Dizzee Rascal Biography
"My teachers all called me rascal," Dylan Mills has said, explaining the name Dizzee Rascal - which is now known across the country after his Mercury win.Rascal, who grew up in Bow, east London, was raised by a single mother on a council estate.He was so much of a rascal that he was excluded from every class except music and expelled four times. But he began rapping in the UK garage style - the style dominant on many inner city streets - and one teacher encouraged him to develop his musical talents. According to Rascal himself, the music stopped him drifting into crime like many others on his estate. Rascal is not ashamed to admit that money motivates him and is the latest in a line of British stars to have emerged from the urban scene. Like thousands of teenagers across the UK, he began making music in his bedroom with friends, using whatever technology he could lay his hands on.I Luv U was then given a full release, reaching number 29 in the UK chart, followed by Fix Up, Look Sharp, which went to number 17 in August. BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Low praised the rapper for his album at the Mercury ceremony. Rascal has not escaped the violence of the UK garage scene - he has just recovered from being stabbed in the Cypriot garage resort of Ayia Napa. The incident was said to have arisen out of a squabble within the music scene on the island. But the incident has not hurt his music career, and he is now working on a new album.
"ABC," as the Jackson Five once put it, "it's easy as 1-2-3": Dizzee Rascal's third album, "Maths & English," is the most complete, intense and thrilling British hip-hop record ever made. Bar none. From the Korn-inspired metal guitars of the barnstorming first single "Sirens," to the vivacious Bugsy Malone-inspired backchat of Lily Allen (on the irresistible "Wannabe"), every track on this album seems to find a new way of grabbing the listener's attention. But the amazing thing about "Maths & English" is the way the huge number of different styles and ideas that it showcases come together as the perfect vehicle for one man's voice. Whether Dizzee is going mano a mano with American gangsta rap legends Bun B and Pimp C ("Where's Da G's") or paying his dues to his UK heritage by collaborating with drum and bass legend Shy FX; whether he's sampling Lyn Collins on the straightest hip-hop track he's ever done ("Pussy'ole") or going way out there to a Martial Arts film soundtrack of knives being sharpened ("World Outside"), it never takes more than half a bar of his raw, guttural, urgent rhyming to realise you're in the presence of the Rasket. The more musical ground he covers, the easier he seems to find it to be true to himself. As if to confirm that sometimes you have to travel a long way to get really close to home, Wiz' controversial video for "Sirens" (in which Dizzee - the fur trim on his parka marking him out as a true urban fox - is hunted through concrete walkways by redcoats on horseback) was filmed on a Romanian council estate. "They've got estates over there that look just like ours," Dizzee explains, "except there are still bullet holes in the buildings and that's in the nice part. It's definitely being opened up a bit because they've just joined the EU, but away from the touristy part, it's still a deep and eerie vibe. It's like my friend over there was saying, the fa_ade is thin - it feels like anything could happen at any time, and sometimes it does." You could say the same thing about "Maths & English." On the one hand it's easily Dizzee's most upfront and accessible record to date - "Sirens" is a UK half-brother to Jay Z's "99 Problems" and full on party tracks like "Flex" and "Bubbles" will soon be turning up the heat on dancefloors the more melancholic Mercury Prize-winning debut "Boy In Da Corner" might have cleared. On the other, it's as brutally honest and potentially confrontational as anything he's ever done. "The direction changed a lot with this album," Dizzee admits. "It started out with a lot of more reflective tunes about how sad shit is and what a fucked up world we live in - because that was kind of where my head was at the time. But then I started listening to a lot of different music - old Outkast stuff ,Young Jeezy, Dem Franchise Boyz, D4L's "Laffy-Taffy": that whole Altanta snap thing - and it got me back into the mould of that jump up party shit, so I wanted to make banging tunes - tunes that people can bump to and be ignorant to." While American influences were vital to the creative evolution of "Maths & English," the album never compromises its distinctively British identity. Even when Bun B and Pimp C step up to the mic. "Those are two of the most important rappers in America, as far as the hip-hop scene is concerned," says Dizzee, proudly. "These are certified gangsta rappers. The real deal. It's not a joke... And they're on a grime tune - respecting it, and understanding that I'm different, but in some way we come from the same place. For me, that's a real achievement for British hip hop." Where does the album's title comes from? "It kind of sums up my philosophy of grafting," Dizzee explains. "Numbers, words: that's what I do. The writing side is the English. The notes, the beats, the deals, the money - that's the Maths. But it's about going to school too, and how everything I've learnt since then has made me look back and reflect on that. In fact everything you're thinking, that's what it is." It's not just "Maths & English" then, but science and history and art as well: a complete education in itself.> Yo dis is da official Dizzee myspace but please let it be known to all my fans dat I love u all but if I dont reply to your messages dont take offence I get hundreds a day and aint got time to answer dem all other wise I wouldnt have time to make my music but I love getting all your comments and believe I do read them all !
