Taking Care of Diz-ness

Today, I learned that one of my eighth graders is originally from London, and came to Philadelphia less than a year ago. Like any good teacher trying to make a student from across the pond feel at home in Southwest Philly, I asked her if she ever listened to London garage rapper Dizzee Rascal. Her eyes lit up, and we listened to a few snippets from the Diz tracks I have on my work computer. She begged me to play "Fix Up, Look Sharp." I also played her some of the Streets, and though she didn't know the name "The Streets," Mike Skinner's songs rang a bell, too. Grime lives on in America.

She says to look out for "Cartel," and I later figured out through googling that she meant Vybz Kartel, who makes a kind of Reggae-infused hip hop the likes of which I haven't really heard before (I checked out a few samples on the iTunes music store.) Kartel was one of the things she was listening to before she left England. She warned me that there is "quite a bit of profanity in there." If anyone knows more about Kartel, or can offer some more ideas for music to find and play for her and her class and to bring back some memories of London City, please let us all know.