Pearsall's Tunes

So the Roll Deep album 'In At The Deep End' is dropping on May 30th, which is just over three weeks away. They were originally supposed to be releasing an album last year ('Rollin Deeper') but that got leaked and bootlegged mercilessly, and so they went back in the studio to redo it.

Some of you may be asking who Roll Deep are. Understandable. They are, bar none, the biggest crew in the entire grime scene (if you don't know what grime is, cos you've just dropped by, have a look at Jess Harvell's excellent primer for Pitchfork, although I'm actually going to be writing my own primer for Riddim.ca when we relaunch the site). Dizzee Rascal was a member for a while when he was younger, but he left after his album launched him into the stratosphere. Despite losing him Roll Deep, led by the grime overlord Wiley, have only consolidated their status as the dons of the scene. Their album should be a major event. Or maybe it will flop. Either way I'm excited about it.

Anyways, there'll be plenty more biographical stuff on them in the British press over the coming weeks, so I don't really need to get into that stuff at the moment. But if you want to get started, check out Sean Downes' introduction to (some of) the mc's at Government Names. On with the mp3's!

Trim - The Lowdown - Trim (aka Taliban Trim, Trimothy, Trimble, etc) emerged last year and instantly blew up the scene. Coming seemingly from nowhere (well, prison) he joined Roll Deep and started smashing up radio and raves with his unique voice and flow. For me, he's the best mc in grime. This tune is a collection of his various slewings over the 'Fire Hydrant' riddim, tearing into Stormin, Cell 22 and Major Ace. Too much.

Roll Deep - No More - This is from the leaked version of the Roll Deep album and hasn't made it on to the actual release version. A lot of people have bitched about Roll Deep doing slower, less grimey stuff, and sometimes it's been a fair criticism, but this is a lovely tune, with Wiley, Breeze and Brazen speaking sense over a rather lovely track. Yeah, I grabbed this off Soulseek. Why lie?

Scratchy - Freestyle - This is off Creeper Vol. 1, which hasn't come out yet. Again, Soulseek. Here is Scratchy riding one of Wiley's beats. Not sure what beat this is. Scratchy's a dude.

Da Cream - Moving (DJ Target Remix) - This isn't Roll Deep, but I'm posting it because it's a classic Target beat. Target is one of Roll Deep's three main producers (along with Danny Weed and Wiley) and over the last six months or so him and Danny Weed have been perfecting this odd accordion-flecked Gypsybot style of grime. This particular tune is a rip from a BBC 1xtra show, and is a forthcoming single to raise funds for tsunami relief, featuring a stack of different London mc's and one of the girls from Mis'Teeq. Massive beat.

Wiley interview - Luca sent me this a while back, and I'm posting it because it's pretty amusing. It's a phone interview with Wiley from Rinse FM where he's having a go at various people.

DJ Garna - Sword Stylee (feat. Manga & Krafty) - This is a tune I ripped out of a Manic FM radio set that I grabbed off the RWD forum last week. Manga is one of the new boys in Roll Deep and he has a totally unique skippy flow. This is just him and someone named Krafty over one of DJ Garna's productions. This is a seriously seriously big tune. I love darkside bass monsters like this. It's like a slow version of one of the No U-Turn tunes that blew my mind apart when I was 16. *swoon*

You might also want to check out the video for 'When I'm Ere' (real media).

Also, Christ, grime stores need to step up their game. I was thinking of ordering four mixtapes from UKRecordShop.com and when I got to the checkout I found out that postage would be 15 pounds!!!! For four cd's!!!! That's completely ridiculous. When I lived in Britain I'd often sell records overseas and usually 4 records to the US would cost about 7-8 pounds. 4 cd's would be even less. If these people want to grow their business internationally they need to actually charge sane postage rates for their products and not try to gouge the fuck out of people. Look at Juno and Chemical, they do huge business internationally by charging reasonable postage rates and plus they don't charge VAT for non-EU buyers. Sorry, needed to get that off my chest.