Dizzee Rascal - "Maths + English"

Dizzee Rascal - Paranoid (XL 2007)

Dizzee Rascal - Maths + English / XL

From Billboard.com:

London-based rapper Dizzee Rascal will release his next album, "Maths & English," for XL/Beggars Group on June 5 in the U.S. In a first for XL/Beggars Group, Billboard.biz has learned that the album will only be serviced to digital outlets in North America, and the label is not planning on releasing on physical CD outside of the U.K. and Europe. "Maths & English" will, however, be released as a physical product overseas, where Dizzee Rascal has met much more success....

"Maths & English" is Dizzee Rascal's third album, the follow-up to 2004's "Showtime." The sophomore effort has sold 16,000 units to date in the U.S., according to Nielsen Soundscan. The number was a significant dip from the 58,000 copies sold by his 2003 debut, "Boy in da Corner," which arrived Stateside under massive amounts of buzz.

The two varying statistics persuaded XL/Beggars to go the most cost-effective digital route with "Maths & English" in the U.S. "Many of the sales of the first record were a lot of impulse buying," says Beggars Group VP of marketing Matt Harmon. "It was the feeling that people were missing something if they didn't own that record. That didn't mean that everyone was a fan. It just meant we were selling a lot more records. So coming to this album, we're going into it with a readjusted, more realistic view of it."

And so ends the short but furious history of grime in the US. Oh sure, Dylan Mills has been drifting away from the 140 bpm two-step breaks that provide the pillars for guys like Wiley and Skepta since Boy in Da Corner was released in 2003... But as both the most successful and most visible grime personality in the States, Dizzee Rascal has come to symbolize the Great Garage-Rap Onslaught of '03. The problem is that, like M.I.A., people seemed to be buying Boy in Da Corner more to be a part of what was fresh rather than for actually liking the album. Top 20 on both the Heatseekers and the Top Independent Charts, Dizzee was a harsh MC for American ears more used to lazy Southern-fried slurs over boring beats.

While Showtime showcased Rascal's talents yet again, just a year later he was nowhere for most Americans. What sense would it make to bother unleashing yet another brilliant album on a continually unsuspecting and unappreciative audience? Maybe because Maths + English is possibly his most wildly inconsistent, erratically intriguing release yet. The pink-black-white artwork might be painfully ugly, but the musical point is made: You can try and ruin a cut with Lily Allen or bitch on and on about how tough fame is, but at the end of the day the formerly day-glo neon synths that wove a sinewy path through vacant drum blasts are taking a back seat to both the storytelling and the subtler touches of a Big Sound.

Mike Skinner's failed concept album on fame rings true here as Dizzee starts the album off with songs like "Pussyole (Old Skool)" and "Suk My Dick." Pretty clear what's going on here, and that's basking in the fame and attention that being a grime king can merit; alternately, it's what results from hormone overdrive fueled into that two-step template so popular four years ago. Has it really been four years?

Between his internal dialogue dominating a track like "Paranoid" and the party-crashing genius of "Flex," Rascal's multifaceted personality shines through in a way that might've been exemplified just as well in his first two albums but never quite in the same way. This both is and isn't more of the same. It's both a confident swagger and a career retrospective. Maybe there aren't any indications as to what he will do next, but I'm not sure he needs it. Mills is far from being at the bottom of his game and this album is, for at least half the Atlantic, one more reason why. Maybe for that reason alone, it's a shame Americans will have to buy it via import. It would rob record stores of the pleasure of turning around the album to reveal Rascal flipping us off in defiance. The shame instead is that the joke's on him.