Skepta - 'Rescue Me'
Ha! Brilliant! For reasons too complicated to explain, my first experience of this song was a dodgy YouTube link which I was trying (and mostly failing) to watch on a crowded train on a really hot day. I knew this was the latest club banger from Skepta, an MC with a lot of love riding on his back. Unfortunately, I could only watch the first 21 seconds (which might sound like the feed line for a So Solid Crew joke, but it's not), and could not work out what on Earth was going on.
I mean, acoustic guitar? Earnestly-sung lyrics about self-development and things going wrong? Isn't that the preserve of your rock-type people? Surely someone has mis-labelled the YouTube clip? Surely there's been some kind of MISTAKE?
And then, in a miraculous parting of the binary clouds, letting pure information shine through, the rest of the video suddenly arrived. And that's when things started to become very clear.
(. It's bedlam.)
(And here's Skepta performing on the 519th 5:19 Show)
Y'see, it's a crossover, a mixup, a Pendulum sort of melody sung meatily by a man called Greg, which sets you up for the pulsating dark wave of electro that heralds Skepta's entry. His bits are stately, clinical and rude, at odds with the whiny chorus, even if it is a soaring whiny chorus, and MUCH better. I even like the Specsavers gag.
Best of all, Skepta's bits seem to exist in a place outside of the conventional rock that the chorus tries to lead us towards. That bassline is angular and choppy, taking a couple of strange turns along the way, and kind of muscular and weird at the same time. It suits his blunt delivery too, being a very grounded, clear-headed kind of MC.
I can see why the chorus is the way it is, I'd imagine the song would be tedious without that light and shade thing going on -music is all about tension and release in any case. On the other hand, I could cheerfully kick the vocal effects box they used into a canal, and...well let's just say I'd have been looking to change the proportions of Skepta-time to Greg-time in what is, after all, Skepta's song.
Sorry for the rant there, it's probably the heat talking.
Download: 27th June
Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Music page
(Fraser McAlpine)
"[I] was half-expecting this track to be just as dull but I was hugely surprised."
"He needs to start marketing himself as the sweet boy of 'Grime' and I'm sure he will get more mainstream press."
"'Rescue Me' ...summarizes what I need doing after being subjected to yet more of the same music product, re-branded and sold under a different name."
Comment number 1.
At 21st Jul 2010, hanaa-beth wrote:this song is one of the best around at the minute its so catchy its unreal nice one for the summer
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