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Thursday 5 November 2015

Sheffield: The Home Of Modern Grime

Many cities and areas of the UK have previously been crowned the new leaders of the uk grime scene over the years but without much confirmation as to why they are considered to be the hub of the genre. I can already sense the angry replies of Londoners in my inbox before ive even posted this but i stand firm in my statement that 2015 has been Sheffield's year.

As our beloved genre grows in popularity it leads to a growing scene of up and coming artists in every city, which in turn only feeds more fuel into the fires of the genre's takeover. Ive had a lot of conversations with people in my ten years of running KIP and the general consensus is that Grime originated from London. I believe this to be an incorrect statement as other cities such as Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester all had their own scenes around the same time that people became aware of the growing scene in London but due to the locations of these scenes i feel that they don't get credited for their history.

Unlike most people, i don't like to just judge the strength of a cities scene by simply just the music that comes from it but also the loyalty to their own scene and each other as one big united force. Never have i come across and area that has as much unity and loyalty as i have with Sheffield, this year has proven that to me as throughout the year ive worked with a growing list of artists and collectives from Sheffield. Not once has a Sheffield based artist approached me with a cocky attitude and complained about my service pricing yet i can think of hundreds & thousands of times where other artists from other areas have acted like i (and the rest of the world) owe them something.

This willingness to invest in their own talents and local/national scene is a huge factor in why i consider Sheffield to be the new hub of uk grime music. Their scene is growing rapidly with the likes of legendary crews/labels such as Scumfam, JDNG, Coco, Forca, Project Allout Records all putting in a continuous amount of time and effort into pushing their sound and a growing list of up and coming talents such as Swiftz, Alcohol Infused Music, Mr Flo, Got It On Box, Nitro Clack all grinding as hard as possible to pave a career path for themselves within the scene.

2015 has also seen the arrival of the steel city's very own clash platform Duppy & Leave which is seeing a growing response of support for its events and clashes over the last few months and continues to spread and grow rapidly. Artists such as Tez Kidd, Kdot, Ak and many more paved the way from day one, pushed the northern sound to its full extent and continue to broaden and benefit the Sheffield sound/reputation just as Skepta, Wiley, JME and many more have done for the London scene. This combined with the rise of fresh young talent over the last few years and the willingness to invest and progress their own scene is simply what sets this city and its work ethic apart from the rest.

If you dont want to take my word for it or feel you need to decide this for yourself then feel free to grab a whole bunch of Sheffield/northern music below release via ourselves over the last few years:

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