Smutlee mix

I got Smutlee to do a short mix of dancehall, funky and garage stuff for the Vice music blog last week. It's real nice. Tracklist in comments.

Download: Smutlee mix

Three short mixes by three (possibly) quite tall guys

I've been looking after the Vice site this week so I got Bok Bok, Crazy Cousinz and Jackmaster to do a wee mix each for the music blog. You can get them all here.

FrEe MuSiC!!!!!

By giving away Grimewave for free, I am effectively throwing Wiley's money away. Wiley does not look happy about this

You know what, some of you guys are right - this blog needs more grime, more Mr Wong, more Channel U videos, more mad flava from da streetz. So, as a little gift to you peeps, here is the new Wiley album, Grimewave, for free download. Note: illegally downloading music is wrong, so if you have a conscience you can choose not the click the link and instead buy the album where it is advertised in the sidebar.

Download: Wiley - Grimewave

I deal with views and opinions / Grew up on a reggae band called Abyssinians

David Rodigan, the omniscient reggae god (only slightly exaggerating), is DJing this Thursday at Joyride in a club called East Village in East London. I've never been there but I have been told the sound system is almost of Plastic People proportions. Anyway in celebration of this event, I am uploading two of my favourite songs of all time, as introduced to me by Rodigan.


The Abyssinians - "Satta Massagana"


Burning Spear - "Marcus Garvey"

"I do like these trotters, I must say"

Esco and Fresh Money - "Dun Dem Credit"

This is Esco of Leftside & Esco fame (not the guy in Slew Dem Crew who annoyingly refuses to release anything) trying to put on an English accent in a recent dancehall song. Apparently they were watching an English film and decided to start Googling English things to talk about. By the sound of it, I would guess Danny Dyer was probably playing some type of part in the film. Innit. Btw, do you think this is kind of like what Jamaicans hear when someone like Jamakabi does his "yardie flow"?

"On your marks, get steady, let's jog"

New Fader column is up. Below is T2's Kate Nash remix for your painful delectation.

Mavado interview

Photo by Jamie-James Medina

Here is a short interview I did with Mavado after his Stratford Rex show at the end of last year.

Prancehall: I heard you first started singing in public in church when you were a kid. Did you have a good voice back then?
Mavado: Definitely. I have a good voice now, so I must have a good voice back then.

Were you using your "Gangster for life" catchphrase at church in those days?
No.

What's the situation with you and Vybz Kartel?
Well the situation with me and Vybz Kartel, that kind of gone for along the while so I don't really talk about that any more.

Okay. Are you selective about the producers you will work with? You seem to have done a lot of work with Stephen McGregor.
Daseca – my management team, my producing team - they are the ones who do most of my riddims, you know what I mean? And then you've got Stephen [McGregor] so it's like a family so every time they've got a big riddim they know I'm the one to take it off to another level. Every time they've got a big rhythm they call Mavado.

You could have covered your album with collaborations from much bigger dancehall artists and I'm pretty sure it would have sold a lot more. Why did you decide against that?
Well, I could've had more guests on it but this is my first album and I think the people wanna hear more about Mavado, from Mavado, you understand? So that's why I even done this album with so many of my songs.

Is there anyone you would like to work with?
Well, a lot of producers like Sly and Robbie and all those people, and right now I'm really getting together to work with Sly & Robbie. You know, I'm already in the international market by doing some songs with international artists like Foxy Brown and Akon and Busta Rhymes for his album, and Wyclef, Uncle Murda and so many more, you know what I mean?

After blowing up rhythms like Red Bull & Guinness, you must get a lot of people these days asking you to vocal their rhythms...
People always try to approach me with money to do songs for them, but if I nuh like the riddim, if it nuh sound like my kind of riddim, if it nuh sound like my kind of thing and all of that, then me nuh go voice no matter how much you have, 'cos I'm not a person that cheat the music.

That's very noble. Tell me about your upbringing.
Well, you dun know, we from the gully – Kingston, Jamaica, Cassava Piece, Kingston 8, Kingston great, you know what I mean? Growing up now from the gully and ting, life hard, you know? But we still have to pull through and we have to still make it through life and came out to be a better man today. Cassava piece is a ghetto. It's just like you hear about Jungle and all of these places, and Tivoli Gardens and all of that. It's just one whole ghetto, that's why we say "Gully side." You know, 'cos it's just one gully side.

