Dizzee Rascal’s skilfully managed to negotiate the tricky step of moving on from the high praise heaped on last year’s acutely hyped debut ‘Boy In Da Corner’ album with the quicktime release of ‘Showtime’. As important he’s discovered the knack of finding a hook to keep the focus on him now that he’s no longer the new kid on the block, and in the case of the new single ‘Dream’ that hook is a detailed sample of Captain Sensible’s version of ‘Happy Talk’.
Easily dismissed as a commercial cash-in, it’s a suitably sprightly tune with which to carry the EastEnders ‘against the odds’ story of rags to riches. It’s top drawer lyrically as Dizzee recounts how his dreams came true in the face of adversity and offers himself up as proof to everyone out there that anything is possible if you keep your self-belief. And that says an awful lot more to a late 30s white boy like me than I’d have expected from a 19 year old black boy from Bow. Mind you, as he point out in ‘Dream’ he did have to move ‘up Norf’ to my old stamping ground of Tottenham to get his first break, so there’s hope for me yet even this late in the day.
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Refreshingly positive, comical and posture-free without ever being sentimental, gimmicky or forced, Dizzee’s served up an easy-to-digest slice of UK hip hop pop that avoids feigned Americanisms and the depressingly myopic recycling of the genre’s lurid preoccupations with gangs, guns and girls.
Equally impressive are the breathless live inquisition of ‘Imagine’, recorded earlier this year in Austin, Texas and the 80’s hard synth textures on ‘Is This Real?’
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