Dizzee Rascal
with True Live
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Are you ready? Eight months is a long time when you’re the maddest MC in the world. Having bumrushed our stages and made converts around the country in January when he displayed blistering skills at the Big Day Out, Britain’s leading MC, DIZZEE RASCAL, returns to Australia next month for a pair of headline club shows that will make clear why he’s a hip-hop great always on point.
Since we last saw DIZZEE RASCAL he’s continued to talk it up via his outstanding third album, Maths + English. Nominated for the 2007 edition of the prestigious Mercury Prize (an award he’s more than familiar with, having previously swagged it with his incendiary 2003 debut, Boy in Da Corner), it’s now been succeeded by Dance Wiv Me, his brand new collaboration with Calvin Harris and Chrome which is undisputedly the single of the year. It’s spent a month at number one in the U.K. and is rapidly burning up the airwaves here prior to its release on September 13.
Having just finished an American tour, DIZZEE RASCAL’s live appearances remain a compulsory experience, as Australian audiences found out earlier this year at his Big Day Out sideshows where alongside DJ Semtex and his homeboy MC Scope he swapped rhymes and got houses jumping with classic tunes such as Sirens and Jus’ a Rascal.
“While the bass caused heart murmurs, DIZZEE spit with a speed and ferocity that his albums don't do justice… Maybe coming up through a scene based around live performance enhances an innate showmanship, but DIZZEE knows how to play a crowd… (his) genuine efforts to give the crowd an actual good time is a welcome reminder of times when ice was for the back of your neck not the toys around it.” (Pitchfork)
Defying expectations – whether at a gig or in the studio – is the norm for DIZZEE RASCAL. His three albums have combined to make him one of the most admired MCs in the world, crossing over styles and borders as he cuts up dense lyricism, furious beats, a wry sense of humour and a feel for atmosphere that makes his East London upbringing accessible to listeners wherever they increasingly may be.
He’s guested on an Arctic Monkeys song, kicked vocals back and forth with Lily Allen, remixed with Beck and even dealt weight in a movie (Rollin’ With the Nines). But DIZZEE RASCAL’s forte is the live arena – where he puts gangsta posses and do-nothing rappers to shame. “This ain’t no sit-down thing,” he’s been heard to holler from the stage.
