He's not just a rascal
Dizzee Rascal enters into view. There are sharp intakes of breath all around. As he strides into the Oxford Union’s imposing Debating Chamber — flanked on one side by DJ Semtex, and on the other by the squarest, widest man I have ever seen — there is no hint of the nerviness he admitted to me outside in the garden moments before.
He is wearing a bright pillarbox red sweatshirt — nicely fit-to-form — and the requisite pair of Evisu of which he seems to have a bottomless pit in his wardrobe. A wide-rimmed cap is precariously perched on his head. Tilted at just the right, slight angle. Not too considered mind you. Very hip-hop. Dizzee then proceeds to drop a seemingly impromptu performance of his breakthrough hit, Fix Up, Look Sharp. The crowd erupts.
In all my time of seeing speakers at the Union, never before has the atmosphere in the chamber crackled alive with such energy. It seems that the scathing, sneering crowd such events usually draw has been tamed by the commanding presence of our brightest urban music star.
Renditions of other singles thrill further — among them I Luv U and Stand Up Tall, the lead track off Dizzee’s brassier 2004 sophomore effort, Showtime, its lo-tech video game production bouncing off every beam in the hall and single-handedly sustaining the buzz.
And although these tracks are of the more well-known from his so far, so slim repertoire, there was no sign in evidence that night of the rumours that he has lost his magnetism as an MC, that Dizzee in fact, could no longer freestyle with the best of them.
A stranger sight you would be hard pressed to stumble across on a midweek Trinity term evening in Oxford than Dizzee and his striking protégés New Generals, spitting rhymes in their well-versed urban vernacular, the crowd at the Union gathered around them just several feet away, not entirely sure what to do with themselves. Straight after his remarkably taut set, I snatch a moment with Mr Rascal over a couple of drinks upstairs in the Union’s plush Macmillan Room to reflect.
O+: So, Mr Rascal…
DR: No need for that, bruv. Just Dizzee.
O+: Of course, Dizzee, so the first thing I thought when I heard you were coming to Oxford to address the Union was simply, “Why?” It seems a rather strange gig.
DR: Yeah man, it was a good crowd. Much smaller than I thought it’d be. You know this place seems like such a different world but, at the end of the day, people came ‘cause of the music. ‘Cause of what I say.
O+: And even though there was so much love for you in that room [the Debating Chamber], did it bother you that many of the people in the audience were there only because they see you as a badge of cool, and not because they’re intimately acquainted with your work?
DR: Nah, it all comes hand-in-hand, innit. It means I’ve done something. Yeah man, I might not have made that tune they care about yet. I might not have made that song that’s reached them yet.
But they’re aware that I’m doing something. So they’re around obviously waiting for it. Yeah man, it’s all good.
O+: Does it matter to you then that people — many of whom wouldn’t necessarily appreciate what you convey in your rhymes — should be constantly aware that you’re “doing something”? Or is it more important that only a hundred people know of you, but that those hundred people feel you and know exactly what you’re talking about?
DR: You see, I think about this all day, everyday. I’ve come to the conclusion where it’s that I’ve seen the balance. I have to try and do both.
I have to cater for that hundred people who really feel me, but I’ve also gotta reach out to as many people as I can at the same time.
O+: What if those “many people” don’t fully understand your lyrics. They may understand words but not sentiments. Is that a big deal?
DR: Nah, ‘cause as I’ve always said, I’m a fan of music as well. There are songs that I don’t know the lyrics to, you know, like that Nirvana song, Smells Like Teen Spirit.
I’d say to myself when it’s playing somewhere, “I don’t know what he’s saying”. But I know that it sounds live, innit. It sounds good.
O+: I definitely feel you on that one. So with your own music, is it not always about telling a story? Is it also your attempt to change things and push things forward?
DR: [Pause] I don’t think I can change things with my music. I’d love to in an ideal world, you hear me? I think it takes the world to change the world.
I think I can document some of what’s going on with my music, but my other purpose is to entertain. I’m just trying to do an alright job of both. I say the business is entertainment and always had been. But there should be more compromise between the artists and the labels.
My situation’s been good all the way through. I made the music and brought it to them [XL Recordings]. My first album was done and ready. I don’t get my way all the time, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes it’s for the good that I listen. It is all about compromise and trying to keep the balance: it’s definitely good to listen.
O+: You’re not precious about your art then?
DR: No, no, I still am. Once upon a time I was in that zone like, “No, no, it’s mine. You can’t do that”.
I was in that zone, you get me, ‘cause I was brand new. But I’m a bit older now and seen more.
O+: You’ve proved your worth now. You don’t feel that pressure anymore. Is it more like you have free reign to do what you want now?
DR: Not even that. I just feel I do what needs to be done. What I want all the time ain’t necessarily the way it is. Of course I think everything I do is the shit.
O+: So you have faith in everything you put out there?
DR: Of course, otherwise I wouldn’t bother. There wouldn’t be any point to it otherwise.
O+: Winning the Mercury Music Prize aged just nineteen, with your debut record, Boy In Da Corner, must’ve then affirmed for you that you’ve touched not only a core fanbase but a wider audience with the help of XL Recordings?
DR: Definitely man.
I was doing what I was doing and the fact that was acknowledged back then, that’s what I cared about at the time. I wasn’t showing them [the mainstream] what to do, you know what I’m saying. People just broke through after that though, it’s like that.
O+: I guess you brought grime to the forefront of the British music scene. Where do you position yourself in the current debate surrounding the tendency for misogyny and homophobia in much of urban music, in a lot of today’s grime output?
DR: I think, for a start, hip-hop is all just a guess. You don’t know what that person spitting rhymes is thinking. It’s all about personal beliefs, you know? From the outside just remembering what’s right and what’s wrong. And wondering from the outside how to approach what’s right, what’s true to my own experience. But hip-hop, it’s all really about different people.
O+: That’s perhaps the most refreshing aspect of your music: your ability to disassociate from the scene like that. There was an unreleased track of yours, Respect Us, aired on 1Xtra [DJ Semtex’s station] on which you were giving advice about how to succeed in the business. In it you suggest distancing yourself from where you started out Is that something you feel you’ve had to do to get here today?
DR: As a person, you get me, I’ve had to do things to move on. But I ain’t talking about my roots. It’s more I’ve had to cut off from some aspects of where I’m from.
18th May 2006