While many of the grime scene’s pioneers have gravitated outwards towards treacherous climes, there is thankfully a core group holding down the homestead and resolutely pumping out grime and bassline bangers no matter what. Leeds, UK- based rapper Dialect is firmly in that camp right now, as evidenced in the new video for his track “Ey Up” with Bradford spitter K Dot, produced by Nastee Boi. This is a track somehow hyper self-aware and yet somehow completely unselfconscious in so much that it’s a pure sheller and it knows it acutely.
Nastee Boi has crafted a bassline behemoth for “Ey Up”, the 4×4 drums giving the track a kick and a bounce and a raison d'être and insisting we all feel the same way. Leeds is well known for bassline and garage, which have co-existed alongside grime even as grime went commercial, and this track is the uncut, raw, sample which serves as a prime example. “Ey Up” is a colloquial greeting in Leeds, and when it meets the diversity of the city in a culture clash, you get hilariously catchy hooks like this:
“I went to go pick bae up,
I was like ‘Wagwaan’, she was like ‘Ey up’”
After this simple yet brutally effective chorus, Dialect then moves to straightforward brutal as he proceeds to display his credentials as one of the country’s most technically gifted semi-automatic weapons. Each syllable of his skippy flow is delivered with a foot to the face, making his verse the equivalent of a flurry of small kicks which culminate in a late-verse K.O. In his verse, Dialect reminds us of his status and takes a decidedly more measured approach to braggadocio.
“If you don’t like me, each to their own
Suttin’ like MJ, leave me alone
Just wanna be a great like Nina Simone
Flow from the beyond, you know what I be on
I’m a clash king, man have known it for aeons
Way back when I was rolling with Keon
Contract killer getting dough like Leon”
Dialect brushes the haters off and looks down at them with disdain for daring to slow his path to greatness, which is certainly a recommended method of dealing with haters. K Dot, from deadly grime crew Scum Fam, prefers a more direct technique. His flow is more scattershot than Dialect’s and it works perfectly as a counterpart. K Dot wants to rep the entirety of his ends and supporters, as well as dish out ominous warnings to those who oppose.
“Ey up, our kid
Got yeng so we stay up, our kid
Book us then you pay us, our kid
The club might get spray up, our kid
Might bust that bitch off the backboard for the layup, our kid
If things don’t weigh up, our kid
Ting lift Andre up, our kid”
The mix of heavily regional slang and violent threats proves a winning formula for K Dot, whose appearance gives an already banging track a unique element which should ensure its replay value in overheated Audis all through summer. The video is a no-frills rave affair, and all attending appear to be loving every minute. Grime is traditionally against frills of any kind. There is a lot to be said to ditching the niceties and moving forward with only blunt force in mind. Dialect and K Dot have both been moving forward in such a manner, and the accolades and packed post-Covid raves will attest to that.
