"But he has sold out though blah blah blah blah"
In a perfect world, I would be living in a penthouse flat in London, working part time between BBC 1 Xtra and SBTV, have a body like Maya Jama, face like Jessica Alba, engaged to Aston Merrygold and Wiley would have got that number 1 with 'Where's My Brother'.
Sadly this isn't reality.
Unfortunately the UK music industry isn't grown enough to accept music in any form that doesn't resemble Pop. Wiley for a long, LONG, time stuck to his principles and refused to make any other music than the genre he fathered. He has been in the game long enough to adapt that "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" approach...but being so in love with Grime he hasn't strayed too far from his true sound - his Step freestyles and The Ascent show this. The rest of the album is a contrast to the tracks he has released for the charts. He used the singles to build platform and introduce Eskiboy to his increasing audience.
My 5 tracks with that vibe & are definitely worth a listen: Lights On, Skillzone, Ninja, Tomorrow and My Heart.
My Heart, bearing in mind it features Emeli Sande, isn't even the slowest song on the album *gasp* - for me this shows that the album isn't what your expecting. You probably doubted the album and thought it would follow the same pattern as his singles but after listening to the album, you feel like a tool for doubting his loyalty to his roots. My favourite track Skillzone backs up my point nicely; a load of underground's finest (Ghetts, Double S, Frisco and Griminal to name a few) taking in turn to spit a bit of heaaaat ona the high tempo beaaaat - a formula that can produce nothing but a pure example of a Grime track.
 |
| don't watch the paint skills b! |
If I'm truly honest, some of his Step freestyles have excited me more than a couple of these album tracks which are a little boring, but you can't have your cake and eat it too (summer is coming and you have to keep that body on point yo!). HOWEVERRRRR the more I look at the tracklisting/features and of course the more I actually listen to the tracks, the more I appreciate what Wiley has produced. He balanced commercial with his roots without compromising too much at all. No one is saying Wiley is best lyrically or has the meanest flow but he essentially is grime. It's safe to say he has kept it as real as possible with this album, from the music, to the attributions in the booklet.
P.S If you're gonna get it, which you should, get the Deluxe iTunes version and watch the 8 minute documentary that comes with it because it's interesting and you may aswell:) https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-ascent-deluxe/id611380645
0 comments:
Post a Comment