From City To City, From Town To Town ...

As is the case in any musical genre certain influential figures within a scene have their time and then all of a sudden disappear to never be heard of again.

This is no rare occurrence when it comes to grime and over the years it is safe to say that a whole host of MC’s, DJ’s and producers have put out mixtapes and appeared at raves but their whereabouts nowadays is unknown.

The same idea goes for grime compilations that have been released in the past, evidently received positive feedback but have then been discontinued. As far as I can see the ‘Run The Road’ compilations are a perfect example of this.

With the release of volume one in January 2005 on 679 recordings and the release of volume two almost exactly a year later on the same label it seemed evident at this stage that potentially each year there could be a platform to release and promote a varied collection of grime’s biggest tracks that would then be distributed worldwide.

However these compilations never reached a third volume despite the fact that the previous releases had clearly helped in the consolidation process of grime in what was a crucial period.

Without dwelling too much on what could have been, I merely aim to use this post to remember two forgotten gems that will go down in history as musical milestones within the grime scene.

The first of the two volumes hosted so many classics that you will undoubtedly still hear some on Rinse fm from week to week. Tracks such as ‘Cock Back V1.2’ and ‘Destruction VIP’ both boast MC rosters of a very high calibre along with Kano’s hit ‘P’s and Q’s’ which was evidently one of the initial sparks that ignited his successful career.

Much in the same way as volume one, volume two also featured a number of tracks with huge MC line ups such as ‘Get Set’ and ‘Saw it coming,’ that to this day still have the same impact as they did back then.

Both volumes serve as a great indication as to the extent that grime has progressed and in particular the progression of certain individual MC’s and producers as well. With this idea in mind it’s apparent that these compilations had a positive effect and clearly without them, it might not have the same worldwide recognition it does today

















Compiled by Dan Stacey & Martin Clark

Photography : Tim & Barry

Art Direction & Desing : Ben Sansbury