"ABC," as the Jackson Five once put it, "it's easy as 1-2-3": Dizzee Rascal's third album, "Maths & English," is the most complete, intense and thrilling British hip-hop record ever made. Bar none. From the Korn-inspired metal guitars of the barnstorming first single "Sirens," to the vivacious Bugsy Malone-inspired backchat of Lily Allen (on the irresistible "Wannabe"), every track on this album seems to find a new way of grabbing the listener's attention. But the amazing thing about "Maths & English" is the way the huge number of different styles and ideas that it showcases come together as the perfect vehicle for one man's voice. Whether Dizzee is going mano a mano with American gangsta rap legends Bun B and Pimp C ("Where's Da G's") or paying his dues to his UK heritage by collaborating with drum and bass legend Shy FX; whether he's sampling Lyn Collins on the straightest hip-hop track he's ever done ("Pussy'ole") or going way out there to a Martial Arts film soundtrack of knives being sharpened ("World Outside"), it never takes more than half a bar of his raw, guttural, urgent rhyming to realise you're in the presence of the Rasket. The more musical ground he covers, the easier he seems to find it to be true to himself. As if to confirm that sometimes you have to travel a long way to get really close to home, Wiz' controversial video for "Sirens" (in which Dizzee - the fur trim on his parka marking him out as a true urban fox - is hunted through concrete walkways by redcoats on horseback) was filmed on a Romanian council estate. "They've got estates over there that look just like ours," Dizzee explains, "except there are still bullet holes in the buildings and that's in the nice part. It's definitely being opened up a bit because they've just joined the EU, but away from the touristy part, it's still a deep and eerie vibe. It's like my friend over there was saying, the fa_ade is thin - it feels like anything could happen at any time, and sometimes it does." You could say the same thing about "Maths & English." On the one hand it's easily Dizzee's most upfront and accessible record to date - "Sirens" is a UK half-brother to Jay Z's "99 Problems" and full on party tracks like "Flex" and "Bubbles" will soon be turning up the heat on dancefloors the more melancholic Mercury Prize-winning debut "Boy In Da Corner" might have cleared. On the other, it's as brutally honest and potentially confrontational as anything he's ever done. "The direction changed a lot with this album," Dizzee admits. "It started out with a lot of more reflective tunes about how sad shit is and what a fucked up world we live in - because that was kind of where my head was at the time. But then I started listening to a lot of different music - old Outkast stuff ,Young Jeezy, Dem Franchise Boyz, D4L's "Laffy-Taffy": that whole Altanta snap thing - and it got me back into the mould of that jump up party shit, so I wanted to make banging tunes - tunes that people can bump to and be ignorant to." While American influences were vital to the creative evolution of "Maths & English," the album never compromises its distinctively British identity. Even when Bun B and Pimp C step up to the mic. "Those are two of the most important rappers in America, as far as the hip-hop scene is concerned," says Dizzee, proudly. "These are certified gangsta rappers. The real deal. It's not a joke... And they're on a grime tune - respecting it, and understanding that I'm different, but in some way we come from the same place. For me, that's a real achievement for British hip hop." Where does the album's title comes from? "It kind of sums up my philosophy of grafting," Dizzee explains. "Numbers, words: that's what I do. The writing side is the English. The notes, the beats, the deals, the money - that's the Maths. But it's about going to school too, and how everything I've learnt since then has made me look back and reflect on that. In fact everything you're thinking, that's what it is." It's not just "Maths & English" then, but science and history and art as well: a complete education in itself.> Yo dis is da official Dizzee myspace but please let it be known to all my fans dat I love u all but if I dont reply to your messages dont take offence I get hundreds a day and aint got time to answer dem all other wise I wouldnt have time to make my music but I love getting all your comments and believe I do read them all !
