favourite garage mc

[SEAN!]

sammy's post about dizee rascal has inspired me to create this post so we can tlak about our favourite garage MC's. To me it just seems that theres alot of really shit garage mc's out there but the few that stand out to me are
MS Dynamite-i fuckin love her ghetto gangster bitch ragga style

Asher D- I have a long recording of a battle against dizzee where he absolutely tears him up, hes deffintieyl so solid's best male mc. the cd he made after he got outta jail was dope

Kaish- dope vocalist, great singer, i read that he's another so solid member who is in jail for the next four years for drug and gun charges...oh well.

Mc Mightymoe-yeah hes pretty dope, i guess.

[dj4mula]

Megman is aiht 2.

But uh, its kinda sad that So Solid got banned from doing live show anymore.

Someone send me some good garage mixes.

`t1m

[cheeseburger]

Me.

"shut your mouth, pass me the ketchup"

[Sammy Skillz]

Lady Stush
Lady Dynamite/ms dynamite
Asher D
Lisa Maffia

and...elephant man...only because he says dumb things like "shizzle"

-s.

[axion]

wiley from roll deep

although during that Choice FM roll deep vs. so solid battle his freestyles were quite weak. that whole battle made roll deep look quite bad. dizzee's rhymes were recited pretty much straight out 'fix up, look sharp'.

[QuanNeur]

taana gardner, loleatta holloway, billy nichols, ednah holt, bernard howler (nyc peech boys. woohoo!). proper nyc garage. too bad they're gray and withered

[SEAN!]

Originally posted by QuanNeur
taana gardner, loleatta holloway, billy nichols, ednah holt, bernard howler (nyc peech boys. woohoo!). proper nyc garage. too bad they're gray and withered

hey man do you know where i can get some proper nyc garage..i like that stuff too...but theres not much of it around

[QuanNeur]

hi sean,

yep it's definately not the most common thing around. truth is that some forms of deep house and garage are very similar, but saying that there really are a few distinct kinds of deep house.. the slow, heavy, instrumental stuff which is more modern and tends to be best known as the deep house sound, the groovey funkadelic tweaky stuff you get from guys like mark farina, and then the more old school, very organic vocals filled stuff that makes you want to sing along. i say this because if you like classic garage then you're going to have to hunt through the deep house pigeon hole as "nyc garage" doesn't give you much to go on.. (just keep in mind you're looking for the last of those three types) proper garage really is one of the most underground e-musics out there.

that said, some true garage artists for you to explore:
little louie vega
francois kevorkian
joe claussell
danny krivit
jojo flores
danny rampling
and of course larry levan, who started it all at the paradise garage long ago, but be warned as material associated with him is very OLD and sounds dated.

the way the music the above djs play is produced is with full live recordings rather than just quick samples, which is one of the ways it gains it's organic feel. real "songs" and not "tracks."

when you're done with those move onto some artists that are in a similar vein of music, but are more associated with "deep house":
tony humphries
rasoul
iz & diz
dino and terry
nick holder
joey negro
blaze
kings of tomorrow
kerri chandler

anyway that should whet your appetite for some time

[Wood]

^that stuff has very little to do with the 'garage' sound of London, though

that first list are all heavies, especially Levan who only sounds dated (to some, not me!) because he died in the 80s (or early 90s? can't remember off hand). But the resemblance to London garage is in name only. It follows an entirely different set of influences (ie, Jamaican), and only retains the same name-tag by coincidence. what is now called 'garage' in the UK started as a byproduct of the more black contingent of the jungle/ragga scene.

that second list of artists, in my mind, couldn't be further from the UK Garage sound. Aside from Humphries (who really belongs in that first list), i consider those artist to be perpetrators of some of the most boring & uninspired dance music out there, a far cry from the constantly evolving London pirate sound sometimes referred to as 'garage'. Most likely, your average UK garage scenester wouldn't even know who they were, let alone acknowledge any influence from them & their 'deep house' peers on London garage music.

If you wanna trace UK Garage back to US producers, look to Todd Edwards & Armand Van Helden. Todd's syncopated beats & Armand's exaggerated basslines do deserve some credit in the formation of Speed Garage, the precursor to the current London sound.

[Wood]

Originally posted by Sammy Skillz
and...elephant man...only because he says dumb things like "shizzle"

-s.

agreed, even though he's not a garage MC by trade... i think his work in that field is superior to most of his dancehall & hiphop releases. The 'New School Playas'(??) remix of 'run lef dem drawers' on Select Cuts KILLS the orig....

[Sammy Skillz]

yea no doubt. i don't mind his old dancehall shit but his new cd is ass.

i like his collaborations with crews like heartless and blazin squad...even though blazin squad is cheese.

-s.

[QuanNeur]

Originally posted by Wood
^that stuff has very little to do with the 'garage' sound of London, though

yep wood, i know. sean asked about proper nyc garage and so i was responding to him.. believe me i'm all too familiar with uk garage. i live here in london now and the garage scene here is basically the same as the pop hiphop scene in the US. loads of people bling blingin', stuck-up jackasses everywhere, lots of weed, cocaine and booze and a great deal of violence. garage nights have the same stigma as hiphop nights do in the north america. don't want it in your club.

that first list are all heavies, especially Levan who only sounds dated (to some, not me!) because he died in the 80s (or early 90s? can't remember off hand).
[/b]

old larry made it the 90's, died of HIV. when you compare the tracks larry was playing to the stuff you here from kevorkian or vega these days i think there's quite a bit of difference. production techniques have come so far, technology has changed. and really the "garage" sound didn't evolve into what it is until after the paradise garage closed. the music larry was playing had far more in common with disco than any sort of soulful, vocal house. much of it didn't even broach 100bpm...

that second list of artists, in my mind, couldn't be further from the UK Garage sound. Aside from Humphries (who really belongs in that first list), i consider those artist to be perpetrators of some of the most boring & uninspired dance music out there

well humphries... yellorange... jersey sound... a lot of people associate that with proper deep house.. anyway that's not a big deal, but man, i don't know how you can pass off all those other artists. personally i find iz, diz and kerry can get tedious and a little self-important but the rest, shit, i love those guys. i listen to at least some joey negro and blaze pretty much any night i plan to go out. it's party music, gets me right in the mood. i find it hard to see exactly where you coming from on that one.. we've had similar discussions but i really do think that in some ways you expect too much of dance music. there's nothing wrong with having high expectations but when you're letting loose on a dancefloor you don't always want to be challenged. in fact sometimes that's exactly what you don't want-- it can be exhausting. i spend my entire week at work in a state of mental overstimulation and when i go out i want an escape, a mentally relaxing, meditative experience. i want music that puts a smile on my face and my heart at peace. this is its own kind of catharsis. yes there are times when i go out to hear forward-thinking music that challenges my perceptions and pushes limits but when i want a proper party, not so much. this doesn't mean i want uncreative, crap music, but i guess you'd disagree. when i go out to listen to this stuff i'm not expecting it to change the world.. maybe you understand.