British Grime artist JME released his fourth studio album in November 2019, titled ‘Grime MC’. At the time, the album was not released to streaming services because he wants to be able to see listeners’ reactions to his art, as well as staying true to the reason he creates music: because he loves it. Now, JME has made the decision to share the full album on all streaming platforms.
Jme – Grime MC
Spotify https://t.co/lLM1kXsAso
Apple https://t.co/t63h5Vz3dJ
Tidal https://t.co/CQE7Vio7Dd
Amazon https://t.co/Ke6FZZBwU4 pic.twitter.com/TShx0Hbmrv
— Jme (@JmeBBK) June 1, 2020
This follows numerous ‘Grime MC’ singles including ‘Nang‘ featuring older brother Skepta, released to all platforms earlier this year. So, why did the artist initially choose to keep his music limited to physical copies, and why has he changed his mind now? As he told SK Vibemaker in an interview, “If Youtube and Twitter and Spotify and all this stuff shut down I’m still gonna be spitting bars.”
Primarily, it seems that the reason for this change is that fans so desperately wanted JME’s album to be accessible in every way – especially after waiting four years for new music – and asked him for months. But the full album, uploaded 1st June, coincides with the riots and protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd and many other innocent African-American people at the hands of police. As JME is known for using his music to discuss current affairs and issues, perhaps he is now using it to highlight the social injustice taking place. JME took to Twitter after the tragedy, retweeting various posts and sharing a video of Phillip DeFranco explaining what happened.
Of the 18 tracks included on ‘Grime MC’, fan favourites appear to be ‘Nang‘ and ‘Issmad‘, which have both reached over 600,000 streams on Spotify. With half of the album’s songs being released as singles, all of these have been accompanied by a music video, most recently ‘Live‘ featuring Merky Ace, which shows JME and his collaborator hosting the news. In just over a week, the video has gained 150,000 views.
JME released his first LP ‘Famous’ in 2008 via his own record label Boy Better Know, having spent years in the music industry writing ringtones and working with Skepta. He is now an MC, songwriter, producer, and DJ and has collaborated with many different grime artists.
