You have to hand it to Soul Jazz and the Heatwave crew for taking this on. Documenting the history of the mc in the UK through a compilation album is a tough task. I mean, no studio tracks by the Saxon mcs will be as exciting as “Coughing Up Fire” or other old soundtapes. I’m sure the same thing goes for the new grime kids too — the mp3:s that showed up on MySpace and the message boards last week will kick the ass of anything that has managed to get the record labels’ attention.

Still, this is a solid compilation. If you listened to the mix over at Blogariddims about two years back you’ll recognize most of the tracks – mcs from all over the spectrum with heavy reggae influences as the common denominator. The two main cuts for me are Jah Screechy’s “Walk And Skank” and Riko’s “Ice Rink Vocal”. The first being a straight-up answer-riddim killer (with some importance for the rave scene), and the second just what grime should be: Super Mario Bros samples and high-speed rapping.

YT’s “England Story” is of course included, this version on the as-close-as-you-can-get-to-the-85-without-getting-sued riddim. It’s still genius. I’m also liking Warrior Queen’s “Things Change”, produced by Heatwave themselves who are taking things in an early nineties Steely & Cleevie-ish direction. Good choices of tracks from the rest of the old school guard as well: Top Cat’s “Love Mi Sess”, Papa Levi’s “Mi God Mi King” and Tippa Irie’s “Complain Neighbour”.

With some 20 tracks on two double LPs, there’s bound to be a couple of duds too. The Freestylers’ “Roughneck” would be best left in the “big beat we’d like to forget” pile. I guess I was always a bigger Monkey Mafia fan but he never worked that much with mc:s if I remember right. Tenor Fly’s “Bump And Grind” is a bit too much as well (ehm, are those actually Jackson 5 samples?). and there should be sharper Roots Manuva tracks out there. Estelle’s cover of “Uptown Top Ranking” may not be great, but it’s cute and I’m sure it gets the girls dancing so there’s no point in complaining too much.