Knife Crime Nuggets #4: Brought together by a hatred of knife crime

Word on the street (well, Now magazine) is that Danielle Lloyd has become engaged to DJ Ironik. But that's not the story. The real story here is that the future Mrs Ironik is planning to "meet with council chiefs and school governors in a bid to have metal detectors placed in schools to cut knife crime." Suddenly it's all becoming clear. DJ Ironik, the guy behind "Stay With Me", the "torch song for young people mourning the loss of friends to knife and gun crime", and Danielle Lloyd, the girl who dates Premiership footballers, have obviously been brought together by their hatred of knife crime.

Slightly offensive quotes of the week #1

These are actually from last week but let's not worry about small details like that.

Wiley on George Lamb's 6Music show (my gran forces me to listen to it when I go round to clip her toenails, I promise) after being asked if Dragon's Den presenter Evan Davis is the only human being on planet earth who could look a hammerhead shark in both eyes simulataneously: "No... there's one more you don't know of: Logan Sama. He can see me and you without even looking at me and you."

A chap called Maggoty Lamb on the OMM blog talking about NME's article questioning whether Dizzee can recover from the steaming turd that is "Dance Wiv Me": "Writer Barry Nicolson doesn't even have the courage to take responsibility for this utterly bogus show of phoney concern himself, but calls upon such "experts" as Hattie Collins of "UK hip-hop bible" (and there was I thinking it was just a glossy fanzine given away free in jeans shops) RWD to make his non-points for him."

One of the more charismatic and articulate guys who posts on Grimeforum.com talking about DJ Mujava's "Township Funk": "I can imagine them Shoreditch cats in some drug-induced zombie trance while listening to this."

Hold tight Lady Maddie

Someone was asking me the other day why grime MCs haven't acknowledged knife crime in their lyrics more. I have no idea, but there is one big news story they have noticed. Twice this week I have heard lyrics about Madeleine McCann.

"Now it's back to grime cos they been missing me like Madeleine" - Kano

"Start killing him / Your body will get lost like Madeleine" - Dizzle Kid

"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.

Thieves in the night

Bizzle is on the cover of the NME this week / last week / whatever. I'm not saying a thing, but Gabrielle wears an eye patch for a reason, you know. I'm calling it Bizzlegate. It's like Fiascogate but without the Penfold glasses, bed wetting and snorting when laughing. You have to give credit to whoever does Lethal's press, though. They are doing an amazing job.



Dirty Canvas on Friday was pretty amazing. Best night of the year maybe. It was so good I won't mention the fact that I had to DJ for like three hours at the start, then wait around till three in the morning because Coki didn't show for his set only for him to show up 10 mins before the end and get paid before me and more than me (for not even playing). I don't know what time I got home in the end but it was bright outside. Maybe I should start making slowed down clownstep (plus the odd good tune here and there).

A braptastical review

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There's a review of my mixtape in the new RWD, and no, your eyes aren't deceiving you, they gave my mixtape 3/5. Yep, 3/5. I mean, WTF? I've got Jammer MCing over Britney Spears, Busy Signal and Mavado murdering a Lewi White tune, Slew Dem going over a song from the Bugsy Malone soundtrack and Ce'Cile rapping about my stick, and all they can think to mention is the intro? Also, what do they mean "the odd exclusive"? It's about 80 per cent exclusive, never-to-be-released stuff. I would have been insulted if it was only given 5/5. It's at least a 6 or 7 out of 5. If they want to know how to do reviews, why don't I do a review of the latest issue of their magazine?


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Let's start on the letters page. I don't mean to be harsh, but this is embarrassing. No one bothered to write in this month, so they had to print some uninteresting staff emails and random spam? Imagine how that looks when an advertiser picks up the magazine. You're sending out a message that none of your readers give you any feedback, i.e. no one cares about what you write. A very, very weird thing to do. You could have at least faked some letters to save some face. Oh, and re: the Kano letter above - Kano was supposed to do the Peaches Geldof interview thing, but he wasn't up for it so they got Ghetto instead. It's a bit like when Popworld wanted to interview Kano in a canoe and he said no, which was funny, but I'm not sure the world needed to know about this.


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This is usually one of my favourite pages. Every month DJ Semtex posts some pictures of himself standing in the exact same pose next to famous people, talks about playing at different places around the world, and, without fail, mentions something about DJing for Dizzee Rascal ("we played five songs and the crowd thought that four of them was a lot and for the other one the speaker must have been broken, innit"). With this page, you know what you're getting every month, so it's hard to be moved by it, but one thing in particular really disturbed me. It was this sentence: "I linked with Dave Grohl from Nirvana / Foo Fighters. He is [one] of the hottest drummers in the game." It's not just the obvious fact that Dave Grohl is a fucking maggot sent to earth to be worshipped by the Jo Whileys of this world, it's the ridiculous way Semtex says it. Why is there a need for the hip-hop speak in every sentence? It reads like a parody of what someone thinks a hip-hop DJ would say. Get me? Brapple!


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The single worst thing about this issue was the amount of soft porn that has suddenly appeared. Why do all the female house DJs either have their tits out or are sucking on their finger? Are they trying to corner the lads mag market? If so, they are too late for that - no one buys lads mags anymore. On average, there must be tits on every three or four pages, which makes for pretty uncomfortable reading on a packed tube.

That's all I have time for right now. I won't bother to give a score I don't think. If anyone thinks I'm wrong, post me a comment and tell me why. Maybe it was a bit harsh, but... 3/5? You know... I'm not saying, I'm just saying.