Dizzee Rascal has announced a genre-blending collaboration with former Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher which is set to feature on the follow up to his ‘E3 AF,’ album which is being released on October 30th. According to NME the ‘Dance Wiv Me,’ rapper said that there was ‘a little something with Noel Gallagher,’ on the next album which he has already begun work on. In fact, the rapper states that the track with Gallagher was ‘being mixed,’ already.
The collaboration claim has been given further weight with Noel Gallagher himself seeming to confirm the crossover. According to Tone Deaf, Gallagher said that he’d ‘done a collaboration with somebody who is in the grime world,’ and that he was caught in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak and Black Lives Matter protest. This comes 12 years after Noel Gallagher, as reported in The Express, stated that he was ‘not having hip hop at Glastonbury,’ after Jay Z was announced as 2008’s headliner.
The potential for the merging of Rock and Hip-Hop artists on this scale holds some exciting possibilities, Oasis being one of the biggest bands to emerge from the Brit-Pop movement in the 90s, such a crossover might attract some of their fans to the Grime scene which is rapidly becoming one of Britain’s most important sub-genres. Especially with the recent tensions following the killing of George Floyd, the collaboration between black and white musicians in the UK is a welcome sign that the music industry is one step ahead in promoting racial harmony.
The collaboration is also a promising indication that the sometimes elitist rock genre is softening enough to allow mixing with non-guitar based forms of music. While Hip-Hop has always been known for its appreciation of existing genres and willingness to take influence and even extract samples from music which its producers enjoy and incorporate it into their own, Rock musicians have frequently remained stubbornly unwilling to adapt to much other than a guitar basic and technologically regressive approach. Perhaps in the future we will start to see more Rap artists featuring on the records produced by Rock bands.
My new album E3AF is out October 30th! To celebrate the release I’m going to be holding a few vibes in conjunction with @stalk_cult_hero @banquetrecords @crashrecords and @vinilorecordstore in March 2021
Tickets :https://t.co/GaSGB4EkW5 pic.twitter.com/KCeOh9YkmA
— Dizzee Rascal (@DizzeeRascal) October 1, 2020
While we wait for Gallagher’s appearance in a future release, we can look forward to Rascal’s upcoming album release this month, which will be followed up with shows in Kingston, Brighton, Southhampton and Leeds in March 2021. It seems as though Dizzee, like many of us, is hopeful that the new year will bring a lifting of the current restrictions keeping us from seeing live music. It is not yet known when the follow up to ‘E3 AF,’ will be released but, since the track has been recorded already, it is not impossible that we might see the Grime star with the Oasis songwriter on stage sometime next year.
Rascal has also alluded to the possibility of further collaborations on his next album, NME reported him as ‘hinting that there could be further team-ups to come,’ since he referred to his recording with Gallagher by saying ‘That’s one name,’ speculation may follow as to who else may be featured on the Grime artist’s next release which should arrive sometime next year.
