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Album Review
by SashaS
6-9-2004
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| Dizzee Rascal: second step... sideways |
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Dizzee Rascal: 'Showtime'
(XL Recordings)
Dizzee Rascal - a lone force from Bow
Dizzee Rascal, the reigning Mercury Prize winner, timed the release of his second album, ‘Showtime’, carefully - just over a year after his remarkable debut ‘Boy In Da Corner’ that secured him that surprising win with only days before the new Mercury Music Prizist gets the nod and the dosh. Dizzee [Dylan Mills on his birth cert] bounced back from a knife attack in Ayia Napa to victory last year.
The life inbetween two discs of the teenage rapper included supporting Jay-Z, guested on a Basement Jaxx track [in truth - recorded a while before his MMR Award], jammed with N*E*R*D and played the Prince’s Trust Urban Music Festival. How has all these impacted him? Certainly not by softening his hardcore edge and blunting his attitudes.
The new album still doesn’t fit any particular genre - garage, grime, Hip-hop or anything else - but it meshes it all together into an alien mix that is impressively individual and relentless on attention. The record certainly sounds more expansive and more produced: one can almost hear that more time [and money] was invested in home-production but no concessions to down-mixing his music for greater [and easier] chart action.
Dizzee’s world is still populated by his past - back to gangsta roots of ‘Dylan The Villain’ - scenes of street life, his ‘hood of Bow, an apocalyptic present of knives and guns showdowns: this ‘Showtime’ is not the showbiz kind of Eminem but reality-hopefully-fictionalised. He addresses his own plights often and ‘Hype Talk’ is about the perils of fame. The most curious track here is ‘Dream’ - reworking of ‘Happy Talk’, a Hollywood standard that Captain Sensible took to the top of the charts over a dozen year ago - that reflects Jay-Z’s ‘Hard Knock Life’.
‘Showtime’ is far from mainstream and many will find it abrasive in some parts with tracks like ‘Face’ and ‘Graftin’’ coming at F1 speed that feel like lyrical slaps. Although not a perfect album, it certainly is steps ahead of the GB pack. Albeit, these may not be forward but sideway steps.
Whilst the rest of the pop world is heading down the memory cul-de-sac, everyone should remember that a road to the future is not guided by team players or creative committees. The overall feeling of ‘Showime’ is that, if Dizzee had bothered to drop the ceedee before the MMP‘s deadline, it would have received a nomination reprise. And, rightly so, again.
8/10
SashaS
6-9-2004
Dizzee Rascal’s album ‘Showtime’ is released on 06 September 2004 by XL Recordings
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