DIZZEE RASCAL Boy In Da Corner (20th Anniversary) / 3x LP NEW COLORED VINYL / XL 2023

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Mercury Award winning, Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner, Grime’s first and most defining record, comes a deluxe 3 disc edition with B-sides, rarities, + instrumentals available for the first time.

On his debut album, Boy in Da Corner, 18 year-old Dizzee Rascal instantly stakes a claim that East London is hip-hop's next great international outpost. East London: Rascal's world is precisely that small, and it returns a sense of rueful perspective to hip-hop lost among the soundtrack tie-ins, Godzilla-aping Bone Crusher videos, and 50 Cent-style mixtape mythmaking. In basic ways, Rascal echoes the wish fulfillment of much of American hip-hop, but he's hardly mimicking their act. Rascal is at ground level, eyes trained on his immediate surroundings. His rhymes, and especially his beats, reflect his area's desperate social, economic and political landscape. Often, this desolation hardens an emcee's psyche (Styles gets high every day to combat his mental strain) or delivery: This summer's post-ecstasy swing toward punishing sounds and pugnacious looks threatens to bleed the personality, humor, and adventure out of hip-hop. But to wunderkind Rascal, the accelerated disintegration of his immediate world pains him-- absolutely wounds him-- and it's the Tupac-esque mix of brio and vulnerability, along with his dexterous cadence and gutter beats, that separates his rhymes from the typical money/cash/hoes triptych.