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Posted by Robert
Rap News Network
2/10/2004 11:15:44 AM
F or the average North American, interviewing British rapper Dizzee Rascal, born Dylan Mills, is a daunting task.
Rascal, who won the 2003 edition of the prestigious Mercury Prize before his 19th birthday, speaks in a mixture of Coronation-Street-style working class British slang and Jamaican patois peculiar to the East London streets where he grew up. If you listen carefully, however, you will be able to hear enough to understand that the MC and producer is all about business.
Unlike British acts of previous generations, Rascal does not flatten out his accent on record. He rhymes in the same vernacular in which he speaks. While this has caused him to garner some mixed reviews in the North American hip hop community, Rascal says it is just a matter of time before people on this side of the Atlantic grow to love his style.
"Everything that's been around [in hip hop] for the past couple of years has been very generic. It hasn't really looked like it's been going in any direction, except for a couple people; the Neptunes, Timbaland ... Jay-Z and that. They've been taking it forward, but there hasn't been too much," says Rascal. "I'm just coming with something completely different. I haven't done the clichéd thing. I think North America will take it for what it is, something that's fresh, something that's new."
Rascal understands that his status as a British rapper makes him somewhat of an oddity, but sees himself as a potential groundbreaker for U.K.-based MCs in North America, rather than as a put-upon victim of the record industry.
"They're ain't really been ... any major successes from the U.K., except for rock things like the Beatles and punk and that," says Rascal. "The only person I can think of [who is a British rapper that is recognized in North America] is the Streets, who's an original from our perspective. We sort of have [British-born, American-raised] Slick Rick, but we don't really sound like we're from the same place."
While Dizzee Rascal has attracted a lot of attention for his garage-influenced, scattershot rhyme style, his sometimes-jarring digitial beats have also received a fair bit of notice. According to Rascal, his production style is a result of trying to make beats based around the sounds he hears every day.
"If you're going through wherever, any sound you hear, you try and make a beat out of it. It's a challenge. Sometimes it will sound off key, but if it catches, then you've won already," says Rascal. "Music is all about creativity, innovation and imagination. People limit themselves when they try and do one set thing. Sometimes it's best to just go with the flow. If you've got a vibe and you think it'll make something and you think it'll work, then just go with it."
Rascal's desire to be diverse has led him to include more rock sounds than the average hip hop producer, something he credits to being unafraid of being different.
"They're all just music styles that I haven't been afraid to listen to and get into and try to understand and love. I've been really open about music for the majority of my life," says Rascal. "I've listened to Nirvana and Korn and Sepultura as well as 2Pac and Jay-Z and whatever else. When it comes to making music, everything is just there subliminally ... all these things are just broken down sections of music overall. In the scheme of things, that's all that genres are."
While Rascal is best known at home for his skill with beats and rhymes, that was not the case early last year. Shortly before his debut album was released in the U.K. in the spring of 2003, Rascal was attacked in the Cypriot resort town of Aiya Napa.
"I got stabbed five times," says the surprisingly casual Rascal.
While the attack in Aiya Napa was the most severe incident of violence Rascal had ever faced, he admits that he was no stranger to violence before the attack.
"I've been in them ki
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