For years the bridge between Hip-hop and UK Rap/Grime proved challenging from both sides across the Atlantic. While Hip-hop culture has been a life-spring of great influence on the urban scene across the globe, Grime has been on the rise since the early 2000s grooming the UK urban culture significantly.

Fast forward to today, a revamped UK Rap/Grime genre has attracted attention to the Hip-hop scene noticeably with huge names like Kanye, Drake, Chris Brown (the list goes on) building relations with UK artists.

What one might find interesting within Grime itself is the realisation that the genre has become more diverse over the past few years. Thanks to the UK multi-cultural society other genres like Afrobeats, Dancehall, 2-Step/Garage and Bassline have sprung to the to the surface. Reminiscing of old skool raves everyone “skankin” what a time to be alive. A great example of a perfect blend between Bashment, RnB and UK Rap check out Jeremiah ft Stefflon Don n Krept & Konan, a clubbing banger!

One may ask why now and a simple answer is “Culture Clash” played a huge role in delaying this long overdue merger across the Atlantic. For years Grime was commonly dubbed as “a bit fast to call Hip-hop” due to elements of its up best tempo. There may have been a speculation that English rappers sipped Yorkshire Tea instead of getting busy ?

Seriously with the developing of Trap Music, a subsidiary of Hip-hop comprising of head-banging 808s, snares and hi-hats paved a way for UK rappers to contribute to the sub-genre with an ‘English-lingo on a trap beat’ style of rapping. Technically speaking any producer can confirm with you quite commonly both Trap and Grime beats per minute resides at 140bpm therefore, spitting on the same speed you can certainly adapt to both of these sub-genres.

Another great example of how seamless the bridge between US/UK closed-in has to be Denzel Curry – Knotty Head UK Remix Feat AJ Tracey. You may be scratching your head as to how Denzel Curry (US Freshman) and AJ Tracey (Grime Surviour) are on the same track together given they are freshmen from both sides. Denzel made it on the XXL Freshmen Cypher 2016 alongside Kodak Black, 21 Savage, Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty therefore you know he is definitely making a buzz. If you do not know about AJ Tracey by now, I suggest you do a little digging, he is holding down the Grime scene heavily alongside Dave another UK contender (signed to Drake by the way).

The bridging of this imaginary gap across the Atlantic has been a long time coming and in my opinion necessary to the culture. With a lot going on in the world today keep these collabs coming?