Fix Up, Look Sharp

Love how this track starts… “Oyyyyyyyyy”.

While listening to Liberation Through Hearing, Richard Russel spends an entire chapter speaking about Dizzee and his importance to UK grime and hip hop as a whole. Initially, this was a track that Dizzee was going to leave off the album. It’s spartan with drums, some Billy Squire samples, and Dizzee’s vocals.

Hearing this in 2003, I remember it was almost inaccessible. It was unlike anything that we were getting on the east coast of the US. Time has shown that it was an album way ahead of its time, as Russel explains, it didn’t go platinum in the UK until 2018.