Last Updated on 23/01/2021
These are the Top 5 most influential tracks in UK rap music history. Find out about the best songs in Grime/Drill/Hip Hop with this in-depth exploration.
Rapping has had a pretty convoluted journey to success in the UK. Over 40 years it has surfaced again and again as a popular mode of vocal delivery across a variety of music forms – from some ska and reggae in the 80s, to trip-hop, garage and jungle in the 90s and, most obviously, in hip-hop, grime, drill and trap within the last two decades.
Rap’s promotion from a largely supporting role within dance music to being the focal element within the UK’s own genres of ‘rap-music’ has been a gradual one. The US’s most successful rap music scene, hip-hop, blew up around 25 years before a major one was truly established in the UK – grime . The UK’s currently prosperous rap music landscape has absorbed a vastly different mishmash of influences as a result.
But which UK rap tracks have been the most influential on the development of the genre?
5. “Did You See”, J Hus.
J Hus is an innovator of contemporary rap music. Breaking into the UK Top 10 in 2017 with “Did You See”, the lead single from his debut album Common Sense, Hus signalled significant change in mainstream British rap.
The track incorporates a combination of instrumentation and rhythmic sensibility that has been popularly branded ‘afroswing’. Integrating elements of dancehall, bashment and afrobeat along with grime and hip-hop features, the result is sonically distinctive. Paired with Hus’ idiosyncratic cheekiness it is a buoyantly fun tune that was (and still is really) a summer anthem.
It led the way for a rich scene in which the diverse and previously underrepresented culture of the UK’s African diaspora is appreciated. The earlier music of artists such as Mista Silva, Kwamz, Fuse ODG, and Timbo was fused steadfastly by Hus into the rap paradigm. A lane for afroswing has opened up in which artists such as Burna Boy, Mostack , Kojo Funds, Hardy Caprio and exciting new star Pa Salieu have bloomed.
4. “Talking The Hardest”, Giggs.
In the late 2000s UK rap music had been polarised to the extremes. Grime simmered in the underground, while many of its biggest names hit the charts with pop-rap crossover hits. Think Tinie Tempah, N-Dubz and even Wiley – you know the tunes. In South London though was emerging a scene whose influence would be difficult to foresee. Inspired by both the sounds of grime and US gangster rap, Giggs became Peckham’s own 50 Cent.
His breakout hit “Talking The Hardest” twists an old Dr Dre. beat, sounding far from the warm California sun though. Its suffocating, dark ambience and Giggs’ ominous delivery combined smoothly with violent ‘gangsta’ lyrics and brought a fresh energy to British rap music.
The ‘road-rap’ scene flourishing in its wake turned out to be a slowly heating kettle, that came noisily to a boil with the piercing whistle of UK drill music in recent years. Alongside UK drill’s Chicago cousin, Giggs and the legacy of “Talking The Hardest” is drill’s biggest inspiration.
3. “Money Mad”, London Posse.
Prior to the year 2000 the most prominent uses of rapped vocals in the UK existed outside of ‘rap music’. The earliest popular usages were often owed to MCs within the Sound System scene which was propagated to the UK through Caribbean cultures. MCs delivered rhythmic vocals over ska, dub, dancehall and calypso music. UK dance music scenes of the 90s were, in turn, hugely indebted to this. Jungle and Garage took not just instrumental inspiration but also adopted and adapted a similar style of emceeing; rapping was still not the focus though. Even the trip-hop scene (one massively influenced by hip-hop from the US) usually preferred melancholic, wailed vocals and only sporadically featured rapping (Tricky, for example) – this did not leave much of a rap legacy.
UK rap music’s lineage can be more accurately traced from Britain’s early hip hop underground. Thriving in the late 80s in particular, British rappers made (good) golden age hip hop, with many adopting American accents . There was little too ‘British’ about it though (excluding perhaps the ‘britcore’ scene).
