3. Young DotThis Is The Beginning

Dot Rotten is a lost talent to me. He was hyped a lot and I think he made a lot of wrong choices. Everyone talks about Boy In Da Corner as the best grime album but Young Dot, This Is The Beginning… basically he made every beat on this and it’s one of the darkest, most challenging grime albums there is. It’s aggressive and moody and everything someone would stereotype a grime album to be but I think there’s a real vulnerable edge to the album too.

Dot Rotten’s story is a bit fucked up. Like he lived on the streets at some points and ended up being taken on by one of Saxon Sound which I guess helped him a lot. There’s a lot of really dark edges to this album; like you can tell he had a real fucked up beginning – like a lot of MCs I guess. It’s a real heartfelt album I find, really, really dark and then you see him four or five years down the line getting signed and doing some bullshit pop or whatever and I kind of feel like he’s lost his way completely now. But this – and then when he changed his name to Dot Rotten and did R.I.P Young Dot after that – I feel like they’re two really pivotal, supreme grime albums.

As much as it’s frayed at the edges, a bit fucked and the mix-downs aren’t brilliant this is the best grime mixtape. No question. End of. It is unfortunate for him because I do think he got took in to the label machine, spat out and lost any credibility he ever had. I find a lot of that unfortunately. I mean he had that great run of EPs, the Young Dot EPs (1-3) with fucking ‘Bazooka’ and all that. He was a really talented guy but there are probably dozens of producers where you could say, yeah you were fucking wicked and then I don’t even know what you did…