Is UK on verge of Brithop boom?

By Ian Youngs BBC News entertainment reporter

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4455862.stm

A new crop of British urban music artists are gathering major awards, rave reviews and chart success. Is the UK on the verge of a homegrown hip-hop revolution?

When the Mobo Awards picked the world's best hip-hop artist in September, the prize did not go to US heavyweights 50 Cent or The Game.

An unsigned and largely unknown British rapper, Sway, stole the award - a sign that the UK's street stars may finally be ready to challenge the scene's American rulers.

That is not the only sign of stirrings in the UK underground.

BBC urban music radio station 1Xtra recently broadcast a Homegrown Weekend to showcase local talent, while artists like Lethal Bizzle, Kano and Roll Deep have started to land in the charts.

And the latest issue of urban magazine Touch features four of the hottest British rappers - Sway, Lethal Bizzle, Klashnekoff and Killa Kela - on its cover, complete with a Union Jack.

'False dawns'

The image and words "It's War!" are reminiscent of the 1993 "Yanks go home!" issue of Select magazine, regarded by many as the birth of Britpop.

"It was partly because we wanted to reflect the fact that there are a lot of strong artists who are all doing something interesting," says Touch deputy editor Chris Blenkarn.

"What's happening now is very exciting and there is definitely some potential."

But there have been false dawns before and no British artists will make it to the top until TV and radio stations get behind them and fans dig deep, he says.

"I'm always sceptical about it. I hope it does go further, but until people start putting bums on seats then it's hard to say."

Lethal Bizzle, who made his name in More Fire Crew and scored a number 11 solo hit with Pow!, agrees that radio and TV need to play UK acts much as US stars.

'Get your game up'

"We don't have Radio 1 playlisting our records, or all these other outlets supporting us to the fullest potential," he says.

"Once that happens, this whole music game will really take off. It's just a shame that right now there's only few outlets that are really supporting it."

But if radio stations are not playing British hip-hop, it is because the music is not yet good enough and too few fans want it, Sway believes.

"Artists just have to be professional and realise that if they've got a product that's worthy of being exploited, there are going to be people who are going to want to exploit it for financial gain," he says.

"A lot of people in the UK are bitter saying 'they don't want to support us'. Just get your game up."

'New sound'

The Roll Deep collective reached number 11 with The Avenue and leader Wiley says it will take another four years to reach chart-topping, million-selling status.

"In England, it's a new sound and everybody's not as open-minded as you think," he says.

BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra DJ Ras Kwame agrees that the UK hip-hop market is not yet big enough to produce a British Eminem.

"However, that picture is changing as we begin to recognise and embrace even more our local heroes and realise that alongside the Americans the par is level," he says.

"I think the quality is out there. But as with anything new and fresh and sounding original, it takes time fort it to penetrate, to get under people's skins and for them to have a serious long-term reaction to that in terms of buying records."

When that does happen, the music will be distinctly British and "not just derivative of an American thing", he says.

'Different league'

Another 1Xtra DJ, Semtex, says Britain will never catch up with a 30-year-old US artform.

"Obviously we're never going to be as good as the Americans," he says. "When it comes to the UK market, what are you going to buy - Eminem or the UK Eminem? You want the proper Eminem."

But British artists will make it big, Semtex says - and when that happens, the fact they are not just copying the US will be their greatest strength.

"By the second, third, fourth album, a lot of these artists are going to come into their own as stars.

"We're in this totally different league to the Americans - we've got a totally different society, we've got a totally different way of thinking. That's what we've got to take into consideration. We're British, not American."