The line between a rhyme book G and real deal hustler has always been a blurry one.
In one infamous interview Eazy-E was depicted filling up thumb-sized bags of Humboldt County hydro for sale while at the height of a platinum recording career; Camden’s Skinnyman would throw out baggies filled with his merchandise at breaking tourney gigs.
For Giggs, crime has been more necessity than wanting to look dangerous. He served two years in prison for gun possession in 2002, and despite shifting around 100,000 mixtapes the Met’s Trident anti-gun crime unit saw fit to ring round record labels warning them not to sign the twenty-seven-year old.
This is an excerpt from an article that appears in the May issue of Clash Magazine. Pick it up in stores from April 2nd. You can read the full issue online HERE and subscribe to Clash Magazine HERE.
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Now signed to XL, this Sumner Road, Peckham native’s voice is an impossibly deep, deliberate baritone that is reminiscent of fellow porridge boy Shyne. His use of hard-to-catch slang [‘strally’ is, we understand, the new London word for gun] and impressively miserable similes like “Leave you covered in red like a portion of chips” convey a very real sense of coming from the alien-to-most south London badlands.
In person though, Giggs isn’t as bad as all that. He glances up at me between answers over his pineapple juice and barbecue chicken burger with the almost pleading look that comes with a lifetime of being misunderstood, before explaining how he is on first name terms with the lot at Trident. “They know me, I know them. If they come and kick off my door at my house, then they’re like, ‘Hey what’s goin’ on’: that’s how well they know me.”
Since tracks with Mike Skinner [‘Slow Song’] and Shola Ama [‘Cut Above The Rest’], he’s recorded the excellent ‘Don’t Go There’ featuring singer B.O.B [signed to Atlantic] and a deep synthy bass, dramatic string section and clink rhymes like “Seeing shit so clear / All courtesy of a cold square”. Discussing how his background changed his angle he says: “Obviously they say that Dizzee was doing what I’m doing now – but he wasn’t. I’m talking about a whole different lifestyle that Dizzee wasn’t living, you get me?”
These days, he’s super busy between recording 1Xtra shows and his new album in his Kilburn studio. He is in a way used to being a star, a corner boy star, and to be being busy: back when he’d bomb through the London streets dealing coke from his car on a twenty-four-hour shift: “I’d get everything from barristers to strippers in the car who’d buy sniff and go straight off and strip in the club.”
Giggs has already cornered the market for gritty urban hip-hop, forgone artists like Ramson Badbones’ psychedelic wordplay for gravelly half-time menace. With artists like Ama and Skinner on board he may yet seduce middle class kids sick of electro grime and hunting for the contact thrill of dark SE14 truths. About as ‘Tongue ‘N Cheek’ as the view from a Strangeways cell block.
Words by Miguel Cullen
Where: Peckham, London
What: Gully half-time hip-hop with sci-fi beats
Unique Fact: Giggs was a garage MC at the time Dizzee was blowing up with Roll Deep.
Get 3 Songs: ‘Don’t Go There’, ‘You Raise Me’, ‘Freestyle’
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Big Chill Festival 2010
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