East London’s Dizzee Rascal (born Dylan Mills) will always be connected to the UK’s grime scene, but with his new album Maths & English (Matador), Dizzee strives to quake hip hop as a whole. He has dedicated himself to showing listeners and the mainstream audience at large “where da g’s” truly are – and according to him, they’re not on MTV or in music videos. On Maths & English (released in the UK last year, and today in the U.S.), Rascal has advanced his mindset, his game, and his audience through calculated honesty and criticism of a genre that from his vantage point doesn’t always keep it as real as it suggests.
Vibe: Where did the title Maths & English come from?
Dizzee: The bars and music are the math and the words, the English. Also the money is math too, and the English is working with the promotion people, and talking to labels and the interviews.
This album is a clear criticism of hip-hop, those who fake the gangsta lifestyle and real G's, how do you decide what is real and what is made up?
That’s a good question. It’s more about where people are taking the whole thing too seriously. Kids not understanding that the whole thing that hip hop shows isn’t realistic. It’s just not realistic to have $100,000 chain or pushing the crazy whip. In real life that just doesn’t matter.
Do UK fans and listeners have a different idea of what "keeping it real" is all about?
Not more than anywhere else. It’s the whole music market that determines what it is we see from hip-hop, so everyone sees the same side.
How difficult it is to manage a career in both the UK and the US? With the Internet and the connection of businesses worldwide, you can release and distribute everywhere, so why can't the album be released in both places simultaneously?
It’s the promotion that makes it difficult. The UK is so small, and the U.S. is so large. I wanted to be able to promote the album fully in both places, so I released the album digitally in the U.S. so I could come and promote it later. Even with the Internet, to give the album the attention it needed, I had to split up its release.
You use a lot of elements in this album from different sub genres. There are of course, grime influences, but also strong southern baselines and west coast high-end synthesizers and G-funk. Was this all purposeful, or is this just an organic extension of your development?
A bit of both, I naturally sway towards trying to do different things and I was also blessed to work with other creative people. Especially working with UGK, I’m just so thankful that was something that could come together.
The credits on this album say you write all of the lyrics and music, but also producer credits are on some tracks - how much of a hand did you have in it?
Most of it, I was always in the studio working on each track, so it was either me, or, it was me with someone else.
Why was “Pussyole (Old Skool)” left off the US release, and is it true that it's a diss track of [Grime MC] Wiley, from the Roll Deep Crew?
In the U.S. there is still dispute over James Brown’s estate, so I couldn’t get any clearance for the sample over here. Some of it is disses, but I just wanted it to be a big banger dedicated to the old school just to get people to dance.
How was it working with Lily Allen, for “Wanna Be” on this album?
It was cool- we really clicked because she is a really easy person to work with. I laid down the tracks, then she came in and we worked the rest out together, it was good.
What makes this album better than your previous albums?
It’s big production and about growth. I don’t sound like an excited 16 or 18 year old anymore. And the sound is just wider, which makes it have that mass appeal, and it touches on bigger sounds in hip hop, which connects with more people.
Do you consider this a grime album or a hip hop album?
I consider grime a branch of hip hop, so then that makes this a hip-hop album. It doesn’t sound like Boy In Da Corner, which is what people would consider a classic example of a grime album.
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