You would have to be a bit daft not to spot the fact that there is more than one Street making a noise in UK music at the moment. Garage has proved well worth a scratch beneath the surface and gone from strength to strength despite dance music's current slump. Likewise, UK hip-hop has resisted the temptation to rest on its laurels after last year's periodical industry acknowledgement. No label better represents the commitment to innovation that's taking UK black music to the next level than Big Dada. And this is their latest manifesto.
'Bouncement' is the title of the document. It's a name that's been conjured to represent a style of hip-hop that has emerged in the UK, mashing up a couple of decades of sound. It's a sound owing as much to Underground Garage and the digital reggae productions of late 80s London as the funk sampling of its US brethren.
As you'd expect, Big Dada are right on it, pointing out influences like those genius dub-breakbeat guerrillas, Horsepower Productions, along with Ms Dynamite's (non major label) innovations and West London's IG Culture. These are all useful compass points for the sound, not one to be conveniently bracketed into any particular genre.
It's also been pointed out many times on these pages that Roots Manuva's productions are a pretty close relative to Berlin minimalists, Basic Channel. So are others amongst this selection. All of which should have the more imaginative amongst you licking your lips in anticipation.
That's not to say, however, that some of these tunes don't succumb to the excess to which all cutting-edge musicians operating within a narrow sonic community can be prone. Infinite Livez' 'No More Bananas', whilst beautifully produced by Tomz (also behind one the album's highlights, Gamma's 'Killer Apps') is an opportunity wasted as it labours under an eccentric, chanted chorus. Lotek HiFi's 'Fire' is an amateurish shot at a roots reggae/hip-hop hybrid that recalls the worst ideas tested out at the tail end of the 80s by cult hip-hop act Divine Styler.
Funnily enough, the 'hang the purist backpacker' defiance that characterises this approach to hip-hop has more in common with the digi-funk turned out by the current breed of overpaid US producers than most here would like to acknowledge. Ty's productions, in particular, recall the squelching minimalism of a Timbaland or Jerkins. So, whilst there are British precedents it's simply another kind of purism that would attempt to strike a national mark on the sound. It's just more in the continuum of that black secret technology.
The overall message, however, is sound: "Purism be damned, let's take this hip-hop s**t the extra yard."
