Original Pirate Material

Dizzee Rascal wants to take Brit hip-hop underground.

by A.D. Amorosi

Neither the grime of garage-hop’s beats nor the density of its temple-splitting bass can stop Dizzee Rascal from his appointed rounds.

His mission? Like the chewy cockney texts of The Streets' Mike Skinner and the mighty sermons of Ms. Dynamite, rapper-producer Rascal's twisted linguistics and sharply angled music bring to the long-ignored Brit-hop scene an authenticity of language, accent and intent lost in the race to stay universal. For, unlike rock swiped from the Americas, English hip-hop and its offshoots have not benefited from any form of British refinement -- neither in its styles or its sales.

Remember the revolution that was supposed to happen in Roni Size's wake? Or Tricky?

The 19-year-old Rascal's take on the jungle garage-grime groove, found on his year-old debut Boy in da Corner (XL/Matador) is different. This toaster is -- to quote Haysi Fantayzee -- a slang teacher rapping harder and faster than most.

While eating words and slurping syllables particular to the Brit vernacular, the actorly Rascal manages a thousand voices and inflections on equally numerous stages of sonic assault. Like Michael Caine swallowing amber meth, Rascal gets haughty and pugnacious on "Fix Up, Look Sharp," moody and wretched on "Sittin' Here," frail and demitted on "Do It."

Mention acting to Rascal and he blithely tosses it off.

"If I create a bit of music and it sounds a certain way I'll try to match it vocally; add a bit of character to my delivery so it works through the wire," he says in an East Londoner patois thicker and faster than his beats. "Like an aaaactaaww, eeh?"

His past is as urban as London gets, an inner-city existence lived at "half the speed" of the fast-paced London but with twice the dirt and depression. "What can I say, mawn?"

Growing up with pirate radio gave Rascal raw access to the American culture of hip-hop and Jamaica's take on dancehall, as well as that of British jungle. But Rascal found his own countrymen caught in a web of mere imitation where hip-hop was concerned. That is, until he heard Mike Skinner.

"The only person to really say something in a British accent was The Streets," says Rascal of Skinner, whose cockney pub accents mixed with a Noel Coward-esque lyricism. Skinner's take was to give listeners an inside view on "our world," muses Rascal. Where other Brit-hoppers had tried, The Streets succeeded with an authentic personae equal parts up-Northerner and geezer.

"People took to that authenticity. My angle then, maybe, was to take that thing -- The Streets' thing, Ms. Dynamite's thing -- into the underground, into the pirate world." His is, as the title of his album suggests, a corner's perspective, a literal and figurative view from the street that allows him to see everything at all angles, dolefully and boastfully.

Unlike jungle MCs using the high-speed rush of Jamaican toasting to fuel their raps, the producer and rapper created what he calls a fusion of that, American hip-hop's low-slung musicality and the "eccentricity" of his heavy beats.

"Take "I Luv U,' he says. "It was really sparse-sounding and hard-hitting. But I made my lyrics fit. Other tunes have a better balance of music that fit and thought-provoking lyrics with an ever-changing set of sounds. I'm up for anything."

Rather than release an album for the garage-grime crowd, Rascal tweaked the expectancy of two-steppers with the futuristic tech-mechs of "Fix Up" and "Vexed" as well as the tactile, live vibe of "Do It."

"Wasn't going to be just "garage MC, garage MC'," states Rascal staunchly. "You can't associate me with any one sound."

The happy critical reaction he's had throughout Europe and the U.S. is overwhelming to him. He calls the Boy in da Corner's warm reception in the U.S. "brilliant, especially considering I'm from halfway around the woo-haaald." More importantly, "It sets me up -- sets listeners up -- for the next record." Already finished, the second CD promises to be larger, more freakishly freestyling and more surprising than his first.

Rascal is especially proud to be appreciated in what he thinks of as the land of milk, honey and hip-hop. "I know indie people and electro heads and drum 'n' bass fans like me. They react. I'm glad of all their hype. If not, I could just lay at home and listen to the record myself. It's good for that. But I'm strictly hiyp hawp. I'm how music should sound."

Dizzee Rascal performs Fri., July 2, 9 p.m., $15, Transit, 600 Spring Garden St., 800-594-8499.