The Null Device

The composer of a UK Garage song recently sued a rap group for damaging his reputation by using his record as a backing track to a song allegedly about drugs and violence. The case, however, was thrown out of the high court because the judge failed to understand the lyrics, and thus couldn't tell whether the song was derogatory or not:

The judge said the claim "led to the faintly surreal experience of three gentlemen in horsehair wigs [himself and the two barristers in the case] examining the meaning of such phrases as 'mish mish man' and 'shizzle my nizzle'." In any event, the words, although in a form of English, were "for practical purposes a foreign language" and he had no expert evidence as to what they meant.

¶ grime hip-hop thug life uk 1

Dance music culture is a funny thing. In most places "garage" music is just another originally gay dance/club music genre, and is harmless in a fluffy, camp, pill-popping sort of way; in Britain, however, it's the home-grown equivalent of gangsta rap, with guns, bling-bling and hardcore attitude. British garageheads, it seems, are more likely to pop caps than Es, or so the press suggests.

¶ dance music gangsta rap garage grime thug life uk garage 0