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The best UK Hip-Hop album of late?

B

Bill G

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Jan 2, 2003
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The UK scene is still growing, but we already seem to have Lewis Parker resembling a British Nas and production wise his 1998 release raised the bar like a mordern day Chronic or even a 36 Chambers. He has an album every other is compared to, so for the sake of fairness I want everyone to forget about him.

Skinnyman's 'Council Estate Of Mind' is a personal favourite of mine, the production was very nice and Skinnyman rhymed about things very close to home.

Skinnyman
Council Estate of Mind (2004)

1. Intro
2. Fuck The Hook
3. Hayden
4. Little Man (Part 1)
5. Little Man (Part 2)
6. Love's Gone From The Streets
7. Day To Day Basis
8. Life In My Rhymes
9. It's Over
10. I'll Be Surprised
11. Who? Me
12. No Big Ting
13. Put In The Work
14. That's What I'm Gonna Do
15. Council Estate of Mind

Skinnyman is one of the originals from the UK hip hop scene. It has been a travesty that he hasn’t been in a situation to receive mass recognition already. But like all good things we finally have ‘Council Estate of Mind’ released on Low Life Records.

This album is genuine hip hop and Skinnyman is one the UK’s best MC’s. Originally from Leeds but moved to London from a young age his commentary is about social issues from a working class perspective. His lyrics are excellent and delivered to precision. Skinnyman has always been known to be a good freestyler and this shows on this record. There’s real maturity to style, his conviction is genuine and his rhyme play is superb. Throughout this album we have sampled commentary about issues of correction for delinquents. This is quite unique and thought provoking and uniquely British. 'Fuck The Hook’ opens the music for the album and this is as big as it gets, UK or American. The hook is solid, powerfully rhythmical and Skinnyman delivers with serious energy and nice rhymes. There’s all sorts going on in this album. From the smooth style of ‘Love’s Gone From The Streets’ to the punchy ‘No Big Ting’, or the classy ‘I’ll Be Surprised’. This goes to show that Skinnyman has skills to move in all manner of hip hop styles and it all works.

‘Council Estate of Mind’ is a classic album. There’s real depth, genuine thought and quality hip hop here. It’s the kind of album you can keep listening to over and over again and it’s this kind of genuine music that will have mass appeal to all music lovers.

http://www.lowliferecords.co.uk
 
Roots Manuva - Awfully Deep

Brief Biography

Rodney Smith was born and grew up in Stockwell, South London. His parents both came from a small village in Jamaica called Banana Hole. His father was a lay preacher and tailor, a combination which goes some way to explaining the son’s preoccupation with the soul and the stitching, or as he puts it, describing his new album, “the internal/external struggle.” His family weren’t exactly rolling in money (hence his mother’s use of the term “brand new second hand” to characterise the occasional pre-used present), but they were strict, as befits members of the Pentecostal Church. Music was never meant to be the chief inspiration in young Rodney’s life, but the soundsystem in the park that day moved his spirit in mysterious ways.

Many tapes were collected in secret, much study was made of deejays like Eek-A-Mouse and Asher Senator. But it was only when Smith heard hip hop and, in particular, the incomparable Rakim, that he realised that his voice could be used for more than toasting, that it was an expressive tool limited only by his imagination. It’s tempting to see the combination as some sort of cold fusion, a nuclear mushroom cloud forming from the realisation. But opportunities for Black British musicians in the nineties were few and far between. Hard work and commitment were the only way forward.

