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Music

Watch This Incredible Dizzee Rascal Freestyle

"How does my freestyling differ from others in hip-hop? I can rap over any kind of music... I could rap over opera music if you gave it to me."

Welcome to Internet Videos Of Particular Importance. It's a new column that I just started on Noisey. It's about cool YouTube videos that have something vaguely to do with music. I hope you like music, videos, and videos about music, and if you don't, what are you doing here?

One thing people don't really talk about enough is how Dizzee Rascal was once the best rapper alive. This is partially because he's British and nobody really listens to Grime in America because most people have no idea what British people are saying ever, and this is also partially because much like Cam'ron, Gucci Mane, Lauren Hill, Hittman from The Chronic 2001—fuck man, even Rammellzee—Dizzee Rascal was the best rapper alive, but for whatever reason didn't stay the best rapper alive long enough for everybodyin the universe to take notice.

Dizzee stopped being the best rapper alive around the time that he realized he didn't need to be in order to be the biggest rapper in Great Britain and could just half-ass it over Armand Van Helden beats and make a gazillion dollars. Now he's basically the 50 Cent of Great Britain, and while that's a fine place to be, it means rap fans, especially American ones, have kinda lost interest in Dizzee and British rap in general.

But with this video, which starts with Dizzee saying, "How does my freestyling differ from others in hip-hop? I can rap over any kind of music… I could rap over opera music if you gave it to me." Then he takes a microphone and rips holes in Lil Wayne's "Fireman" beat for three and a half minutes, dropping lyrics straight off the dome. It's a side of Dizzee we've seen less and less of in recent years, but he's not dead. BRING BACK OLD DIZZEE. PLEASE.

Drew Millard went to London once. He's on Twitter - @drewmillard