Daily Discovery is a feature that will highlight a new or recently discovered artist that we’re excited about. See the rest of our Daily Discoveries here.
Will grime ever truly cross over to the United States? Hard to say, but as tastes broaden, people become more open to different sounds, and there is a craving for music that still has that raw, underground energy, it might have a chance. Tired of your favorite artist switching up their sound and going after that radio play? Check out grime champion and Boy Better Know founder Skepta’s new single “That’s Not Me,” it’s some of his grimiest work yet. Tired of music without any message or seeming aim than to make lots of money? Check out Ghetts’ new album.
The current popularity of electronic music could also play its part, as much of the most innovative, exciting electronic music is grime, or offshoots of it, whether that’s Wen’s brilliant Signals album, Mr. Mitch, his Gobstopper imprint and the whole Boxed collective, Mumdance (who produced “Take Time,” above), or Visionist’s output, most recently on US label Lit City Trax.
Into this exciting environment comes a 17-year-old MC and producer called Novelist. Although he’s still young, he’s already been on Rinse (solo, for an hour, no less), and if you listen to any of his sets, you can hear he’s coming with confidence and bars that are impressive for someone of his age. Not convinced Novelist is worth your time yet? Well, maybe the fact that Jamie xx is on board too will convince you. Novelist recently posted a photo to Facebook of the two of them in the studio together during a nine hour session, with the caption “watch out for the tune we made today on Jamie’s forthcoming album.”
It’s exciting times for Novelist, who is only going to get better as he gets more experience and spends more time in the studio with the likes of Jamie xx and Mumdance. We asked scene lynchpin, DJ Logan Sama (check his KeepinItGrimy Soundcloud and YouTube for lots more awesome grime sets and videos), exactly why people are so excited about Novelist.
Novelist is, for me, representative of a generation that has had Grime around them for the entire time they have been aware of the existence of music. That’s really exciting, because that’s a first. He’s a product of Grime, musically.
He’s grown up seeing people from his area and culture as his inspiration, so for me this is the first generation that is entirely inspired by Grime artists and has learned from their successes and their failures.—Logan Sama
You can check his Soundcloud here for sick sets with DJs like Slimzee, Spooky, Elijah and Skilliam. Check out his brilliant hour on Rinse FM with Mumdance below (he comes in around the one hour mark), not to mention his own production work on the Sniper EP.
Read a pretty extensive interview with Novelist via RBMA here.
