Ruff Sqwad Guns And Roses Vol 2 Rarezas
Ruff Sqwad love guitars, but there's not a single guitar here. They love hangar-sized, doomy, simple melodies played slooooooow, on Rapmaster keyboards that've spent some time in the shed with dad's Krylon. It's not scary or menacing but vaguely silly- huge synths cycling in midair, sour and sagging.
2010 (103) April (103) Wiley - Avalanche Music Volume 1 (Instrumental) Scorcher - Jungle Book; Sickwun - Salvation Lies Within (Instrumental) Newham Generals - Generally Speaking.
Not for nothing does MC Tinchy Strider politely suggest on 'Move' that you bang your head. They probably picked it up through some perverted polyglot of drum & bass smog riffs and southern rap's Trans-Euro affectations. Wherever they got it, they may be the first act to come pre-screwed. (Blame English socialized medicine or the sleepytime effects of steak and kidney pie.)They also love silly bells-and-whistles-style tracks like 'Dirty', featuring the first digitized slide whistle in history. (Hold tight MC Harpo.) These are really throwbacks to batshit hardcore bricolage like Hyper-On Experience's 'Imajika' ('What's Opera, Doc?'
Remade by Davy DMX). Grime's dirty little secret is that it's easier to sell column inches presenting East London as Bartertown 2.0 than admit that frothiness, sweetness, and hope are key parts of its experience. (Not that the MCs help destroy the illusion: Yeah, you're Pablo Escobar in a country with the same gun crime rate as Guam.)The problem with Guns & Roses is that there just aren't enough Ruff Sqwad tracks. For a putative calling card from one of the most powerful crews around, this thing is stuffed bow-to-stern (geddit?) with U.S. Rap instrumentals. Grime crews have inscrutable taste in U.S. Rap: Do they really listen to their own music and hear Ludacris' 'Splash Waterfalls' or Black Rob's 'Whoa'?
I thought grime was supposed to wipe away Brit-rap's presupposed serfdom to Source/ Vibe rules. Grime people: The next time you look to our shores, throw on 'Crunk Music' or 'Put Your Hood Up' at +8 and go nuts.Alternately, you could just have faith in the spanking quality of your own music and say, 'fuck you very much' to a country who doesn't know Dirty Danger from Dame Edna. (Also, could I ask for a moratorium on the sex raps? I don't need to know Oliver Twist's skeeting habits.) They could be saving their best stuff (wot, no 'Anna'?) for the always-promised debut album, thereby considerably devaluing the eBay vultures of 2015.
(Not that it did Wiley any good: Nine hundred forty copies, you fuckers!) Bottom line is that you need to at least hear this if you're at all interested in grime, aka the most exciting music on the planet right now. (What else do you have to show for yourselves?
The Paw Paw Bears playing courtly lute? Your banging fax machine?) Just be prepared for a national crisis of confidence to the sound of Philly's Most Wanted.
Ruff Sqwad Guns And Roses Vol 2 Rarezas 3
OUaG: I would say you’ve just returned to the scene, but you’ve been back a good few months now. How does it feel to get back in that recording booth?Slix: To be honest, I haven’t ever stopped recording. But, this year I decided to go extra hard in recording and pushing my material whether via free downloads, mixtapes,live freestyles, or net vids.OUaG: You’ve just mentioned the ‘Daddys Home EP’. How many tracks will feature? And what sort of genre are they? Can you compare them to any of your other tracks?Slix: Around ten, maybe two bonus tracks. It’s a mixture of up tempo beats with some slower beats, but on the whole I can’t describe the genre, it’s just a lot of flee music.OUaG: When’s the release date for that?
OUaG: Grime had changed between Down Vol. 1 and Down Vol. 2, how big is the change now since then?Slix: Very good statement and question. To be honest, I don’t really think there is a music called Grime at the moment. Instead there are a large groups of artists who hail from the Grime scene that are making great music whether it be at a slow bpm or fast bpm.OUaG: Do you support the whole Electro-Grime or mainstream cross over? Will you have an attempt at this yourself anytime soon?Slix: I support any type of music as long as an artist is being natural and doing music that he/she feels with at the moment.
I don’t have any plans of this type of crossover, but I’m in to all types of music, so it is not impossible.OUaG: I Ball alongside Tinchy Stryder, Dirt Danger and Sway is your forthcoming track. How did the link up with Sway come about?Slix: Sway is like family to me. We’ve met up numerous occasions; it was only a matter of time before we made a collaboration together.OUaG: Will I Ball be released via iTunes etc? Or is it free single download? Plus, will it feature on the Daddys Home EP or not (if it is a free download)?Slix: At the moment it’s looking like it will be on the Daddys Home EP, unless I get any good offers (laughs).OUaG: As well as writing bars, are you any good at producing? Or do you leave that all to Rapid and Dirty Dange to deal with?Slix: I have made loads of underground tracks over the years that people may know.
I made a track for Ghetts on Ghetto Gospel, I made Mercston featuring Plague – It's Weighty, and I also made the No Bass Riddim, all underground though. But at the moment I’ll leave it to Dirty and Rapid as I feel they are much better at it than myself.OUaG: Which Ghetts track was that by the way?Slix: Trapped In The SystemOuaG: How has Tinchy’s success helped the crew as a whole?Slix: It’s given us an opportunity to tour as well to gain a much wider knowledge of the music biz.OUaG: Your F64 let everyone know your back, the voting finished today (23/04/10) for the fans favourite. Who do you personally think was the best other than Tinchy due that being a bit biased.?Slix: The best F64 of series 1 was G-FrSh, but my favourite 1 was SAS, Mega and Mayhem.OuaG: On that bombshell, we’ll wrap up the interview.
Any shoutout or anything before we finish Slix?Slix: Big up all my Flee gang.