Greek Wiggaboy Dappy wares one hat. Sage Francis’s buddy Curtis Plum wears two hats. You do the math:
Half Paul Lynde + half-BG = all novelty-rap hero.
So whilst N-Dubz continue searching facebook in vane for their integrity and the receipt for their souls, Curtis Plum keeps cranking out the adenoidal odes to bike cops, mobile phones and nearly being raped by Lil Wayne.
Heeding that old adage, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," Curtis Plum's response to the epidemic of Soulja Boy, Sean Kingston and Ke$ha-fronted homages to Ipods, ringtones and [insert name of the latest bauble of conspicuous consumption here] is to meet them head on. Like Snakebite & Black, the Curtis Plum formula is as simplistic as it is effective. Pick a cliché break-beat or a drum machine preset....add a Casio keyboard melody and then have hip hop’s most unhip hop character recite irritatingly catchy tributes to undeserving zeitgeists. Mr Plum can probably crank out a new album every week - and for now at least, I hope he does.
I love novelty raps and it gets none better than Plum. That said, I wish that Sage Francis and his Strange Famous family would restore the balance of light and shade, hilarity and heartbreak on the same release rather than all these polarised releases of entirely flippant or exclusively maudlin albums. The appeal (to me) of Sage's "sick..." compendiums is the way in which piss-taking and soul-searching seesaw with one another on the same record (if not the same track). The closest Strange Famous has got to coupling yin with yang on the one CD in a looooong time is this Scrubstastic, Cool J-indebted collaboration between labelmates Plum and Mr B Dolan.
#It’s Guy-love, that’s what it is.#
And back to that hapless hat-wearing Hellenic halfwit homunculus of "UK hip hop" known to his mum as Dino Contostavlos (known to me as an utter pusti malaka)
If BBC 1Xtra (a state-sanctioned "Urban" radio station) is to believed, platinum-certified N-Dubz are the epitome of British Black music. Thing is, at least two of The government's pro/anti-bullying Tsars are White (like ‘70s dog chod but not as affectionately remembered). What’s more, it turns out that the latest ghost-writer of their gritty urban ditties is Gary Barlow (fat, white Northern club-singer-come-Takethat-frontman).
So, if all goes to plan, expect to hear me hosting Radio 4's "Womans' hour," taking the female lead in Bollywood blockbusters and outshining all other TV ads as the new Milky Bar Kid. Dappy, thou hath shown me the way and the light! Why bother addressing piffling topics such as Turkey's ongoing occupation of Northern Cyprus when you can be the self-appointed figurehead of the Black British underclass. You might as well nominate yourself for ‘lesbian stilt-walker of the year’. Stop sending your fans sub-literate txt threats and do something to help get my family's homeland back you skatahead!
Anyhoos, Curtis Plum's stupid-dope "Call my cell phone" and B Dolan's dead serious "Fallen house, sunken city" are now available from Strange Famous Records. The former is a hoot. The latter integrates the militant spirit of Golden Era Public Enemy with the oblique, enigmatic lyricism of post-Artfag hip hop and channels this enhanced super-strain of thought through the Glitchified, organ-dissolving alienistic zoombap of Alias. Many injustices are broached during the album - but what about SFR’s decision not to give Alias equal billing with Dolan? That aint right.
