More Fire Crew
More Fire Crew C.V.
(Go Beat)
Uncut, 2003
by Simon Reynolds
Someone’s gotta coin a snappy name for the genre
represented by So Solid Crew and the hordes who came in their wake. UK garage doesn’t cut it anymore, it’s
misleading. Listen to the debut from Leyton
crew More Fire and you’ll hear hardly a
trace of house ‘n’ garage. 2-step’s
swing and sensuality is banished in
favour of hard-bounce riddims and
punishing textures. More Fire’s primary
producers, the Platinum 45 team, draw on the most anti-pop, street vanguard
elements in black music history:
electro’s angular coldness, jungle’s bruising bass blows, ragga’s lurch and twitch.
“Oi!”, More Fire’s
Number 7 smash of 2002, made for the most exhilaratingly extreme Top of
the Pops appearance in living memory. For pop punters who like a nice choon and
fans of Artful Dodger-style softcore garage alike, “Oi!” had the shock impact of punk: “is this
even music?!?” The answer, eventually,
is “yes”. But it takes several listens before what initially seems hookless
reveals itself as incredibly contagious. Platinum 45’s idea of melody seems
derived almost entirely from videogame musik and mobile ring-tones. Their dry rhythms connect backwards through
time to Schoolly D and pioneering
dancehall riddim “Sleng Teng”, and sideways across space to current rap like
The Clipse’s “Grindin” (a drum machine
on auto-pilot). If James Brown was a 19
year old from an E4 estate who’d mispent his youth in a purple haze of
Playstation and hydroponic, this might be his idea of future funk. Factor in the rapid-fire jabber of Ozzie B,
Lethal B, and Neeko, with its blend of
gruff ragga grain and uncouth Cockney, and you’ve got music that instantly
creates a massive generation gap.
Can this sound, brutally shorn of pop appeal, sustain a
whole album? If you make it past the incomparably dreary “Intro” (in which More
Fire refute the charge that they’re one-hit wonders and damn near hammer
coffin-nails in their career), you’ll
find an album that’s highly listenable. Alongside Platinum 45 stand-outs
“Smokin’” and “Politics”, two killer tracks are guest-produced by members of
Roll Deep, hot crew of the moment. Wiley’s “Lock Down” pivots around a
bubble-and-squeak bassline similar to Roll Deep’s insidious “Creeper”, while Dizzee Rascal (the
MC/producer to watch in 2003) contributes the
asymmetrical anti-groove of “Still the Same” over which he spits rhymes in trademark edge-of-hysteria style.
Lyrically, no ground is broken. Haters are
castigated, ho’s get humiliated, weed (strictly
high-grade) is hymned, and “soldiers, fallen” are mourned as mawkishly as Bone
Thugs or P. Diddy. But the art of MC-ing doesn’t really involve opening up new
areas of content, it’s about finding fresh twists on the same restricted set of
themes. What we’re witnessing with this genre-without-a-satisfactory-name that
More Fire Crew exemplify and excel at, is the final arrival--after many false
dawns--of an authentically British rap. No longer a pale copy of the American
original, different but equally potent, it’s something to celebrate.
Interview with Neeko of More Fire Crew
Q: Do you get much inspiration from American rap or are you coming
more out of the tradition of MC-ing that runs through UK garage and jungle back
to hardcore rave?
A: We've got nuff love for
hip hop and it takes up most of our listening time. But the garage vibe came
from jungle and the main bones of it come from heavy jungle influence--that's
what gives it such a British Flavor. Our favourite jungle MCs were Skibadee,
Shabba and Stevie Hyper-D.
Q: Were you aware the word "Oi!" has this dodgy
connotation, as the name of this punk/skinhead movement with a reputation for
fascist allegiances? More Fire nabbing their catchphrase almost seems like a
jab in the eye for the racist scum.
A: We didn't even know about that! That's wicked
that we can change perception on something like that, turning something totally
negative to a positive thing without even realising!
Q: The whole garage-fronted-by-MCs upsurge seems unstoppable at
the moment--so many crews coming through, so many new rhythmic ideas bubbling.
Tempos are slowing and it seems like the music is turning from UK garage into
UK rap. If so, will this sound ever break America?
A: It's anyone's guess where Garage is going
with all the madness surrounding UK urban music at the moment. It's just not
getting the support it should be. The good thing is that it's still thriving in
its own way. People are still pushing the boundaries. I think a lot of UK hip
hop will come through now, but with a totally British flavour through all the
garage influences. The MCs coming through right now have the talent where
they can rap at 90 b.p.m. or 140 b.p.m. We'll break the US soon, but we need to
focus on cracking the UK market properly first. It's no good going over half
baked!
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