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MP3: Lewi White feat. Busy Signal & Mavado - Vice Dub

Pull my finger

Vice posted an interview with girl rapper Riskay on their blog yesterday. I came across her "Smell Yo Dick" track randomly before I went to NY but forgot to post it up. Possibly the most ridiculous song of the year. Riskay's not actually that bad. She had a good song called "Brand New Money" with DG Yola on the Fear Factor Florida mixtape from earlier this year. Anyway, here is the full interview:

Vice: Why do you think "Smell Yo Dick" has taken off?
Riskay: I think it's because a lot of women have thought about it but they never had the nerve to do it, and now they don't have to be ashamed to try it. A lot of men cheat because they can get away with it, but I feel like if a man knows a woman will go to that extent [dick-smelling], they probably won't cheat. Men have degraded women and acted like we're stupid for so many years, and they come up with songs about cheating, so why can't I just represent women? This is how I feel, this is what I've been through.

How many times have you smelled a dick?
Once, when I was younger. I had a guy that was cheating on me. You know, always coming home about five o'clock in the morning, always trying to make up excuses. He's out with his boys. I'm like, "Hey if you're not cheating, let me smell it."

And he let you?
Yeah. He was confident in himself, as if I'm stupid and I don't know what latex smells like. It smelled like... it had condom smell.

Couldn't you just smell his hands, or his face?
Yeah, you could smell his hands or his face-if you wanna be disgusting. I would prefer to smell his dick than taste some other chick in his mouth.

I think a lot of women would be afraid to just ask outright. Any tips on how to get him to offer up the goods?
If you feel like your man might cuss you out and try to get violent with you if you ask, then act like you're gonna give him some head and just smell it.

What if you smelled a guy's dick and it smelled like saliva? Would that be as bad?
You know, if it smells like stank breath, that's wrong too. A lot of men are like "Oh, she just gave me head," and I'm like "OK, that's cheatin."

What if he thought ahead and took a shower before coming home? You could be fooled.
If he's been out all day, he shouldn't smell like soap. I was talking with a male rapper friend, and he said "What I do is take baby wipes and clean myself before I get home," and then another guy told me he just let his thing out and rolled the windows down in the car so his dick could air out.

I love picturing that. Do you worry that with your song being heard so much, maybe men will wise up and everyone will carry baby wipes or let their dick air out in the car, and then smelling it will be ruined for women everywhere?
When I first did the song, a lot of my man friends were like "You're giving females too much information! You're giving them bad, bad ideas. This is wrong." A lot of men don't like it, probably because they're cheating. They think "Oh my God, this is for real. She done put females up on somethin' and we in trouble now."

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Download: DVA feat. Badness - Prancehall Dub



Here is the Badness track from my mixtape. I need to get some new beats off DVA like this one I think.

Dirty Mumdance

Durrty Goodz is playing in Brighton this Friday. I was thinking of going down and spending all night following him around asking him for another rundown about what prison life was like but I'm not so sure he'd be up for it.

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Download: Jammer - Toxic Freestyle



Here's Jammer's "Toxic" freestyle that was on my mixtape. I've been getting a lot of requests to put it up so here it is.

"He confesses that his favourite sounds are sampled from Vin Diesel's car keys in a film..."

Dan Hancox had an interview with Burial in the Guardian on Friday. Here is an interesting quote:

"What I want is that feeling when you're in the rain, or a storm. It's a shiver at the edge of your mind, an atmosphere of hearing a sad, distant sound, but it seems closer - like it's just for you. Like hearing rain or a whale-song, a cry in the dark, the far cry."

That last sentence reminds me of my review of his last album in Vice:

"Can everyone stop saying that this is "a grower"!? This is the most uneventful, over-hyped piece of shit we've heard all year. If you're after an album that sounds like the mating calls between a group of libido-less whales, then run and smash open your little sister's piggy bank. It's boring, gawky 2-step with some token reggae samples and some crackles."

I don't know why I gave it such a harsh review. I guess I hate hype. It wasn't that bad, but definitely not as good as everyone was saying. Anyway, can you see how I made the whale connection? It's like man can see into da future, ya get me? Man's brain is just different like dat. Only (slightly) joking. Anyway, I don't see why I needed to point that out. I am quite looking forward to hearing the new album I think. Here is a recent song from Burial that I've been liking for the last few months:

Burial - Unite



If most of his new album sounds like this it should be pretty increible. It reminds me of Groove Chronicles.



Matt Mason's book, The Pirate's Dilemma, arrived in the post today. I haven't started reading it yet. Maybe tomorrow on the way to work. It says I'm not allowed to quote anything yet because it's not the approved version but I don't think anyone will mind me mentioning the quote he uses on the blank page before the contents page that people often write something on:

You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.
-DR DRE, 1988

That has to be the best quote used on the blank page before the contents page that people often write on, ever.

