- Mon, 2011-04-04 12:10
It’s been a little while since there’s been a big battle of words between grime artists that hasn’t just flared up and fizzled out over Twitter. Entertaining though such spats might be there’s no beating a good old fashioned war dub; these people are musicians after all, so if they want their claims of superiority to carry real weight then they should come in musical form.
Well a couple of weeks ago Godfather of Grime and king of beef Wiley did exactly that, delivering the tune Therapy Battling, calling out Ghetts, D Double E, Durrty Goodz and Dot Rotten. So far only Dot has come back at him, first with Pop Artist, to which Wiley responded with Soundboy Killer, and then with It’s Over. Check out the dubs in the order that they came…
For our money Dot Rotten’s choices of beats for his dubs are a little suspect. Given that his primary criticism of Wiley is that he’s a pop artist it’s a little ironic that Wiley’s beats are more authentically grime that Dot’s. Clearly this isn’t a mistake on Dot’s part, and his choices were intended to be part of the statement as much as his bars were, but it robs his dubs of a certain energy and leaves them feeling a little limp.
Both emcees deliver some killer digs at each other, but again, Wiley’s just edge it for us. Dot’s focus on Wiley’s mum and his repeated use of playground insults about S.T.I.s strike us as a little uncreative, especially given how good we know Dot can be. To be fair to Dot, there’s very little to be said about Wiley that hasn’t already been said in past dubs, but he doesn’t put very much imagination into looking for new material to call Wiley out on.
Our verdict: Wiley wins this battle, but it seems unlikely that the war is over.
