The Singles Jukebox

Come a long way since March 2009…

[Video][Website]
[4.29]

Will Adams: In which Chip and Stormzy play Hot Potato with a boring garage beat and both end up losing somehow.
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: Am I meant to take this seriously? Then why can I extinguish this fire with a tablespoon?
[1]

Micha Cavaseno: OK, Prickmunk, let’s get this over with. First off, you were never the one during all those F**K Radio DVDs or the documentaries on the young ones coming up in grime back in the later part of the ’00s, or in that Wiley Westwood Session where he brought you and Ice Kid. It was Ice Kid. It was P-Money. It was Griminal. It was Dot Rotten. It was never you. But somewhere after “Chip Diddy Chip” being so abhorrent, you started making terrible fake Drake songs with Chris Brown, you became the worst part of Grand Hustle EVEN WITH IGGY AZALEA on songs next to you. You started beefing with Tinie Tempah, which is the grime equivalent of Boyz II Men bickering with Dru Hill, as Big Narstie so elegantly put it. And now after years of the most blatant sub-N-Dubz level pandering, you’ve come back to grime on a Ruff Sqwad beat, doing your best lackluster Tinchy Stryder impersonation, and you got Stormzy, a man who ethered you with a subliminal, boosting your shoddy credibility? No, Chip. This isn’t how it works. You do not get to make this comeback. Because in eight months’ time, you’ll have the song with a girl from Little Mix on it doing the sweetboy routine, and start talking about how grime is a little man’s game again. We’re not doing this. Go home, and do us a favor, get Ice Kid to drop a new single.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: It’s always hard for me to think of a straight-up battle rap (which this isn’t exactly, but borrows the template of) as a single, since the usual pop structures — chorus, changing dynamics, hooks, instrumental breaks — don’t apply. The way to overcome my resistance is, of course, to just be endlessly clever and forceful and attitudinal.
[7]

Brad Shoup: I really like it when MCs coordinate their verses; sadly, Stormzy’s the only one bothering to link themes. Chipmunk’s got omnidirectional frustration — he’s realest throwing his hands up at the industry — while his pal’s saving the good jokes for his own projects.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: Something goes missing when you don’t really care about the evidently fruitful brouhahas Chip and Stormzy are flailing toward with other MCs here, but it still feels like something’s happening. They’re self-mythologising at full pelt, and it’s easy to be carried away with. Yes, Chip in particular seems a bit conflicted, making the pitiful boast of knowing Chris Brown while simultaneously distancing himself from the pop past that facilitated it, but he very nearly sells both. Plus, any song that has a good word for DJ Sammy and bad ones for DSTRKT is off to a bright start.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Their voices mesh, and cheers to Stormzy for making garage beats sound fresh in 2016 (!) by syncopating with them. Chip isn’t crunchy.
[5]