Is the current crop of Urban #1′s just a fad?
Written by Sarah Young

As a DJ, the top 10 chart is not somewhere I generally look for set inspiration. In fact, anything remotely commercial or featuring the slightest hint of top 10 hype, I try to avoid like the plague. However, during the last year I think anyone with even a passing interest in music, will have noticed a dramatic change.

In previous years where girl bands, boy bands, reality TV stars, preened and pampered pop princesses and Disney channel tween sensations have dominated the commercial market; we are now seeing underground artists MCs and crews such as Tinie Tempah, Dizzee Rascal, Tinchy Stryder, Chipmunk and Roll Deep actually enter the charts with number 1s.

If the UK urban music scene wasn’t surprised enough that Tinie (who in commercial terms was relatively unknown) went straight to number 1 with ‘Pass Out’, imagine the industry’s reaction when Roll Deep, charted not long after with yet another number 1!

To put this in perspective, Roll Deep – an underground grime crew consisting of DJs, producers and MCs founded in 2002 by Wiley – is and always has been well respected and regarded by the industry and underground music heads alike. Having struggled and often narrowly missed reaching the UK top 10, to the wider, international and commercial audience, they were also altogether unknown. But with their new single ‘Good Times’ not only reaching number 1 in the UK’s Official chart but also number 1 in UK dance charts and number 7 in the European chart; what changed? The artists, the market or the music?

Roll Deep once said in an interview that they were strictly a Grime collective and here we have a number 1 non-grime, dance track?! Shunning all music snobbishness, the track itself has a lot of value within the genre, but will it be possible for a now technically mainstream crew like Roll Deep to go back to their old skool material and reach number 1 with a true Grime or underground track? It would be interesting to know whether original Roll Deep fans bought into their recent single.

Recently over a Nandos, I got talking to one of the Godfathers of the Grime scene, Jammer, who commented:

“The odd thing is that young kids nowadays class Dizzee, Chipmunk, and Tinchy in the same category because they see them all simultaneously in the charts, but what these younger commercial audiences don’t realise is that MCs like Chipmunk grew up listening to Dizzee, and that the music they are making now is totally different to the music they made that catapulted them into the industry.”

So in that case with organically developed artists like Dizzee celebrating another #1 today with ‘Dirtee Disco’ (who as he owns his own independent label it is safe to say he isn’t controlled preened and pampered by a faceless A&R machine) is it essential to appreciate and understand where they have come from and where they are now to enjoy their contemporary material? Jammer didn’t think so:

“I think the Dizzee , Tinchy and Chipmunk fans are NEW fans, they are the sort that listen to dance music. Trust that the majority of them buying their new chart topping stuff are not the original [Grime] fans.”

So, in essence, these new waves of commercial fans aren’t necessarily interested in the history or past material of these previous underground artists. Their interest lies rather in the contemporary cross-genre collaborative tracks and singles. Basically they are jumping on the hype, right? Jammer agreed:

“Yes, I think there is a lot of media buzz around UK urban music right now. The press are saying we are finally getting ‘our time’, but the reality is, we have been around for time, it’s just the music has developed and changed and now certain MCs are in the top 10.”

UK artists, specifically urban artists, obviously realised in recent years that in order to even qualify for the top 10, it was essential to change and adapt the structure and sound of their music and together with collaborations with Dance producers and commercial/popular vocalists, this would prove a successful recipe for chart success. Regardless of what music nerds think about the artistic integrity (or lack of) within the act of music adaptation, this is after all ‘ the music business’, and in order to make a business work, in the end you have got to look at what the clients want.

As a DJ and a music lover it is very easy to look down on the top 10 charts, and disregard it as commercial or pop rubbish. However, looking back at music trends in the top 10 charts in the past 10 years, there has been noticeable progress in terms of the presence of UK and international urban music.

10 years ago in 2000, the chart was dominated by Rock, Pop and Dance tracks. In fact, around the 15th May, 2000, the number 1 was Madison Avenue’s ‘Don’t Call Me Baby’ and Britney Spears held her position at number 2, whilst other dance artists like Armand Van Helden and rock bands such as Iron Maiden charted pretty close. Fast forward four years, and there were two UK urban artists chart in very respectable positions: Wiley at Number 2 and Estelle at Number 6. Instead of just Dance, Pop or Rock, we also see artists like will.i.am, Usher, Flo Rida and Chris Brown begin to dominate with R&B and HipHop.

In July 2007, the industry saw something pretty spectacular, our own Dizzee Rascal entered the charts with Dance Wiv Me’ and go straight to number 1. Since this major mile stone in 2008 we have seen the UK top 10 literally saturated with UK urban artists such as: Roll Deep, Aggro Santos, Tinchy Stryder, Plan B, Taio Cruz, Chipmunk and Professor Green and whether these Urban artists are making music true to their roots or not, you cannot ignore the fact that once an artist is in the top 10 they pretty much have a heightened level of industry power and musical authority.

Recently for an MTV interview I got talking to Ironik (who let’s face it, isn’t exactly critically acclaimed!) but after all his mainstream success he has now recently teamed up with artists such as Skepta and is currently making some brand new, more underground music. This new material with edgy production and interesting lyrical content sounds a whole lot more organic. So, is Ironik able now to use his fame and chart success to push his music of choice? As Jammer put it:

“Successful urban artists like Dizzee Rascal generally start off with the music they want to make, then they start making music that a lot of people want to hear, then once they have that power they can go back to making their music. They go full circle.”

The future for UK Urban music in the top 10 is down to the consumer. Urban music can only continue to chart if it is continued to be downloaded or bought legally. If it isn’t, then it won’t. After all, the top 10 is based purely on sales.