"Let me see you move it, let me see you bop your head to the music, move your feet and legs to the music, all control, let me see you lose it- you wanna test it's fine by me, new era hit em with the new stylee, harem scarem, wear em tear em, I got the flows that are too grimey - You wanna test it's fine, fine, hit em with the new era line, line, I'm ticking like time, time, wanna explode like a mine, mine... let's go, on your marks get-set-go, I'm ahead now with the killer mic flow let's go, roll off to the next show, after the next show, then we get dough, we head home. If not then you best know. I'm always on the get-go. Chicks don't want to let go, heck no- I do what I like, so forgot those; I roll to the club in my own dress code. I slew on the mic and the girls get low, big up the north south and west codes. My name's Ears and I roll with the shanks..."

Essentials on Pirate Sessions play a new version of Headquarters- new MCs (inc Dynasty crew, J2K). Apparently it's called "HQ", it's around the 1hr 55m mark.

Perhaps I'm the only one in blogland to like Roll Deep's chart-orientated output. Certainly it's not exactly what you look for in their work, like bunging on a Hendrix CD and finding sweet Grant Green type jazzy guitar. Nevertheless it's quality poppy chart rap- in the best traditions of hip house, an absolute shotgun wedding of sample and rapping. The lyrics sound like they've been done in twenty minutes, which is of course the charm, the immediacy, as if they're picking up the mic at a cheesy disco. I was reading Richard Dyer on implied-authenticity in film, and some of the observations he makes there apply to this- textual details are markers placed there to suggest immediacy, authenticity, even if they're actually rigorously contrived. On The Avenuse, the nervous vocal tics "yo... eski!" sound improvised, even if they're not, and the vocals only come in after about a minute, as if they've bunged an old LP on and casually wandered over to the mic. Shake A Leg takes this imitation of authenticity even further- Wiley's lyrics, which are nothing short of genius, underline their impulsive nature in almost every line.

"Oi Dan, what you call this? why have you got me spitting on this / I don't usually spit on tracks like these / it's just a start I'm starting to like it / watch producers try and bite it, you like it don't fight it dance with your grandma / I'll be dancing with your auntie, I got my hands on her bum getting lively, SWITCH! / Then I move on to your girlfriend, me dancing with her, it's like hell, friend..."

First line it's like he's been dragged against his will to the mic; "it's just a start and I'm starting to like it" suggests he's just starting to take his bearings; then he's addressing other listeners, going through the same "what the fuck is this tune" response, telling them to just go with the flow. It's a "dance with your grandma" type tune, but almost instantly Wiley offers his own breed of dancing lessons, getting his hands on your Auntie's bum, and then repeating the same behaviour by "moving onto your girlfriend". At each line here it's like a new idea of the tune pops into Wiley's head, and he's putting it into action. His original unwillingness to get into the vocal booth is superseeded step by step by images of him getting in the groove with girl after nubile girl.

So yeah, chart-rap at it's best should have this kind of impulsiveness built into it. Because it's a shotgun wedding of beats and rhymes, a soft and hard combination, , the presence, the very idea of the rapper is as important as any deeper content of the lyrics. The mental images of Wiley's scepticism about the beat, then him literally shaking a leg, the all important physical sign that the tune works, is what proves that the lyrics complement the arguably cheesy beats.

Self-awareness is also important in making this genre work too (eg the self-reflexivity of "think I'm a yankee? no I'm a Londoner!"), and Roll Deep's chart rap numbers have this too- each rapper introduces themselves, preferably with stupid names ("skipper", "eski", "Jose Fernandez"). Of course you can't get away just with self-reflexivity and mock-improvisationness- as Richard Dyer argues, the trick is to have a density of these markers, separate but all working together to underpin notions of authenticity, impulsiveness and self-relflexivity in the track.

Listening to Ruff Squad on 1Xtra again. I initially missed how incredibly straightforward this stuff is- stripped down, leaden beats with rapping like they're reading the headlines, their breaths short and with composure. Ruff Squad are never ruffled. The urgency builds up slowly, through short verses between serveral MCs. All you get on top of the beats is insistent dabbed synths and arpeggios like nervous tics. Ruff Squad don't create flavours or colours, it's just density. It's is quite the opposite of the encoded flows and hardwired programming that we, as grime afficiados, have been going on about for a couple of years- instead it's basically street hip hop, but with the wackiness and sexuality replaced by muscularity.

Those people I've promised Ruff Squad things to- haven't forgotten you.

In both Shake A Leg and The Avenue, Roll Deep's Breeze gets refered to as "Skipper". Perhaps this means he's the brains behind the whole operation? Another reference you'll find in both tracks is Wiley bigging up brandy, obviously his choice beverage for mainstream raving. Let's hope they get on Top Of The Pops, all brandishing bottles of Hennessy.

Terror Danjah and DJ Q moving to Radio 1

eskibeat.co.uk is back up! One of the best grime sites on the web!

Listening to Foxy Brown's comeback tune, which rides a big sample of Jimi Hendrix's Foxy Lady, the thought occurs that mainstream hip hop's seductiveness is that of the sublime; that is, of something bigger than yourself. Strikes me as something different to the seductiveness of pop, which is enjoyable because it is lucid, accessible, immediate, functional. Mainstream hip hop has some of these qualities (it is often dead simple, as this track demonstrates) but it also has a quality of massive-ness, of reaching out to "the massive", with music that sounds like it could crush buildings.