Grime

Grime is a sub-genre of urban music which first emerged in London in the early 2000s, primar

Grime is a sub-genre of urban music which first emerged in London in the early 2000s, primarily a development of UK garage and electronic music. The music is typified by sparse and minimalist 2step breakbeats, generally around 140 beats per minute. Grime has an aggressive and fast style of rapping - often in double time, artists refer to this as "spitting". The lyrics and music combine futuristic electronic elements; and dark, guttural, growling bass lines. In contrast to its more soulful predecessors in breakbeat music, grime features MCs as opposed to singers and has jettisoned the R&B influences of earlier UK Garage in favour of brutal beats. Due to its experimental nature and diverse stylistic influences, artists involved in the grime scene initially resisted attempts to classify or pigeonhole the style, resulting in a range of different labels, including sublow, 8bar, nu shape and eskibeat. Grime is sometimes associated with dubstep, a similar but largely instrumental genre which also evolved from the early 2000s UK garage scene.^{[citation needed]}

The emergence of grime is intrinsically connected to its origins on UK pirate radio^{[citation needed]}, with many performers honing their skills and achieving underground success before approaching the mainstream. Examples of the sound can be detected in the late 20th century, with tracks by So Solid Crew, More Fire Crew's "Oi", and Sticky's "Boo" which featured Ms. Dynamite. This indicated the movement of UK Garage away from its R'n'B and hip-hop influences towards darker themes and sounds. Among the first tracks to be recognised as grime were "Eskimo" by Wiley who was the founder of the "eskibeat" label and "Pulse X" by Musical Mob.