Time for some grime: Roll Deep – Rules and regulations

Roll Deep CrewRoll Deep is probably the most famous Grime crew – Dizzie Rascal was part of it, Whiley still is and they are deeply connected with the pirate radio scene. But despite having sold 60000 units of their first album “In at the deep end” so far, and playing liveshows with people like Snoop Dogg in the UK, Asia, Europe, e.g. Grimetime in Berlin, nobody there can afford a us-rapstarlike lifestyle – the 13 members predominantly still live in East-London’s housing estate “The estate”. Still. That might change. (Click for their new video)

Because they are about to release their second album “Rules and regulations”, distributed mainly on their Myspacesite. And again they manage to combine this typical grime flow with tales from the streets and melodies that stick. They sport many different talents on entertaining tracks (beyond them: Scratchy, one of the few white grime MCs which makes for some nice target group optimization.. No offence, he’s good!) So this is their new single “Celebrate that”:

Update: Prancehall (aka the “Terry Richardson of Grime”) was at the shoot for the video and tells a little something about what was going on behind the scenes.

Roll Deep are aware of the responsibility popular musicians have towards their own fans: Especially in the face of the growing violence in the UK, their video “Bad man” is a documentary-like focus on the suburbian situation when guns, frustration and heated up situations come to a bad end. Here’s the making of:

Und noch ein bisschen deutscher Kulturjournalismus – Here’s a nice visit in Eastlondon, a journey to the Roll Deep studio and their hood “The estate”: Roll deep in London by Süddeutsche (in German)

[Inspiration by Playrough]