That was until London Posse entered the fray. Rapping in their native accents and fusing elements of their musical heritage, hip-hop was flavoured with the diverse culture of London. The dancehall and ragga rhythmic sensibilities are undeniable and Rodney P’s South London accent is plain to hear on the fantastic 1988 hit “Money Mad”. This forgotten gem illustrates their unique (and significant) take on hip hop perfectly. The rapping is strong and the beats groove with the same infectious energy that made early hip hop so popular in the US.
Even if ultimately hip-hop itself was not the rap music that Britain came to love, London Posse’s contribution spurred a generation of Brits to ‘rap British’.
2. “Lets Lurk”, 67.
UK drill is currently the country’s rap music zeitgeist. So important is the scene that it has spawned major international subgenres in Ireland, Australia and most visibly New York, where Pop Smoke was working miracles to popularise its sound further.
While Giggs and road-rap are key influences , the Chicago Drill scene holds equal responsibility for UK Drill’s sound; the rhythms and flows resemble those from the Illinois city far more closely. And while rappers from Angell Town Estate, Brixton, are often credited with introducing drill to the UK, the unique flavour that characterises the genre today, with its mixture of road rap and grime, is owed to drill group 67. As well as pioneering this precise blend, they simultaneously did some serious work to popularise the sound.
67’s 2016 track “Let’s Lurk” utilises the beat from the 86 track “Lurk”. Their enlistment of Giggs as a guest and the series of cold-blooded verses truly makes it their own though. As one of the first drill tracks to break the UK top 100, it provided a blueprint for the seemingly endless string of drill hits that have followed, mashing up eardrums all over the country.
The track also made another significant, albeit indirect, contribution. Comedian Michael Dapah used the very same beat in Big Shaq’s international hit, “Man’s Not Hot”. While it perhaps lacks the artistic credibility as a parodical track, it is one of the most (if not the most) streamed UK rap tracks on Youtube and Spotify – more than any Skepta, Stormzy or Dizzee Rascal song. It garnered unparalleled global interest for British rap.
“Let’s Lurk”, which popularised the beat initially and led to Dapah’s adoption of it, must receive added recognition for this too.
1. “I Luv U”, Dizzee Rascal.
This track is a monster for so many reasons, but at its core it represents the rise of grime, Britain’s first mainstream rap music scene.
After the year 2000, grime muscled its way past the rapidly perishing garage scene to the forefront. Combining garage remnants with touches of dancehall, jungle and of course hip-hop wisdom, “I Luv U” was a track at the forefront of the grime revolution. Written, produced and rapped by a 16 year old Dizzee Rascal, this grime track was one of the first to hit the UK charts (bringing commercial viability), was the lead single from the 2003 Mercury Prize winning Boy in Da Corner (bringing national, and even some international, attention) and is also just a pure banger.
It embodies all the base values of grime. Bringing aggression, passion and insightful lyrics, Dizzee set a precedent that persisted even through the genre’s 2014 revival. Utilising now classic, grime instrumental devices such as mimicry of ringtones (or videogames noises) and a heavy, scuzzy bass, it holds a DIY, punky energy. And the vocal lines are not merely of hype-mongering intention, like those that MCs of the garage scene provided. This was lyrical rap. Dizzee offers an angry, but honest perspective on the conflicts surrounding teen pregnancy here.
Britain had a powerhouse of a rap music scene in grime. It was rich, energetic, lyrical and unique. And this fantastic track was one of the biggest sparks that led to the inferno that followed. Rap expression has since burned brightly in the UK, and its glow seems to grow exponentially even still. Give the track that set UK rap alight a listen.
Listen to all the discussed tracks below, as well as a few others important to the development of UK rap. A significant honourable mention can be made to “That’s Not Me” by Skepta – the track at the spearhead of the post-2014 grime explosion back into the mainstream. While not a sonic innovation, it led to another rapid widening of rap music’s lane in the UK mainstream.
