{
  "slug": "grime",
  "name": "Grime",
  "aliases": [
    "eskibeat",
    "eski",
    "sublow",
    "8-bar"
  ],
  "description": "London MC music built on cheap software at 140 BPM, born on pirate radio in the east of the city around 2002. Square-wave basslines, no swing, and a vocal delivery that treats the beat as something to fight.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "East London",
    "year": 2002
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "uk-garage",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/uk-garage/",
      "inherited": "The parent it turned on. Grime kept garage's tempo and its pirate-radio infrastructure while throwing out the soul vocal, the champagne and the swing, which is precisely what got its first MCs thrown out of the raves."
    },
    {
      "genre": "drum-and-bass",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/drum-and-bass/",
      "inherited": "The bass weight and the ritual. Jungle taught East London the reload, the dubplate and the idea that an MC over a rhythm is the event rather than the accompaniment."
    },
    {
      "genre": "golden-age-hip-hop",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/golden-age-hip-hop/",
      "inherited": "The other half of the vocal. Grime inherits rap's bar structure and its appetite for the competitive verse, then doubles the tempo and refuses the American accent along with the American swing."
    },
    {
      "genre": "dancehall",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/dancehall/",
      "inherited": "The delivery. The grime MC's cadence, the clash, the reload and the instrumental sold as its own record are all dancehall practices, arriving in East London through families and pirate radio rather than through records."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 138,
    "max": 142
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-29",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/grime/",
  "trackCount": 9,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "musical-mob--pulse-x",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/musical-mob--pulse-x/",
      "title": "Pulse X",
      "artist": "Musical Mob",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/musical-mob/",
      "year": 2002,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Two notes, a square wave and almost no other content. Usually named as the first grime record, and the reason an entire scene decided that a beat could be this bare and still work.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Musical%20Mob%20Pulse%20X",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/search?q=Musical%20Mob%20Pulse%20X",
          "exact": false
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "dizzee-rascal--i-luv-u",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/dizzee-rascal--i-luv-u/",
      "title": "I Luv U",
      "artist": "Dizzee Rascal",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/dizzee-rascal/",
      "year": 2002,
      "label": "XL",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Made at sixteen on a school computer. A row between two teenagers about a pregnancy, over a beat that sounds like the argument, and nothing in British music had sounded that unmediated before.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Dizzee%20Rascal%20I%20Luv%20U",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=YH0KWX2a8zY",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "wiley--eskimo",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/wiley--eskimo/",
      "title": "Eskimo",
      "artist": "Wiley",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/wiley/",
      "year": 2002,
      "label": "Wiley Kat",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The instrumental that named a subgenre and set the emotional temperature: cold, hollow, and deliberately unwelcoming. Wiley's whole theory of the music is audible in ninety seconds.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-ghosts",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — Ghosts",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-ghosts/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Wiley%20Eskimo",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=u3rWH9pWkVQ",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "lethal-bizzle--pow-forward",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/lethal-bizzle--pow-forward/",
      "title": "Pow! (Forward)",
      "artist": "Lethal Bizzle",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/lethal-bizzle/",
      "year": 2004,
      "label": "Relentless",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Eight MCs, one relentless beat, and a record banned from so many venues that the ban became part of its reputation. The genre's most efficient demonstration of what a posse cut is for.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Lethal%20Bizzle%20Pow!%20(Forward)",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=60lMDCXFblc",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "xtc--functions-on-the-low",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/xtc--functions-on-the-low/",
      "title": "Functions on the Low",
      "artist": "XTC",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/xtc/",
      "year": 2004,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A mournful string figure over a beat with nothing in the middle. Ignored for a decade, then rediscovered as the backing for Stormzy's Shut Up, which is a fair verdict on how good it always was.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/XTC%20Functions%20on%20the%20Low",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/search?q=XTC%20Functions%20on%20the%20Low",
          "exact": false
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "wiley--wot-do-u-call-it",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/wiley--wot-do-u-call-it/",
      "title": "Wot Do U Call It?",
      "artist": "Wiley",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/wiley/",
      "year": 2004,
      "label": "XL",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A single whose entire subject is the argument about what to call this music. Wiley refuses garage, refuses urban, and in refusing them names the thing by negation.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Wiley%20Wot%20Do%20U%20Call%20It%3F",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=tvCaWKqyKjg",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "jammer-featuring-wiley-kano-d-double-e-and-durrty-goodz--destruction-vip",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/jammer-featuring-wiley-kano-d-double-e-and-durrty-goodz--destruction-vip/",
      "title": "Destruction VIP",
      "artist": "Jammer featuring Wiley, Kano, D Double E and Durrty Goodz",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/jammer-featuring-wiley-kano-d-double-e-and-durrty-goodz/",
      "year": 2006,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The clash record. Four of the best MCs in London taking turns over one beat, with D Double E's verse still cited as the high-water mark for the form.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Jammer%20featuring%20Wiley%2C%20Kano%2C%20D%20Double%20E%20and%20Durrty%20Goodz%20Destruction%20VIP",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/search?q=Jammer%20featuring%20Wiley%2C%20Kano%2C%20D%20Double%20E%20and%20Durrty%20Goodz%20Destruction%20VIP",
          "exact": false
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "trackKey": "skepta-and-jme--thats-not-me",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/skepta-and-jme--thats-not-me/",
      "title": "That's Not Me",
      "artist": "Skepta & JME",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/skepta-and-jme/",
      "year": 2014,
      "label": "Boy Better Know",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The comeback, and a public apology for a decade of chasing American pop. Made for eighty pounds, on purpose, and it reset the scene's standards overnight.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Skepta%20%26%20JME%20That's%20Not%20Me",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=APPMOAGH8Kc",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 9,
      "trackKey": "skepta--shutdown",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/skepta--shutdown/",
      "title": "Shutdown",
      "artist": "Skepta",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/skepta/",
      "year": 2015,
      "label": "Boy Better Know",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Grime as a fully confident export, with the beat still built from almost nothing. Thirteen years after Pulse X, the genre's commercial peak sounds no less austere than its beginning.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Skepta%20Shutdown",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOG5BkY2Bc",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}