Why Are UK Grime Fans Losing Their Shit Over Rawzilla's Freestyle About Bumming?

The other day, through the arcane witchcraft of social media, I was made aware of a freestyle video on YouTube. Anyone with even a passing interest in UrBaN music will know of SBTV/ Grime Daily culture; video accounts with a seemingly endless stream of low level MCs trying to make it big in the UK rap/ grime game. Black Out Media is another one of those generic accounts, so it's noteworthy that they uploaded something other than the usual slew of cookie-cut grime bars.

Rawzilla is an openly gay MC from Birmingham. He’s very openly gay. In fact, his whole freestyle is about stealing people’s boyfriends from them and asking the viewer if they want to "rub on (his) tits". Now, you may remember the controversy around a teenage OG Niki, a fellow Brum-born female MC who caused a stir two years ago with her own freestyle that centered around her promiscuity. A girl? Having…multiple sexual relations? DisGUSTing. But the part that sucked for me was Niki’s performance. While it was brave in its own way, it was also pretty lackluster. Her flow was stunted and she didn't seem confident in it, the sort of thing you’d expect to be recorded on a phone in a playground for fast lulz.

Rawzilla’s flow, however, is clean-cut and pretty catchy. While both MCs almost exclusively discuss "arse and dick", ‘Zilla does it with a more self-assured panache. It’s also worth noting that he’s just rocking a cap and a hoodie, with none of the slap-in-the-face uber-flamboyance that you get with gay rappers like Le1f or Nicky Da B, who won’t be seen dead in front of a camera without a metric ton of body glitter. And I guess that’s what makes it kinda special: though the USA’s attitudes towards homosexuality in UrBaN music circles are, by and large, way more liberal than ours, it's the low-keyness of Rawzilla that forces a more tangible sense of reality. It's not a piece of performance art, it's not solely intended to shock and it's not self-aware. It's just Rawzilla.

But I’m not gay, so what the fuck do I know? Just watch it, 'cos it’s really great. And fucking filthy, to boot.