Ill Murk: Hampton's Hippest-Hopper

Woy yoy yoy yoy, yoy yoy-yoy yoy. Buffalo Soldier by Bob Marley. But who would have guessed that that lyric would inspire Northampton/East Anglia's hottest rapper Ill Murk to write a song about it? But he's done it; and he's done it well. If you don't know who Ill Murk then a) you need to and b) he was discovered in 2003 at Fever Nightclub and ever since has grown and grown to stardom, introducing the world to new underground rappers and producers on his way. The guy he's giving us this time is a producer called Dimez; I adore the beat on this track but apparently he creates fusion music which is designed to appeal to all listeners of all genres - don't even try. There are people who will love you and people who will hate you and you my friend need to focus on the former and carry on making this sort of afro-tune.

Let's use the song as an example. If you're a big reggae fan with posters of Gyptian on your wall you'll love it. If you follow underground grime artists and knew about Sneakbo like years ago even though you live in Glasgow you'll love it. If you like your music dub-by and think 2011 is the best year for new music at the moment you'll love it. If you want a banger for the summer (see all my Summer or Bummers for a bit of help on the pop front) you'll love it. However if you like sixties and seventies music and spend all you life listening to the Beatles and ABBA (not that there's anything wrong with that) then you won't like it. So Dimez, buddy, don't try to appeal to those people.

Well that about sums up the song - a dubby, grimy, reggae summer anthem. So no not "fusion" but it is incredible. If I take the focus off Dimez and back to Ill Murk for a second then I can really highlight how great he sounds on this track. He also shows off his amazing writing skills. There are some great lyrics on this banger and, even if you can't make them out, they're delivered equally as good. There is a little bit of generic hip hop bragging but he addresses the issue of most rap being by underground Londoners and the effect that has on the profit he makes from his music and whether or not he can carry on producing hits. So everyone who's heard the song and thought: "yeah I like that" download it on Friday 29 July (tomorrow) it's only 80p. To hear it in full you have to go to Sound Cloud but to wet your tastebuds I've added this...

If you're a fan of Bedge Music you'll know I recently did a post on the Lewi White song Young Guns and either introduced or highlighted five massive up and coming hit makers from the UK. And it got me thinking about who my Northamptonian Young Guns would be. Ill Murk defo, Mic Terror's another massive grime MC, I'm loving Champagne Bubblee and then The Organised Rhyme Family and Council Kids are two awesome rap groups so Bob's your uncle. Northampton's Young Guns.