Smith made his recorded debut in 1994 as part of IQ Procedure through Suburban Base’s short-lived hip hop imprint Bluntly Speaking Vinyl. He debuted as Roots Manuva the same year on Blak Twang’s “Queen’s Head” single, before releasing his own single, “Next Type of Motion” the following year through the same label, the hugely influential Sound of Money. 1996 saw the release of his collaborations with Skitz (“Where My Mind Is At”/”Blessed Be the Manner”) on 23 Skidoo’s Ronin label. The release of “Feva” on Tony Vegas’s Wayward imprint followed in 1997. This was also the year that saw the first releases from Big Dada, a collaboration between Coldcut’s Ninja Tune label and hip hop journalist Will Ashon. Ashon had tipped Smith as the “Most Likely To…” back in ’95 and soon came knocking asking for a single. Roots replied that he was tired of making one-off singles and would only sign to do an album. In 1998 he joined the label and the following year released his fiercesome debut, “Brand New Second Hand”. From an initial 3000 records put into the shops “BNSH” has now sold over 50,000 copies in the UK. It also made the first dents in the wall of complacency and indifference which has often greeted home-grown Black music in this country, with The Times declaring that “his is the voice of urban Britain, encompassing dub, ragga, funk and hip hop as it sweeps from crumbling street corners to ganja-filled dancehalls, setting gritty narratives against all manner of warped beats.” Manuva was rewarded for his breakthrough with a MOBO as Best Hip Hop Act that year. As if to demonstrate the broad appeal of his style, he also featured on Leftfield’s “Dusted” from their “Rhythm & Stealth” album.

Big things were now expected of Smith and he delivered with 2001’s “Run Come Save Me,” the record which gained him a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize and which has currently sold just short of 100,000 copies in the UK. More importantly, it spawned the all-time classic “Witness” (voted the greatest UK hip hop tune of all time by the readers of Hip Hop Connection) on an album that ran from the broad, swaggering pop of “Dreamy Days” to the dark, odd meditation of “Evil Rabbit.” It is also the record which led the Guardian newspaper, in October 2003, to proclaim Manuva fifth in their “40 Best Bands In Britain” feature, proclaiming that “his influence is incalculable and he opened the doors for the Streets, Dizzee Rascal et al.”

But the process of the promoting the record and the pressures of recording it left Mr Manuva feeling battered and bruised, which goes some way to explaining the long gap until his new album, “Awfully Deep”. “I had to do a lot of recording to get back into the boogie. Cos I kinda stopped for a little while. I kinda fell out of love with the whole studio environment. I just wanted to create. Just make endless ditties that go nowhere. Just make music for the sake of it. Have fun.” But slowly, slowly, he inched his way back into it, giving himself the room and time to make mistakes. And to recognise them as mistakes. “It hurt a lot more, making this record. It was really painful. A lot more intense. I had a lot of rope and I strangled myself a few times!”

Despite the temptation to step back from production, this is probably the most completely Roots-produced album of his career. While he worked with a number of like-minded conspirators (Steve Dub, who engineered and produced; the Easy Access Orchestra who wrote, produced and played musical layers; long time cohort Lotek who produced and dropped a verse on “Move Ya Loin”; and fellow Big Dada stalwart Blackitude, who supplies the “Babylon Medicine”), none of these were a case of taking a beat and rapping on it, but were instead genuine collaborations that have the Manuva thumbprint all over them. Smith is too aware of the importance of music to leave it to other people: “It’s not just the lyrics that speak. It’s the tone and the mood of the groove that speaks as well.”

Asked to explain the title of his new record he offers that “it’s me and my fascination with the deeper, darker sonic resonance and sentiments. Dark shapes and sonic pictures. I’m just an awfully deep kind of guy.” It’s his most crafted, most accomplished album, an improvement that he attributes to relaxing and ceasing to worry about creating radio tunes or club tunes or whatever and also ceasing to worry about about not creating them. Instead, he’s now found a way to close the gap between making ditties on his laptop for fun and making truly great music for the world at large. And at the end of the day it was as simple as ceasing to care how he comes across, remembering those “dodgy-looking blokes” in Stockwell skate park. “I’m more relaxed now. I’m like the pianist playing in the restaurant that just loves his piano and likes playing his music. Regardless of whether people are listening or not. He’s just doing his thing. He’s just making love to his piano. I’m not trying to make love to my computer or the mixing board. But there’s a love affair going on.”



