Music / Styles A–Z / Rap and bass · 19 of 35
Grime
Grime emerged in London in the early 2000s out of UK garage, drawing on jungle, dancehall and hip-hop: rapid, syncopated breakbeats around 140 BPM, made for MCs.
- Where and when
- London, early 2000s
- Tempo
- Generally around 140 BPM
- Played on
- MC vocals, sequencer or DAW, square-wave bass
- Lesson
- Rap and bass →
What it is
Grime emerged in London in the early 2000s out of UK garage, drawing on jungle, dancehall and hip-hop. It runs on rapid, syncopated breakbeats around 140 BPM with an aggressive, jagged electronic sound, and is made for MCs.
For the producer. Early instrumentals were made on accessible software such as FruityLoops and cut to dubplate. The hallmarks, in the words of Fact magazine, are staccato strings, "eski" bleeps and square-wave bass.
The records that made it
From the lesson Rap and bass, where the sources are listed · links open a search
- EskimoWiley · Among the claimants to the first grime record.
- 2000CrimeDizzee Rascal · Among the claimants to the first grime record.
- Boy in da CornerDizzee Rascal · Won the 2003 Mercury Prize.
- 2004Pow!Lethal Bizzle · Grime's first UK Top 20 single.
Grime in this month’s records
New releases the press we read wrote about, tagged grime on MusicBrainz · updated with every build