends from my estate Ricky, he had it on MiniDisk, he had that and “Ready For War”. When I made those beats, remember this was before Boy In Da Corner, before I luv U, before all of that. I was taking this stuff and giving it to whoever I knew who DJ’ed, and just telling people to listen to it.
“Remember I wasn’t no Big Dizzee Rascal or even known, I was just starting to MC, I might of even still been DJing. So he was one of the few people who had it, he held onto it, and I just bumped into him at the fair in Brighton a little while ago, and he come up to me and he said I’ve still got “Ready For War”, and I’m sure he gave me “Kryme” as well, I can’t exactly remember where I got “Kryme” from, I know “Kryme” was on one of the tapes, its all confusing me, its all been a blur the last few months trying to round everything up.”
“Ready 4 War” Feat Sharky Major, Armour, Stormin
“You know what, if I’m being honest yeah, this is the first time I’ve said it – but when it came to music, I actually learnt music in my school before my last school. I went to a school Called St Pauls Way, before I got kicked out and went to Langdon Park which is the school that everyone knows me for. When it came to actually learning music, I did the learning in St Pauls Way, they tried to teach me the music theory and learning to read music and I couldn’t do it, but they sat me in front of the computer one day, and showed me how to use Cubase and for some reason I just took to it, and from then I just started making beats.
“So by the time I got to Langdon Park, I already knew what I was doing. I was limited cause I was just dealing with Cubase sounds, but either way I still made “Ready 4 War” on that computer there and then went into another studio in Poplar, its the Poplar Swimming Baths now, but there used to be a studio up there. And so Wiley took me there and I recorded the vocals there, and then just held onto it and then I brought Sharky, Stormin and Armour cause we had our little crew YGS, which ended up going into Nasty crew.
“I think Marcus and Mak10 they were the first people I gave that tune to, that was the first song I ever recorded. Its mad even listening to myself, the way I’m going on screaming and shouting, its funny listening back to it. I remember I used to go round and give out tapes, and I gave the tape to Wiley, I gave one to Target, I remember going on the bus and giving it out.
“The link there is good, cause Wiley took me over to the studio with Danny C, where I made “Kryme” and all of that, but then I took Kano to Danny C’s studio. Cause he’d done a demo of “Boys Love Girls”, and I said to him I know this studio you can make it sound wicked, bigger and better, and then that’s when he produced it and eventually put it out. So its good, cause everyone was all tied in, Wiley showed me that place, then I showed Kano that place. Its good for people to know that the mandem were all linked.”
How did you decide what tracks were gonna make the cut for the deluxe?
“Well, from like the instrumentals it was a no brainer, I just thought that would be really cool to include for people. Bruv, I would of just put everything on there personally, but like I was saying, for whatever reason we couldn’t locate them, or we couldn’t find good enough quality versions of them. Like “Stretch” with Doogz, I forgot about that for a sec, there was a long list of shit. But some stuff, just couldn’t be found. The thing is there will be people out there, like DJs who got the original version of these dubs, I never kept stuff, I wish I had more of my own shit from back then. I was just so in the zone that I wasn’t paying attention, I’ve literally only got one white label of “I Luv U” thats it!
“There was another version of “I Luv U”, the one on the album isn’t the original version, what happened was, when I spoke to Cage, when I was trying round all this stuff up yeah, was the the original computer the hard drive broke or corrupted or something, so I wasn’t able to get all that old stuff.”
What’s next?
“I got a lot of new music, I been on the buttons and I been enjoying it. I’ve been working with some of the younger producers that are making all the stuff that’s good right now, finding a nice medium. There’s a few people on this project that I got coming out that you wouldn’t expect.”