In da corner: Dizzee Rascal. Photograph: Linda Nylind
When Dizzee Rascal's debut, Boy in da Corner, burst out of Bow in 2003, snatching the Mercury Music Prize along the way, its stark depiction of teenage council-block life painted by a single-parent black teenager was met with the suggestion that "every MP in Westminster should be forced to listen to it". The lyric "I'm a problem for Anthony Blair" was a blunt retort to the prime minister's calls of "education, education, education", barked by exactly the type of youth whose life he had set out to transform back in 1996. Comparisons were even drawn between grime and the youthful malcontents of Thatcher-era punk, Rascal being cast as the voice of a generation bereft of opportunities and pilloried as delinquents by middle England.
But as Blair packs up his rock memorabilia and gets ready to vacate Number 10, little significance has been given to the emergence of Britain's first major response to US hip hop under his government. It may have been the "mortgage rock" of Coldplay and Keane, not grime, that dominated the charts during the last 10 years, but both tell us something about Britain under Blair.
Dizzee Rascal is very much a child of the Blair years, being 11 in 1997 and just about to enter into the secondary school he would later be excluded from. As we hear so often, under Blair we have seen the steadiest economic growth in modern British history, but the gap between rich and poor has also grown wider. Boy in da Corner was the first record to articulate the frustrations of an inner-city youth who had seen little improvement under New Labour rule. Where weepy stadium rock suited the tastes of affluent thirtysomethings, the lashings of grime provided a menacing counterpoise to a news agenda increasingly dominated by gun violence, hoodies and ASBOs. In this Sunday's Channel 4 documentaryabout the making of his third album Maths and English, the title being a sly nod to his experiences in education, there is footage of Dizzee giving a lecture at the Oxford Union. While this was undoubtedly a good thing, it does little to conceal the fact that under a New Labour government, those from poorer backgrounds and ethic minorities have continued to be underrepresented in Oxbridge entry.
Despite Rascal's negative portrayal of Britain, you would think there would have been more efforts by politicians to exploit the valuable political capital of fraternizing with grime MCs. Though it would take a bout of spin that would stretch even Alastair Campbell, the unprecedented success of a troublesome student from Bow could even have been recast as evidence for the second chances now available in Blair's new Britain after the "on your bike" days of Thatcher.
There are obvious reasons why grime has only ever bubbled beneath the surface and never boiled during the Blair years. Rascal aside, the scene's growth has been stunted by the same internal problems as its Two Step predecessor. For those that did make it above the parapet and into the mainstream such as Kano, commercial considerations have seen them adjust their sound and tone down their lyrics. Again, bungling efforts by British politicians to engage with MCs have ended in mutual miscomprehension. David Cameron's attack on Lethal Bizzle for glorifying gun violence in his lyrics resulted in the MC penning a Guardian comment piece, David Cameron is a Donut, and the Tory leader succeeding only in shooting himself in the foot.
The Blair government might have ignored grime, but the future may well see more MPs cynically waking up to its political potential, as recently seen in the French elections. Dizzee Rascal's third album is released next week, almost coinciding with Blair's departure. It may now belong in the world of fantasy, but it wouldn't be inconceivable that in the years to come he could be swapping jokes with Brown or Cameron in Number 10, just like Noel Gallagher before him. Let's just hope he declines the invitation.
