Dizzee Rascal

Paul, Erik and I join an all-white audience to see Dizzie Rascal at the Shepard's Bush Empire last night. It's an intense show that gets people moving and pointing in unison to the beats - Dizzie raps and high-fives the adoring front row. His pants are baggy and crotch at the knees; his kicks are new and his confidence huge. I first became aware of him several years ago while driving HW 101 in California when he was profiled on the BBC World Radio. As for the musician, Dylan Mills was born in 1985 and grew up in London's East End in the South Bow council estate. As a teenager, he was detained for stealing cars and robbing a pizza deliveryman, and expelled from four secondary schools. A sympathetic music teacher introduced him to music production on a school computer. And the rest, as they say, is history. Dizzie Rascal began MCing on pirate radio and at raves at fifteen, but since his mainstream success he has distanced himself from the fledgling scene. He used to be a member of the Roll Deep crew, until a conflict with former friend Wiley, another rapper.

His music is an eclectic mixture of garage and hip-hop beats with broad influences, ranging from metal guitars to found sounds, drill and bass synth lines, eclectic samples and even Japanese court music. His vocal performance is also distinctive, he uses a fast style of rapping which blends elements from garage MCing, conventional rap, grime and ragga. It is fresh. Photo from Matador Records.

"You could be a dappa you could be a don but i dont watch your face i dont care where your from"
Dizzee Rascal