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The past 10 years have been tumultuous for us all. A decade in which Britain hosted the Olympics and saw us endure uninterrupted Tory rule, only to end up crashing out of the European Union in the most embarrassing way possible. Similarly, grime hasn’t exactly had the smoothest of runs.
From grime’s beginning in 2001 up until around 2009, it had made a huge impact on British culture, but that trajectory to greatness was put on hold for the following three years when its central figures decided to go pop. However, at the start of 2013, grime’s fortune changed. Thanks to the huge success of Meridian Dan’s “German Whip”, Skepta and Jme’s “That’s Not Me” and some well-timed freestyles and radio sets, the entire country’s heads were turned. Suddenly, venues were actually willing to host events—even the US was ready to worship at grime’s altar—and the nation became enamoured with the scene’s newbie, Stormzy—who, alongside Skepta, took grime to the farthest reaches of the UK and beyond. Now these emcees are household names in ways that only Dizzee and, to an extent, Wiley had ever approached before.
Ultimately, in spite of everything, grime survived. We’ve spoken about it in greater length before, but the point is that grime withstood a lot in the 2010s and it deserves celebrating. As the decade draws to a close, we take a look back at the grime tracks that pushed things forward the most. And this isn’t about commercial success—Stormzy’s had more successful tracks than “Shut Up”—this is purely about cultural significance.
So, without further ado, here are grime’s most impactful songs of the 2010s.
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