Say hello to Aaron Lacrate, a guy who's making moves in the world of hip hop. He's pushing Bmore gutter music quite hard and it's taken off - largely thanks to Spank Rock and their Yoyoyoyo LP.
Hipster DJs such as Diplo, are joining the dots between baile funk, Bmore gutter music, grime and beyond. it's exciting times if you like your music, raw, real and underground. There seems to be some sort of unofficial global ghetto music network, and it's far more fun, underground and authentic than 95% of mainstream hip pop.
What's interesting is how we - the UK - are so quick to embrace, accept and ULTIMATELY BUY any regional rap from America - whether crunk, hyphy, chopped and screwed, and now Bmore Gutter music, but Britain's hip hop buying public seems to ignore grime! It's weird and I don't get it. To me grime is a regionalised interpretation of American hip hop, the same as crunk, hyphy etc... Do we need to be told by America that grime - or our homegrown urban music - is good and it's ok to buy? Well that seems to be the marketing trick that's been used to break MIA, Lady Sovereign and quite possibly Sway to mainstram market when his shizzle with Ludacris, comes correct.
Here's an interview with Aaron Lacrate that appears in London Metro, February 22nd 2007.
CLUBS
Aaron Lacrate
In recent years regional American rap such as crunk (Atlanta), chopped and screwed (Houston) and hyphy (San Francisco’s Bay Area), have staked a claim for a piece of the hip hop pie. The next strain of localised US rap that wants a place at the dining table is Bmore gutter music, from Baltimore.
Spank Rock’s acclaimed debut LP, Yoyoyoyo gave us a taste of Bmore gutter music last year - think 120bpm electro-breakbeat topped with agile, speedy rap and chanting - but it’s the tip of proverbial iceberg. You can experience Bmore gutter music’s primal intensity on Saturday at electro/hip hop/rock’n’roll night, Chalk, where Baltimore native, Aaron Lacrate is DJing. Lacrate is joined by ghetto-electro DJ duo Radioclit, and live performances from Brazilian funk crew Bonde Do Role and Detroit Grand Pubahs’ cheeky electro, booty bass and rap.
Bmore gutter music evolved from ‘Baltimore club music’, but it’s surprise to find out that in turn this drew inspiration from embryonic British rave and hardcore breakbeat. ‘Baltimore club music started with hip house records in the early-1990s - it would mix up Miami bass, the 2 Live Crew, then take a Michael Jackson break and loop it,' explains Lacrate. ‘It was mixing dance records in a hip hop style and running the hardest breaks from records by Shut Up And Dance and The Ragga Twins: it took all this hard breakbeat hip hop, dissected it and added loops and breaks.'
‘These British rave records was what was being played in Baltimore's ghetto street clubs when the city was a horrible place with the highest murder rate in America and high levels of heroin addiction and AIDs infection.’
Baltimore club music traditionalists resent Lacrate evolving the sound, and taking Bmore gutter music to the wider world. However it's a measure of Lacrate’s influence that he's DJ on Lily Allen’s current US tour, added the Bmore gutter vibe to Busta Rhymes’ Touch It last year, and with Mark Ronson and Diplo is one of the hippest, most forward-thinking hip hop DJs around.
In spirit, it seems Bmore gutter music fits into a brave, new world of raw, thrilling rap music, alongside crunk, hyphy, UK grime and Brazilian baile funk. Why have these sounds emerged almost simultaneously?
‘The catalyst has been the excessive commercialisation of hip-hop - it’s now such big business,’ says Lacrate. ‘Hip-hop used to have that underground club energy - the clock is ticking on how much it can be sustained as it’s cashing in on the cache of what hip hop was.’
'Hip hop now is made for ringtones, it's on TV, how can it be raw crazy club music when it's everywhere, on your iPOD, MTV and TV commercials?’ explains Lacrate. ‘That’s why rave’s coming back because there's no crazy underground club sounds - it's bringing back that crazy hard dance music.’
Sat, Chalk, Scala, Pentonville Road N1, 10pm to 5am, £8.50. Tel: 0870 060 0100. www.chalkclub.co.uk Tube: King's Cross
