Glasgow's Urban Underground

At first glance Glasgow might seem an unlikely host for the 2009 MOBO Awards, which are being held outside London for the first time in their 13-year history.

Scotland's largest city certainly has a formidable reputation for music and an illustrious pop heritage, but its most celebrated artists are almost exclusively from the rock and indie end of the spectrum. Think Glasgow these days and you'll most likely think of the art-school guitars of Franz Ferdinand or the gloomy glamour of Glasvegas. But that's only half the story. The city centre's mainstream bars and clubs shake to the sound of hip hop and R&B every weekend, while national and international stars from Dizzee Rascal and JLS to Jay-Z and Kanye West sell out the biggest venues effortlessly. And while it may not have produced many notable rappers or soul divas of its own, what Glasgow does have is a thriving underground scene based around leftfield hip hop, dubstep, UK funky and grime, as well as a deep-rooted passion for dub reggae, soul and funk, with a sprawling network of interconnected club night, record labels, DJs and producers flying the flag for modern music of black origin in all it's myriad forms.

The Mungo's Hi-Fi crew are a case in point. Based around a traditional heavyweight sound system, the collective have been hosting parties at the Glasgow School of Art for years and recently branched out into recording via their own Scotch Bonnet label. They now take their unique Jamaican-via-Scotland brand of reggae and dancehall all over Europe and beyond, performing alongside the biggest names on the scene. Their mighty rig has also, on many an occasion, helped soundtrack the Fortified nights all over the city.

Scotland's first ever dubstep night started three years ago with 20 people dancing in an illegal basement space and now sells out venues like the Art School and Stereo with crowds dozens of times bigger. They've brought just about every major player in dubstep to Scotland, from Digital Mystikz to Benga, and their third birthday bash at the end of October features Bristol boy wonder Joker, rising star Silkie and UK garage legend El-B. The Fortified boys regularly team up with Numbers, currently the city's hippest and hottest underground electronic night, to bring some of the biggest acts to as wide an audience as possible. This week sees dubstep poster boy Skream - whose immense remix of La Roux's 'In For The Kill' helped propel it to the upper reaches of the charts this summer - back in town to play the legendary Sub Club venue on Thursday night.

Numbers' own nights have an eclectic approach which has seen them promote gigs by artists ranging from Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah to avant-garde electronic acts like Autechre and Dopplereffekt. As resident DJ Spencer told Resident Advisor: "We're not really a specific genre of music club - it's more just a party club. I'm not saying that we'll drop an 80 BPM hip hop track in the middle of a banging set, but we kind of want people to come in at the start of the night and start it off slow." Their big bash this month is a launch party for Hudson Mohawke's hotly-anticipated debut album, 'Butter', released on indie giant Warp Records.

The young producer, real name Ross Birchard, has made huge waves in the global underground hip hop scene with his scattershot beats and psychedelic soundscapes, and his stunning bootleg remix of Tweet's 'Oops (Oh My)' - not to mention his his Nadrsoic project with local vocalist Ciorsdan Brown - are a uniquely Glaswegian take on high-gloss R&B. He's already been namechecked by everyone from Rihanna to Goldie, and at this rate don't be surprised to see him on next year's Mercury Prize shortlist. The modest 23-year-old told Clash recently: "I never actively promote myself. Any success I've had has been as a result of not forcing myself in peoples faces and just letting people discover my music and make their own mind up about it. So it's nice to have a little success but I've always thought it's a mistake to get too caught up in it. I always prided myself on trying to create something uniquely my own."

Hudson is a member of the city's LuckyMe collective of musicians and designers, along with fellow beat-mangler Rustie - Russell Whyte - whose profile is also sharply on the rise after a number of low-key yet high-impact underground releases, showcasing his 'aquacrunk' sound. There's Café De Phresh, a banging hip hop collaboration with US rappers 215 TFK, the monstrous Zig-Zag, hailed by influential online record store Boomkat as their record of the year, and most recently the 'Bad Science' EP, which The Guardian made single of the week, adding: "Of all the current so-called 'wonky' producers, Rustie is top of the pile, thanks to a hypercolour sound palette of eight-bit bleeps, gun-clap percussion, and laser synths that sound like Sonic The Hedgehog twirling a stripper's pole." His quickfire DJ sets join the dots between Dirty South hip hop and Detroit electro, shot through with the sexiest R&B vocals and the most off-the-wall electronics you've never heard. He told the Lazerus Pit blog recently: "There's been a wee hip hop scene in Glasgow for as long as I can remember. If Glasgow is on some coolness map now, I hope it's because there's some interesting new music coming from the city."

Another LuckyMe spin-off is Ballers Social Club, a more hip hop-orientated take on the Numbers approach to parties. They've been throwing free parties in bars - and bigger bashes in clubs - for two years and they've gone from strength to strength, dropping the latest US hip hop and R&B alongside experimental electronics from all over the world. This month grime legend Terror Danjah is headlining to launch his new 'Gremlinz' album, and their recent second birthday weekend featured sets from Darkstar and Jamie Vex'd. Promoter Joe Coghill told FACT magazine: "The genesis of Ballers was basically Rustie and I sittin' in parties, clubs and his studio listening to new hip hop (like Luda, Clipse, Polow Da Don type-a-shit) and wanting to start a night that played this type of music. We fired a couple of names back and forth and just put on a party with the last rapper to ever work with an alive J Dilla - Phat Kat. The whole of LuckyMe have been involved in it from the start - Dom Sum has always done the design, and every member has DJed or played live. We started just wanting to play hyphy and R Kelly to our friends, and then it kinda became something entirely different. Ambitions are still the same as at the start though; just push new music and have fun doing it."

Numbers-affiliated record labels Wireblock, Dress2Sweat and Stuffrecords are the final cogs in the chain of Glasgow's ever-growing urban underground movement. Acting as a springboard from which the likes of Rustie and Hudson Mohawke can bounce into the wider musical landscape, they also serve as an outlet for music from outside the city that happens to fit their aesthetic, from techno to hip hop. As their records find homes on the turntables of forward-thinking DJs all over the planet, and those involved continue to spread their wings - Numbers resident Jackmaster recently delivered a blinding set at London dubstep night FWD and the whole team took the Sonar festival by storm in Barcelona this summer - one thing's for sure: the Glasgow scene is growing stronger by the week and shows no signs of slowing down.

Words by Tom Churchill