NEONS

On early August, the best UK hip hop label these years, High Focus , dropped the new Dirty Dike's single ''I Ain't Got A Clue'' , and at first I was a bit confused by the change of sound compared to his previous records. But after a few listens, I was totally hooked. The production by Joe Corfield goes so hard you can't do shit but head banging to the beat, especially in the middle of the second verse where a little mind blowing melody appears, so fucking intense it's driving me nuts every time. I think I listened to the song on repeat for two weeks. Finally, I ended up knowing all the lyrics, all the fine details in the instrumental. Total ripper. Dike is spitting his rhymes furiously, mixing serious topics with dark and tasteless humor the way he's so good at. Starting right on with ''I'm about to phone your mum a cab / Sober up your slag, don't open up your flange / Here, smoke a bunch of skag / Only joking, I'm your da...

These days are to me the Golden Age of UK hip hop, especially everything coming out of High Focus Records . Dirty Dike was and is always my favorite. He doesn't give a shit about anything, he has this edgy, crude and dark humor, plus an awesome raw flow that would murder anyone on a freestyle. In his precedent records, he was playing with his two sides that can clearly be heard on his songs. The fun side, represented by hits like ''Hi! I'm James'' , ''Ten Dike Commandments' ', or ''Pork Pie'' (with its now famous punchline during a break ''YEAH YEAH SHUT IT SLAG'' ), talking about parties, raving, drugs, graffitis, mates, dissing people for free, bragging and showing off, fucking shit up, and the other one where he makes us dive into his more personal, dark aspect of his life. And I think on this EP, the second one is way more present. There is a gloomy atmosphere throughout the entire record (Mr Boss' pr...