Tempa T – Next Hype
HULK SMAAAAASH…
[Video][Myspace]
[6.18]
Anthony Easton: Is the first two minutes of this no music at all, and just yelling? That’s kind of avanty.
[3]
Matt Cibula: Love the energy, dig the flow, like his voice — but what exactly is the point of this song? “I will go around punching people and flipping over their mattresses”? Am I missing something?
[5]
Martin Kavka: Such pointless butchness does nothing but show that Tempa T is a big GIRL.
[1]
Spencer Ackerman: I’m confused. This guy, I think, is rapping about how he’ll perform all sorts of obnoxious-to-felonious capers in pursuit of money, but he’s British, so it’s comical and I don’t believe him, like when I watch Guy Ritchie movies. I think this is supposed to be a joke, though. Right? What’s a “par,” anyway?
[8]
Kat Stevens: I don’t think I’m young or angry enough to appreciate this – I don’t know what a Par is and have never gone on a rampage in Dalston Sainsbury’s (existential crises in Dalston Sainsbury’s, now *they* happen all the time). There are some great rave noises submerged on this track but they never get a chance to surface – sadly trampled into oblivion by Tempa’s hissy fit.
[4]
Alex Macpherson: Oscillating between comedic and genuine menace, Tempa T bangs around smashing things up like a raging, rampaging gremlin; but throughout his repeated crescendoes of destruction, he remains as irrepressible as he is demonic. The mad glee amidst the anger is what makes “Next Hype” such a triumph: catchy and quotable (“I said GET OUT THE CAR!”), malleable enough to be reworked for dubstep and other bass-heavy dancefloors. When Tempz shouts “DRAAAPES!” midway through, echoing No Lay’s cry of “DUUUCKS!” on 2005’s classic “Unorthadox Daughter”, it’s one of the most thrilling adrenaline rushes of the year.
[10]
Chuck Eddy: I like how he takes a bat (cricket, I presume?) to his enemy’s CD rack and promises they won’t get any CDs back — That’ll teach ’em to not go digital! Otherwise, a hard angry rant that gains some conversational credence if not necessarily musicality by not always rhyming. Don’t know enough about recent grime to know whether the anger’s a mere genre requirement; I’m guessing not, giving how many non-angry grime raps we’ve considered here lately. Regardless, Tempa’s unvaried temper does get a bit wearing.
[7]
Michaelangelo Matos: Usually when someone screams this much it grates on me eventually, but this hoarse cartoon-violent anthem just gets better with repetition. Maybe if it becomes enough of a hit they’ll make a real video, too. Or at least snip off the remarkably awful first two minutes.
[8]
Renato Pagnani: When he raps bits of shrapnel fly from his mouth in all directions and little children soil themselves. He sounds like a British DMX, all gruff and bat-shit insane. “Next Hype” is a four-minute aural pummeling over a mangled guitar loop, a constant barrage of threats and shit-talking that sounds legitimately intimidating, something easier said than done in rap.
[7]
John Seroff: Bumstiggitybumstiggitbumhum! Tempa T’s tireless hooligan scream-rapping recalls the vigor and snap of another era of American musicians: Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys, NWA. It’s not so much pleasurable listening as it is a vital dose of adrenaline; the minimal Playstation beat adds nothing but an appropriately flimsy scrim for Tempa’s chatterbox cutthroat street-shanties. Still, I’d gladly welcome the Euro as our new currency if this is grime standard; US hip hop needs to get the boring knocked out of it.
[7]
Martin Skidmore: Grime with no house sounds or chart-targetting slickness – I could as easily call it ragga-accented UK hip hop. It has plenty of muscle and force, though. Tempa T sounds very gangsta, and I’m not sure how well that will play in England – the image is not completely transferrable. Nonetheless, this has punch and I like it.
[8]
no really – what’s a par?
Guess what I meant by my blurb is that I don’t know whether there’s a certain strain or sub-genre of grime that makes anger like this a genre requirement, a la gangsta-rap or hardcore punk or whatever. (Obviously the whole genre doesn’t require it, since few if any of the other grime singles we’ve listened to here have been this angry, or pretend-angry, or whatever you’d call this one.)
Brief internet hunt suggests that a par is bad shit that goes down, i.e. par for the course. Certainly not used in the US at all.
BTW, I cut out a few sentences about how if Anthony Burgess wanted to shine on his prognostication, he would have done well to have paid less attention to the lovely lovely ninth and more to the Dvorak pronouncement, followed by a few sentences of Nadsat slovos and then thought better of it. Still.
A par is a waste of time, something you can’t be bothered with; to get parred is to be dissed or ignored (cf air).
Aggy (aggressive) lyrics and delivery has definitely been a big part of the genre, though not really a sub-genre as such – Tempz specialises in it about as much as you can (“Battle Riddim” is pretty great too). Check out that No Lay track I linked in my blurb too, which is probably my favourite grime track ever, and Ghetto’s “Mountain”.
Don’t get why you’d just review the skit at the start of the video…it’s rubbish, yeah, once you’ve gone “lol Westwood”, but it’s obviously not the actual track.
(BTW: urbandictionary.com, like Wikipedia, can be a v useful thing!)
I look forward to discussing yams and cream pies with you on Trap Going Ham shortly lex.
lol john
this is some gay shit, right?