Review Summary: Does back-to-basics have to be so basic?
I think the main thing to take from
Raskit is that like most good grime it stays in its own comfort zone; it’s safe, and not in the
safe bruv sort of sense, but in the
let’s just drop a bunch of 3-4 minute songs that go verse-chorus-verse-chorus sort of sense – songs that are all solid on their own, yet add up to something fundamentally unsatisfying as a whole. It’s like in returning to his roots Dizzee has taken on all the stylistic lessons he’s learnt but applied none of the risks that got him there in the first place; there’s nothing here aimed at progressing a genre that hasn’t really pushed its boundaries much in its lifetime.
Now this is obviously not the worst thing in the world. After all, Dizzee returning to his roots means that one of the best MC’s in the game is back, an experienced master coming back to school the new school, and he obviously has some real issues with the current wave of young’uns. “The Other Side” holds back the bass and frantic beats to let Dizzee’s apparent shots at Stormzy (“Too big for my boots that's the truth”), Skepta (“Bunch of fashion MCs think they're too cute”), and even the “Godfather” Wiley (Why's the Godfather touchin' on the kids?/Why you actin' like you never knew and he's movin' new again?) take the limelight, making it abundantly clear that he holds little respect for what the genre has become in his absence.
This lack of respect partly explains the peculiar absence of features on
Raskit, which is something of a positive in my opinion. Wiley’s
Godfather, the other OG comeback album of the year, was marred with features that detracted from his impeccable flow, striking a sharp dichotomy between the experienced old school and the still rough-around-the-edges new school.
Raskit on the other hand is straight Dizzee throughout, which gives it a lyrical consistency often missing from grime. Furthermore, the lyrical content is culturally sharper than most; Dizzee takes aim at the gentrification of London on “Everything Must Go”( “Bottle poppers and socialites/Gassed up and over-hyped/No oversight”), pointing out how all he sees is “politicians runnin’ round tryna keep their pockets jinglin”, juxtaposing this criticism against soundbites of politicians meekly trying to claim they won’t let it happen, their clipped Queen’s English drawing a stark contrast between themselves and the people they’re claiming to protect: Dizzee’s own people.
On the tail of this is “Slow Your Roll”, a sort of impassioned lecture to those same youths Dizzee sees a part of himself in to stop the violence. Instead of the buzz-saw basslines present on openers “Focus” and “Wot U Gonna Do”, “Slow Your Roll” features a serene, melancholy backdrop, giving Dizzee’s lyrics all the more poignancy for their stark and serious presence; he not only gives the youths his advice (Slow your roll and get dough/And let the foolishness go) but points his finger at the issues causing the violence (The developers rocked up/Settin’ up shop got the whole place locked/ And it all went and it all got copped and the hood got chopped). This level of poignancy is unusual for grime, and is indeed sadly not even common for
Raskit. As the LP reaches it midpoint the stereotypical booming bass diminishes, and it feels like Dizzee takes some cues from America. Lush synth backgrounds and skitter-y hi-hats creep in on tracks like “Bop N Keep It Dippin” and “She Knows What She Wants”, tracks that possess a fruity west-coast swagger as well as a shallowness that exemplifies their throwaway nature.
Now, in fairness, these tracks are stylistically something a bit fresher. But structurally they’re about the same as the rest of the album; all 16 songs on
Raskit smack of formulaic safety, making it feel like Dizzee’s just slapping a new coat of paint on the same walls over, and over again. And if, as Dizzee points out on "Ghost", he’s been “on the mic when you was in playschool”, I think he could be doing a little bit more than a back-to-basics LP where nearly every chorus is the song name repeated
ad nauseam. I mean, does back-to-basics have to be so
basic?
