Dizzee Rascal: Showtime : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Twenty-year-old East London rap phenom Dizzee Rascal spun heads last year with his debut, Boy in Da Corner, which introduced his vicious PlayStation beats and mechanical-cockroach rhyme flow to the U.S. Showtime finds Rascal molting off some of his debut's hard shell with cleaner sounds and clearer verses. These are Rascal's most accessible beats to date: The pulsing dance-floor thrust of "Stand Up Tall" resurrects the Eighties techno-sex of Thomas Dolby, and "Girls" is tweaked with vintage video-game blasts. Rascal's glottal Brit spit is a jittery percussive instrument: He can out-tongue-twist Twista and still make you feel his teeth clench on the indignant "Respect Me." When he does suddenly drop a rhyme in standard hip-hop meter, it's a shock to think how many careers have been built on such earthbound simplicity.