13. Various Artists

British hip-hop has long been a dodgy proposition, but this compilation proves that a new generation of English MCs and producers has a bag all its own: an action-packed mix of hip-hop, dancehall and British dance music called grime. The tumult of Cockney shouting and spacious, discombobulating electro-beats reaches fevered pitch on Dizzee Rascal's "Give U More" and the multi-MC collabo "Mic Fight," but nothing epitomizes the genre's boundless possibility like the bass-driven, supercatchy "Cha Ching," from pint-size seventeen-year-old Lady Sovereign: "I've got fifty things to say/In a cheeky kind of way."

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