Watch the goals they concede without me

I can't find a picture to go with the text, so here is a random video. The stuff below is ex-RWD editor Matt Mason's liner notes he wrote for my mixtape about a year and a half ago when grime wasn't really going anywhere fast. I don't know why it's taken so long for me to put it up. I'm not even sure how it relates to my mixtape. But here it is:

Hey, Grime, can I see you in my office for a minute?

Thanks. Close the door, have a seat.

Want a coffee?

Sure?

Ok, well, I'll get right to the point. Um... we've been getting a lot of complaints recently about you, and... there is no nice way to ask you this.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

I've just been told some fucking blogger named Prancehall is making a grime mixtape with VICE magazine. Bloggers? We did not hire you to hang out with bloggers. That's dubstep's job. When I left London you were right on track to become the greatest scene of all time in the making - "the bastard sons of Blair's Britian" transmitting your anger live from every council estate rooftop. Fast-forward two years and you're just a bunch of twelve year old pussies screaming about shanking each other and how much money you've got on MySpace? Seriously, where did it all go wrong?

I guess I should have known you couldn't handle the pressure. The same thing happened to the last guy I hired - UK Garage. He was great to begin with, always smartly dressed in that Moschino suit he wore with lips and peace signs all over it, all the girls in the office liked him, but then the job got to him. I gave him too much money, which of course led to him doing way too much coke and he started bringing me shit like Shanks & Bigfoot, so I had to fire him. Same thing with the guy before - Jungle. He lost his focus and disappeared up his own ass. Then there was that Hardcore dude in the white gloves, he was a weird little guy, but you? I thought you were different? Now I gotta fire you too?

Hey, stop crying. Listen, in the beginning you brought in some good guys. Boy In Da Corner is a classic. You know I love that Jammer guy, Wiley is great too and we can't forget about Lethal B and D-Double - he was different, but what's with all this other half-assed shit? Maybe you were doomed the moment the broadsheets started masturbating over Dizzee or when major labels started signing people like Plan B. I didn't say anything at the time, I should have, but I thought you had the situation under control. I'm sorry.

Listen Grime, what I'm trying to say is it seems to me that you've reached a fork in the road. All this "I've got bare cash and gash" shit isn't fooling anyone. We don't need lessons about how to make money from a spotty cunt on Channel U in a Nike tracksuit with Ribena stains down the front. If any of you actually give a shit about making some dough, forget it, just go home. The top boys in grime don't even make 20k a year - and if they did they'd have bought a blazer and fucked off to the funky house scene ages ago. It's just not going to happen. Everyone in England is bored shitless of you. In the US you'll never even be as big as Lady Sov's chest. Put the mic down, draw for the plunger and become a plumber. Fuck it, plumbers make good money. Pretty soon you'll be living in Essex driving a turquoise Z4 you bought on credit, and trust me you'll be a lot happier.

But if there is a slim chance you are not the waste-man I think you are, and I only say this because there are still grime artists out there I'm excited about, (young MCs like Scorcher, Ears and Faction G, classic producers like Statik and Jammer), if you do actually want to be heard, start by being honest with yourself and speaking to people in this country about something real. Stop pissing about with guns and knives and make some decent music. I'm not going to have you up in this office again. Anger is a gift my little friend, but it's also a curse. If you don't start using it wisely, you're done.

This is your final warning Grime. So, fix up, look sharp and try reading a fucking book. Now get out of my sight.

MATT MASON

CEO of UK URBAN MUSIC LTD (currently in liquidation)

I don't know if I mentioned, but there were quite a few tracks that didn't make it on to the mixtape. I got a US girl rapper called Nina B to do me a freestyle over "Gangsters". It was good but the vocals on the intro were way too low and it pissed me off. Bruza did me a freestyle about football but that was terrible. Here are the two best outtakes.

Trim - Vice Freestyle

When my friend Jamie was out in Sudan he got a lot of good local music and there was this one amazing song that we got my friend Brains to sample and make into a track for my mixtape. I then got Trim to vocal it but he liked it so much he wanted it for his mixtape so it went on Soulfood Vol. 2. I remember when I first got this, I must've listened to it a hundred times in two days. So many classic lines.



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Cassie - Me & U (Brains remix feat. Scorcher)

This Cassie song was too old by the time the mixtape was ready but it's a good one. The audio for the Cassie voicemail bit in the middle comes from a phone interview I did with her.