Awfully Deep
At last the wait is over. 'Awfully Deep' hits the shops today, available, as you'd expect, on CD and double vinyl. However, look out for the limted edition CD. It will probably cost you about a quid more, but you get an extra CD, the Noodle Pack, which contains live, hidden and demo exclusives. Included is a truly stunning "live in the studio" version of "Chin High" and the original laptop ditty that became "Too Cold". So go pick up those chopsticks and get stuck in. Be warned - what's in the shops is all there is, so if you want it, get it quick!

CD Album:
Tracklistings:
Disc: 1
1. Mind 2 Motion
2. Awfully Deep
3. Cause 4 Pause
4. Colossal Insight
5. Too Cold
6. A Haunting
7. Rebel Heart
8. Chin High
9. Babylon Medicine
10. Pause 4 Cause
11. Move Ya Loin (featuring Lotek)
12. Thinking
13. The Falling
14. Toothbrush

Noodle Pack (Only contained on Limted Edition CD album version):
Tracklisting:
Disc: 2
1. Chin High (Manuvadelics Version)
2. Too Cold (Demo Version)
3. Colossal Insight (Manoustic At Reading)
4. Rebel Heart (Manuvadelics Version)
5. The Falling (Demo Version)
6. This World Is Mine (Hidden Track)


http://www.rootsmanuva.co.uk



*A quick copy and paste*
 
skinnyman definatly a gr8 album but...... 'AKALA' is holdin it down for me his freestlye skills are unmatched, the actual tracks hes recorded the lyrical content of them are amazin, the album si called "War Mixtape", brought it for summit like a fiver. and it gets a 10/10. im not overly keen on Roots Manuva really, i like a few of his tracks but sum of his tracks i really dont like.
 
Rock said:
The Streets is gay!
Click to expand...



Nick said:
I agree, it annoys me cos all Mike Skinner does is talk over a beat and now he's rich. He has no flow at all! I could do that too! Would people waste their money on my shitty cd too :confused:
Click to expand...


I'm a big fan of the streets. I'm not a gang banger, I can't relate to 2pac like I can to the things Mike says. I laugh because he gets it so close, it's true.

He might not have the technical skills, and it is very raw, but he tells a very good story.
 
Pittsey said:
I'm a big fan of the streets. I'm not a gang banger, I can't relate to 2pac like I can to the things Mike says. I laugh because he gets it so close, it's true.

He might not have the technical skills, and it is very raw, but he tells a very good story.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but to be honest after listening to a couple of his tracks I never listend to anymore cos his flow, or lack of it was so bad. I guess I should give his stuff a chance, cos disregarding it cos of his poor flow is kinda like what alot of people do to hip hop from the UK cos of the accent. But I can relate to what other MC's fom the UK have to say that can actually flow, like Kano or Skinnyman :thumb:
 
Nick said:
Maybe, but to be honest after listening to a couple of his tracks I never listend to anymore cos his flow, or lack of it was so bad. I guess I should give his stuff a chance, cos disregarding it cos of his poor flow is kinda like what alot of people do to hip hop from the UK cos of the accent. But I can relate to what other MC's fom the UK have to say that can actually flow, like Kano or Skinnyman :thumb:
Click to expand...


Yeah I prefer Kano. He has good stories too. I don't wanna hear about UK gun culture. It bores me.
 
ABM

An underground hip hop group from Leicester who consist of Mewreckall, Lyrics G and Crane Man. They are deep as fuck, full of original beats and none of them are 18 yet. From songs like Streetz, a deep song talking about life on the UK streets and also mentions things that happened in America like Big L, Biggie and Pac (also the way the beat changes twice throughout the song), to Best Of Both Fields in which they collaborate with more Leicester MCs: Rezz G and Antix. These beats are raw as fuck and sound so street. They can also spit over other beats well. For instance Ready 4 War which is over the Nas - Made You Look Beat and We Can which is over the Fat Joe - Lean Back beat. All they need is the right promotion and they will blow up. Trust me. There is a mixtape dropping soon but I dont know too much about that yet.
 
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