Review of An England Story in The Wire
England has forever been in the shadow of American and Jamaica when gold medals for black music are dished out. But sonic innovation always happens in the shadows, and away from the limelight the UK has been home to a unique and ever mutating bass culture. A proper history of UK MC culture is well overdue and that is what this compilation attempts - from dancehall and hip hop through to jungle and grime.
The prospect of chronicling and contextualising 25 years of music in just 85 minutes is a daunting one so the compilers, London DJs Heatwave, have taken the sensible option of throwing down party bangers instead of fetishising chronology. Papa Levi's Mi God Mi King was the first example of UK 'fast chat' on record, which propelled the Saxon Soundsystem stalwart to number one in Jamaica. It combines breathtaking vocal agility over a tough, uptempo UK dancehall backing - the foundation elements of much that followed.
Many tracks here display the version culture which is such a feature of the music's origin in sound systems and pirate radio. Jah Screechy's Walk and Skank was the source material for SL2's On A Ragga Tip, while Blak Twang's Red Letters uses a refrain from a Michael Prophet tune as the backdrop for a Cockney rap concerning British Gas and the Blackwall Tunnel. One of the most interesting aspects of the UK MC trajectory is the gradual incorporation of a London accent into the flow alongside artful lyrics about life in the city. Tippa Irie's Complain Neighbour uses Cockney as a foil to illustrate a dispute about booming basslines, but by the time we hit Riko's Ice Rink Vocal, produced by Wiley, an entirely new dialect has emerged fusing patois, Cockney and US hip hop.
The only frustration is that the album covers too much ground - as an opening salvo it can only skim the surface of such a rich history. The 'an' in the title is telling - there are many more stories to be told here. For now this is the essential primer for your head, hips and feet.
John Eden | The Wire
