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DIZZEE RASCAL returns
The mysterious CCTV video that had been streaming live at 727548.co.uk revealed the return of the multi-platinum-selling, multiple-award winning hip hop star Dizzee Rascal. Holed up in a bunker in Bow, east London, Dizzee was seen writing down what turns out to be the tracklisting for his forthcoming new album, RASKIT, before debuting a snip of the video for his new track ‘Space,’ released in full today and available to stream and download now. RASKIT is released 21 July via Dirtee Stank Recordings / Island Records and is available to pre-order now.
RASKIT, Dizzee’s sixth album and first in four years, returns the compliment of Drake’s recent grime-flavoured mixtape – and with interest. It teams precision-tooled beats from a stellar array of US producers (Valentino Khan, Cardo and Paul Salva among them) with the sound of Britain’s finest MC – bar none, in a field of his own, champion of a league of one – “rapping my arse off”. The result is a spiraling sub-bass vortex of introspective jeep-beats which takes the man Jeremy Paxman called Mr. Rascal right back to his roots, but with a hip-hop twist, Jay-Z or E40 would be proud of.
“The idea of trying to be my 17-year-old self again just because everyone thinks grime’s landed in their lap this week didn’t satisfy me”, Dizzee explains. “I wanted to use what I’ve learned to make the best rap album I could, with no hands in the air moments, just using as much English slang as I could over the best beats I could find”.