"Ain't gonna work hard, Chippy's no fool / Jesus tempts me, Satan tempts me, but it's the Lord that wins overall"

Durrty Goodz

I interviewed Durrty Goodz for the new issue of Vice. I almost didn't want it to run. It was such a hassle to get hold of him, he wouldn't answer most of the questions, his manager rang me to say I'd asked the wrong questions, then emailed to ask to see if he could see the interview before it went to print. Then, to top it all off Goodz was too busy to have his picture taken so I had to spend days running round trying to get an unpublished one. Eventually I got the one above, but I had to deal with the photographer calling to ask if he would actually get paid for the picture or if I was just lying. He also called our photo editor to interrogate him because I guess he didn't believe I was telling the truth. Weird. Anyway, here's the unedited interview:

Prancehall: Have you spoken to Titch recently?
Durrty Goodz: Yeah, I speak to him all the time. He phones me. He's alright, he's just holding his head down.

Has he made an appeal?
I'm not even too sure – I haven't really spoke to him deep like that. When we speak we're just talking normal.

How did you feel when you found out you were a suspect in the case?
You know, I can't even remember. All I know is I felt terrible, just like anyone would. It's a bit too much for me to even think back because my head was probably just spinning but my head's straight right now.

What was prison like?
Prison is just like prison. I suppose it's the same as anywhere, but I dunno. It's just prison innit, it's just jail innit. You just wanna get out because it's not a place built for human beings. And that's that. Music don't live there, music's out here. Yeah, that's why I'm here.

What would you eat for breakfast?
You don't get breakfast and those things. They don't do that. You have to survive for yourself, innit. I don't even take food from them. I wouldn't even eat, I'd just eat my own stuff. I'd just do my own thing. I don't think they even give people food. They call it food but I don't think it's food.

What did you think about when you were sat in your cell?
All sorts of thoughts go through your head because that's the reality of the case, but most of the time I was probably just thinking about my family.

Were you ever scared?
It depends because when you know you've done nothing wrong then sometimes you've got nothing to be scared about. At the same time, you know that the system's wonky so you always have like a couple of scary thoughts in the back of your mind.

What was the prison itself like?
They're all gritty. All prisons are filthy. Like I said, it's no place for a human being.

Was there one definitive moment that made you think you really didn't want to be there?
Yeah, there was loads of stuff but you can just look at a prison screw – just look at his face – and you wouldn't be next to that kind of face. Not when you're known for, like, having pretty ladies and that. I saw so much violence in there that I can't even say right now. I see a lot of stuff, I see a lot of stuff. It will probably be all revealed one day. Panorama will probably go in there and tell you what's happening. I don't think people understand. That place is so deep - you could just see the food and get upset and know that you're not meant to be there. It's not food, it's just garbage. Everything's just garbage. It's not the standard of living of where you come from. You're gonna be upset every second you're there.

What did you do all day?
There's nothing to do, just read, innit. Just the same old shit every day. There's nothing to do, ever.

Were there jobs you could do?
Probably, but I don't speak to no one so no one's not going to offer me nothing that I don't really need.

How did you feel when the verdict was read out?
They just said I could go and I went downstairs. Then, the others had to stay there. They just told me to go so I went.

What was going through your mind? Did you think about Titch?
Yeah I saw them when they came back downstairs. I was upset for them.

Did they seem upset?
Yeah, anyone would be upset. It's natural feelings.



I've written something on bassline house for the Guardian music blog. Read it here.

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New Vice column is up. Two of the songs we mention in the chart at the end can be listened to below.

Tampa Tony feat. T-Pain - Ride Out

I've been a closet T-Pain fan for a while now but I found out a litte while back that it's okay to like him. He hasn't pissed on any underage girls and he doesn't sing "Konnnnnvict Muuuuuuzik" in every song, so he gets the thumbs up from me. He also ghost writes for most of the rappers worth bothering about from below the Mason-Dixie line: Lil' Boosie, Webbie, Lil Jon, DG Yola, Lil' Wayne, B.O.B, Trick Daddy.



Seventeen Evergreen - Ensoniq (Bi-Polar Men refix)

A music PR girl I know sent this song to me ages ago insisiting I'd like it, but I never bothered to listen. She's really nice, but I had to endure so much tedious chit chat and fake enthusiasm from PRs calling me up every day when I worked full time in an office that I could never bring myself to trust what any of them thought. Then, recently, I heard Skream and Sinden playing this song that I really liked with a name I half recognised and it turned out to be the one my friend had sent me, thus proving music PRs can be worthwhile (if they are your friends and know what kind of music you are into).